The Trouble with Toyotas: Are Canadians just suckers?

Story and photo by John LeBlanc When February’s new car sales figures rolled out last week, the story on how new car buyers reacted to the Toyota recall crisis couldn’t have been more black and white on either sides of the 49^th parallel. As Toyota Canada head Stephen Beatty predicted, the Japanese automaker’s much publicized yet still unresolved unintended acceleration crisis didn’t stop Canadian new car buyers from running out and buying Toyota and Lexus vehicles. If not as impressive as Ford Canada's 43 per cent upswing, Toyota and Lexus sales were within a percentage point of the 24.9 per cent increase in overall Canadian new car sales, compared to one year ago. Of course, after recalling more than 700,000 cars here since late last year (over 8.5 million worldwide) and the ongoing bad publicity, that sound you hear is a huge sign of relief from Toyota Canada and its dealers. Now, south of the border—just as they do with hockey, hatchbacks and handguns—Americans took a different approach when it came time to make a decision to buy a new Toyota. Overall new car sales were up 13 per cent in the States. But Toyota’s sales were only down 9 per cent. So why the difference between these two North American solitudes? Are Canadian new car buyers just suckers? Were we too busy watching the Olympics, ignorant of the daily bad news coming from Team Toyota? Were jingoistic Americans punishing the Japanese company for its trip ups? Or was it simply Toyota’s added incentives that drove Canadian sales?

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