Toyota Dealers navigating the ongoing chronic stock shortages are telling some customers to be prepared for years of waiting in key models, including the Land Cruiser, RAV4 and Camry.
Print-out guidelines for prospective customer waiting times are being offered by a number of dealers on the East Coast, subject to change based on the Toyota construction process. We’ve seen some of these guidelines in the car forum, others we’ve seen ourselves
One thing is for sure, almost all Toyota supply chains and the global semiconductor crisis are more or less affected by the global stock shortage due to the coveted shutdown.
For example, multiple dealers expect customers to expect the newly ordered Toyota RAV4 Hybrid to be around 18-24 months old and the Toyota Camry Hybrid to be 12-24 months old – two cars in high demand today due to record fuel prices.
This author knows a lot of people who have been waiting 18m on their RAV4 hybrids for the past few weeks, so check it out.
The average proposed lead time in the LandCruiser 300 series is similarly listed as 18-24 months – we know that the related Lexus LX also has year-round waiting – whereas the LandCruiser 70 is listed with three to four waiting times. Years, “or never”.
This last figure could be hyperbol and was challenged by TMC.
For its part, Toyota Australia acknowledges the long wait but says there is really no one-size-fits-all waiting time, as each dealership has a separate pipeline.
“The demand for new vehicles is at an unprecedented level. To support strong demand in Australia, Toyota Australia is working closely with our global production team to secure as many cars as possible for our market, ”it said.
“Waiting times vary depending on each customer’s model, variant and specification requirements. The RAV4 Hybrid, the Camry Hybrid, the LandCruiser 70 and the LandCruiser 300 are in high demand and currently have a long wait.
“Due to the growing nature of this situation, Toyota dealers are in the best position to continue providing customer updates on the delivery timeframe for individual orders.”
Which brings us back to where we started …
Things don’t seem to be set for immediate improvement. Toyota Motor Corp. cut its estimated June factory output for the third time in a few weeks last week, lowering its monthly production target to about 750,000 units.
Toyota still says that group-wide output will be 9.7 million vehicles this Japanese fiscal year (ending March 31), less than the initial estimate of 11 million vehicles expected to return to the global supply chain this year.
The loss of nearly 1.3 million vehicles from the global allocation (in the best-case scenario) would send waves across all major Toyota territories, not least all of Australia where the company controls 20 percent of the market share.
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