[karpusv]

Originally Posted by rjalihal

So it took them just 1 month to increase production from 450 to 900+ pm??? I HAVE to meet their operations manager, maybe he will be able to transform our company to the same level of IBM+DELL+HP+Lenovo all combined in the same time frame!!

I dont think it says anywhere that they moved from 450-900+ in a month's time.
IIRC, I've read somewhere that they moved from 450-550-6xx-8xx-950. Something like that. And when they were confident that they would be able to sustain such production volumes, they opened bookings in Jan, only to be washed away again.

Originally Posted by xingamazon

Good to know the bookings are open. I hated the mentality of the company to have stopped booking altogether.

Thats brings me to a golden question.
Whom do you feel is the better dealer of these
a. The one who says I have stopped taking booking and says dont come here for next one month to my dealership location (or)
b. Who acts as if he is uninformed and takes the booking, and promises orally that it will be delivered within 6 months. *though he is himself not internally confident of the dates
I would prefer dealer b.
Can I have some frank replies for the question..

One more point: with this sort of attitude of stopping booking, Toyota will be in a worse position once they open Etios booking, I am sure they will run out of initial stock before job one.

Probably the poor folk weren't prepared for such volumes . Maybe they were thinking they should be happy with 500 nos. per month (since Endeavour was doing arounf 350+ then).

I think they've hit the ceiling now with capacity constraints.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by tajender

This is highly ridiculous to have customers wait for cars which are main stream and are built on huge assembly lines.

Which businessman will willingly keep a ready customer waiting? A customer who has the cash in hand to buy his product?

Lets get one thing straight : Toyota is here to run a business, the eventual aim of which is the bottom line (i.e. profits). They'd be out of their minds to intentionally make customers wait. Why then are there 6 month waiting periods on the Fortuner? Simply because they underestimated demand.

I'm certainly not saying that they should ramp up production capacity. 900 - 1200 SUVs a month is what the Fortuner has / will stabilise to. No point installing a 5000 / month capacity, only to fulfill customer demand the first month, and be completely under-utilised after.

What Toyota should have done is build up a better inventory to start with. Say 3500 odd Fortuners at the time of launch. But again, the market response to the SUV completely overshot estimates. You really can't blame them for being under-prepared. This is a 20 lakh vehicle, and no 20 lakh vehicle so far has sold 1,000 cars on a monthly basis.

On the other hand, what you can blame Toyota for is failure in handling the situation properly. There are way too many communication gaps (WRT delivery schedule) between the Company (mainly silent), Dealer (mainly dodgy) and customer (mainly confused). This is where Toyota has completely failed.....effective honest communication could have saved many a disgruntled customer.

[AvonA7]

6 months waiting period of any car of any manufacturer is too much. Agree with you 100% that Toyota is here to do business and also initial demand for a car (more so for a 20+ L car) cannot be predicted and neither they can create a production capacity of 5k+ cars to clear backlog.

But at the same time 6+ months waiting period is a long time for one of the largest selling car manufacturer`s in the world today like Toyota. To be not able to cope or predict the demand for its cars in a huge and one of the most important market today, like India is not so good for Toyota. Anyways, fortuner will sell in 000s, but as a world leader, Toyota could have taken this opportunity to show the way for others on handling unexpected demand.

Last part, I guess Toyota is doing a decent job in at least stating it clearly (as per the TOI ad today) that booking opens for few days in July`10 and deliveries only after Oct`10. May be they also read Team-BHP and are aware of their dealer`s commitment to their (potential) customers

[Palio_2005]

Lord be praised, Toyota has started accepting booking again.... Shows herd mentality of Indians. I have driven the Fortuner and it is a OK car. Only sells because it's a diesel. CRV is anyday better

[GTO]

Originally Posted by Palio_2005

I have driven the Fortuner and it is a OK car. Only sells because it's a diesel. CRV is anyday better

The CRV may be a better urban SUV but:

1. It costs nearly 8 lakh rupees more!!

2. The CRV gives 6 kpl to a liter of petrol, while the Fortuner's FE is 9.xx to a liter of diesel. That's a substantial difference in running costs.

3. The Honda is a 5 seater and the Fortuner a 7.

They are actually in completely different segments, not ignoring the fact that one is a car-based soft roader and the other a proper body-on-frame SUV.

[devarshi84]

There are better products out there. Endeavor and Captiva are both well equipped and better value.

I do agree that the Fortuner is more butch looking and deserves brownie points though. I like it.

[sbraj]

Originally Posted by GTO

On the other hand, what you can blame Toyota for is failure in handling the situation properly. There are way too many communication gaps (WRT delivery schedule) between the Company (mainly silent), Dealer (mainly dodgy) and customer (mainly confused). This is where Toyota has completely failed.....effective honest communication could have saved many a disgruntled customer.

Communcation gap is one aspect.

What about the dealers making a quick buck by demanding premium? How about Toyota's own officials speeding up the delivery for the person with contacts?

Couldn't Toyota have done something about it?

Like every booking is tracked centrally with a unique sequential booking id, results in a concrete delivery date etc. Someone who booked later than mine should not be getting the vehicle earlier, even if he/she is willing to pay a premium.

First in, first out.

[chevelle]

Originally Posted by sbraj

What about the dealers making a quick buck by demanding premium? How about Toyota's own officials speeding up the delivery for the person with contacts?

Couldn't Toyota have done something about it?

Regarding the premium from dealers, its implemented in USA too.

I just had an experience with Chevrolet Camaro. I was planning on booking one when i was told $29k for base model while its original price was $22k. This is after taxes and destination fee and stuff.

When i talked with a Chevrolet official about this, he said the company has no control over it. He gave me an option of buying from Michigan, where they won't charge premium, tax and driving all the way back home (CA) which essentially means only the cost of gas and an overnight stay for a 3000 mile trip.

So dealership premium is everywhere. This is just . But thought should share here.

[ghodlur]

There was news on NDVT Awaaz this morning saying that Toyota has stopped the Fortuner bookings again. It seems they had targetted 6500 bookings but have recd bookings for 7000 already.
Within 18 days of opening the bookings they had to stop again since Toyota is in no way able to commit the delivery of more than 7000 vehicle till date. The bookings have been stopped till further notice.

Any ideas BHPians.

[h@r$h@l]

I had read somewhere about the same. I think it was in TOI a few weeks back regarding the re-opening of the bookings by the A'bad dealer for a limited period and deliveries in OCT. But upon enquiring by a friend a day or 2 after the advert, the booking was closed already.

Seems the car is in great demand. Eventually my friend ended up booking the Captiva.

[rahul016]

Bookings are closed in my area as well.They bookings were open for two days only.Any idea when will they re-open?

[aaggoswami]

A minor update.

The news link I am posting is of overall Toyota sales and small car, but there is some news of Fortuner. Please note that only the Fortuner news from the article is posted here, not the entire article.

So after 500 bookings, Toyota will once again shutdown the bookings. Toyota is planning to keep max 7,000 backlog. If I am not wrong, it was Toyota who pioneered the Toyota Production System for efficient manufacturing. Now Toyota itself is not able to build cars enough for Indian market. I think that for a manufacturer as big as Toyota, they could have planned and anticipated better. Toyota is known for good market research and placements of its products in the market, so why with fortuner they have such huge waiting list. More than 6 months backlog is way too high in present times when the technology has evolved.



Source : Toyota bets big on new small car in India

Article :

On the sports utility vehicle Fortuner, he said the company has got 2,500 more orders since booking was reopened from this month.

"The total delivery pending is 6,500 units. Once it reaches 7,000 units, we will stop taking orders again," Singh said.

The company had put a hold on the bookings from January 31, 2010, because of a huge backlog of orders. Since its launch, over 8,500 units of the Fortuner have been sold.

[n.devdath]

I called Nandi Toyota and they confirmed it is closed. In fact, I had taken a TD about 20 days ago and they had told me that the bookings would close on the 10th of July.

They didn't even call me once after the TD to check if I was interested. That speaks for the volumes they are generating.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

There was news on NDVT Awaaz this morning saying that Toyota has stopped the Fortuner bookings again. It seems they had targetted 6500 bookings but have recd bookings for 7000 already.
Within 18 days of opening the bookings they had to stop again since Toyota is in no way able to commit the delivery of more than 7000 vehicle till date. The bookings have been stopped till further notice.

Any ideas BHPians.

It could be quite true. If you go to the "I Booked my car" thread. There is one tbhpian who booked the car and is his wait period is a ridiculous 8 months.

[Champion]

The guy with that 8 months waiting period is right here mates! I have booked the Fortuner today, in fact, a few hours before, through my cousin. The booking was done through Lanson Toyota, Chennai. I thought the booking was done way back on the 17th but there was some time delay in the money transfer. I can vouch for a fact that the bookings are closed for now. Albeit, I was told they were closing on the 20th, but cousin somehow got through due to some "contacts".

And to all those who think Toyota is no good since this "fortuner goof-up", it's nothing new for people who know Toyota. They have a big plus and that is their product and service reliability. But the product in itself always fall short of the market expectations and requirements though the competition might offer more. I guess it's their product mix.

Anyways, I am waiting to vroom and in the meanwhile have drawn up a list of items I have to get from Dubai.

Cheers
Champion!