Whereabouts Unknown: Gen6

As far as 4Runner, my guess is they leave the 2024 up on the website as a placeholder for the 2025 (whenever that comes out).

The Land Cruiser was never meant to be a high volume vehicle. Just something interesting for some 4Runner owners to "upgrade" to should they have the disposable income. It will sell a lot better than the previous North American Land Cruiser though, mark my words.

As far as Toyota's new TGNA-F platforms not selling, that's mostly anecdotal hogwash. They're selling. Tundra up 26% from last year and Tacoma down 26%. Tacoma still outselling their mid-sized competitors by double.

https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2023-us-pickup-truck-sales-figures-by-model/

 

I’m not sure if the other companies care about their midsize truck sales since they already sell a shit ton of full size trucks. Then there’s ford that also sells a lot of Mavericks too.

 

I'm glad they delayed the 4runner. Let the Taco continue to be the 1st gen test model for the new 4Runner.

First year 4Runner should have all the major kinks worked out by release.

And hopefully Toyota will lose some customers too over all this. I want to see lots overflowing and no buyers next summer.

No new 5th gen 4Runners left at 4 closest dealerships to me. They gone.

 

that’s actually hog wash Tacoma might be still selling more than other midsize trucks but if only a 100 midsize trucks sold nation wide and 90 were Tacomas that don’t mean anything. Look at the overall picture I did I forget the exact numbers but the 3rd gen outsold them by like 50,000 trucks year to date comparison

 

I wish they would have extended the 5th gen production during this delay. I would like to buy another one next year. It’s going to be tough to find one.

 

The overall picture is that Tacoma is down 26% compared to last year. Period. If a dealer has 100 Tacoma's on their lot, they've sold 74 of them. They're still selling. They're not just sitting on lots collecting dust like many will have you believe.

I'm sure Toyota would rather not be down 26%, but years that have new gens introduced are really complicated.

Some want to run out and buy the last gen while some want to wait and buy the shiny new thing.

Some want old tech, some want new tech.

Some think prices are too high, others are willing to spend that money.

Some are opposed to a turbo, others don't care.

Ect.......on and on.

We need an entire year of 4th gen sales to get a full picture of how people really feel about the new gen.

 

“Land Cruiser” sales here will be limited b/c global demand for Prado is sky high. And frankly, they can have it.

Tacoma sales overall this year are down in large part due to early QC holds. So it’s fair to wonder what issues are now delaying the 4R. It’s doubtful that Toyota’s plan was to leave their dealers empty-handed, w/o any 4Runners for nearly two quarters. Whatever they’re figuring out might be serious.

 

Done!

 

Not in my backyard!

 

Tacoma sales numbers in US, by month

Oct the first time this year they passed previous years number for same month

 

My perfect 4 runner

2024 Trd pro body
4.7 v8 out of the 2006 LC
Supercharger
6speed auto
Front solid axle out of a 2006 LC

 

Prado is basically a 4Runner in the Middle East with nice leather.

 

So the tricky thing is under the legacy US franchise dealer model, "sold" is referred to when a unit is delivered to a dealer. A car can be considered a sale when it is still on the lot waiting for a buyer. A sale does not necessarily mean a customer, retail or fleet, paid the dealer and took possession of the vehicle. In this case, all the Tacos on dealer lots are all counted toward the sale number even though they are not sold to end customer yet. They are not titled to anyone, but as far as Toyota is concerned it is a sale.

Even in cases like Ford or Nissan where retail customer can custom order a vehicle, the "sale" is counted when dealership takes delivery, not when the end customer takes possession since the retail customer can always walk away and the dealer can then sell it to anyone else that wants it.

 

Yah it makes sense because as soon as it leaves the factory, Toyota is no longer in control of the product. As any product shipped from a manufacturer to a distributor it's counted on the books as goods sold.

I wonder how the 4runner sales will be next year. Will soccer moms come the rescue as usual?

 

probably, they trade in every few years pretty reliably. FFS they were paying 20k-40k over MSRP on Tellurides and Palisades a few years back.

Of course the rush to get the last of 5th will cause a dip initially due to the FOMO buying crowd(like me) in the last several years, but perhaps the excitement of the first new 4Runner in a decade(at least exterior wise) will drive the constant rotation crowd to buy more.

 

once officially posted on toyota's website configurator, vehicles will be available for sale or for allocation and also allocation reserve requests about 2-3 months.

typical model production cycle starts a few months after toyota's FY ends (april 30 is the last day of the fiscal year for toyota) hence all the big finanace deals are in april. tooling change over starts in june/july and production line start ups ususally being aug/sept and deliveries start going out in october via RORO from japan. typical time frame is 2 months travel on RORO (avg is 6 weeks) with best case is november early december on dealer lots.

 

True.

But if the dealers are still buying Tacoma's, then they're moving off the lots.

The 2024 monthly sales numbers above indicate that Tacoma's are moving.

On a related note, the 26% YTD sales slump is largely from dismal Jan, Feb, and March sales......which was directly related to Toyota's part supply issues as they were beginning production of the 4th gen.

 

I was trying to make the point that sales numbers != numbers sold off dealer lots though. Toyota has always been pretty heavy handed with dealers and has more leverage since traditionally Toyotas move quickly, I don't think dealers want to offend Toyota or the regional distributor and risk future allocations of desirable products(GR Corolla, minivans, Rav4 PHEV, etc) by refusing current allocation.

Go by a Toyota dealership near you and you will see Tacos are doing anything but moving off dealer lots.

 

Ah, I see.

The dealers don't want to offend Toyota's delicate sensibilities so they'll just buy Tacoma's from them that aren't actually moving.

Got it.

 

It was only a few years ago that Toyota dealers were on their knees begging for anything especially Tundras and Tacos. Today dealers are still scrambling to get allocations of the PHEV and Hybrid vehicles since the public can't get enough of it.

It has always been this way between Toyota and their dealers. In the 90s when the XV10 Camry came out, it was such a wild hit with consumers that Toyota trickled them out to charge as much as they can, even in the early 2000s people were paying over MSRP just to get one, back then an LE Camry were MSRP'ed at close to 40k in 2024 dollars and dealers still couldn't keep them in stock. If you tried to by a J Vin Camry between 1992 and 2001, it was even crazier.

 

Sure. We know this happens.

A larger percentage of popular vehicle are allocated to dealers who move the most product. Not ones where the product just sits there.

 

Since Tacos are, for now, mostly sitting on lots, then the grading curve for moving units gets moved accordingly. If any dealer is moving a lot of Tacos right now, it is very likely they are using lower transaction price to entice buyers and you can bet the nearby dealers would be telling on them to Toyota regional office, or even higher, and Toyota does not take kindly to their dealers who try to undercut other dealers.

 

yes and no… I think… I work for a large volume dealer. My job is inventory manager. I’m the 1st person to touch the cars and I’m also the last person, the one who does the “punching” of cars sold or what some manufacturers call a “1st handover”.

Loaners and demos though technically new cars are sold once as a 1st handover in order to go into loaner/demo status and then when they go back on sale and are indeed sold, I have to do what is called a 2nd handover. Those 2nd HO don’t count towards our sales goals with the manufacturer. They count as a sold unit on our board though for our monthly goals.

but technically yes the dealer buys all the inventory so I guess it’s off the manufacturers books and therefor is “sold”

 

C&D’s review of the Tacoma TRD Pro revealed a soul-crushing 5400lb curb weight, marginal mpg gains over the 2.4T, no gains in towing, less interior storage, and a guarantee that despite how tough you look, for $65k you’ll be staring at the tailgates of every Ranger XLT 2.7 off stoplights:

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a60555316/2024-toyota-tacoma-hybrid-drive/

Already in hindsight, yet several months before release….a nearly three-ton Gen6 4Runner hybrid seems to make a strong case for using the TTV6 instead, regardless of whether it ticked off your GX focus groups.

 

The Toyota executives are laughing their asses to the bank now that they successfully conned the Bros into buying the most expensive midsize truck ever.