Comments on: Scion on 16-month sales slump

By: jackjimturkey

jackjimturkey — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:13:19 +0000

I thought Scion was a hit

By: jackjimturkey

jackjimturkey — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:10:34 +0000

Th though Scion was a hit, but the second-generation xB was too different.

By: Fletch

Fletch — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:27:46 +0000

No excitment in Scion. The tC is overweight and slow, the original xB was cool then gained weight. Toyota is spreading itself too thin.

By: bigp

bigp — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:07:39 +0000

the bx is too fatt an notv what made it sale in the first place

By: Commodore

Commodore — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:34:46 +0000

LLN – perhaps you should consider posting the February sales results for GM, Toy, Chrysler, and the rest that have come out today and have been posted everywhere else for..oh…the entire day?

By: Heart64

Heart64 — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:08:51 +0000

What Scion Misses is affordability. Its nothing to look at but if Toyota Sold the Scion models for $5000 a copy then they got something. Its really bogus when the cars are up in the teens or even close to 20K with other main stream Toyota products.

By: AxeHead

AxeHead — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:16:37 +0000

diesel

By: AxeHead

AxeHead — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:16:13 +0000

Scion has lost it’s novelty – good analogy with McDonalds, their not unique or cool anymore…now if they build that truck with a baby diese…just maybe.

By: johnnycanuck

johnnycanuck — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:53:25 +0000

Thank you autonut, you’ve nailed it. Scion simply forgot what their mission statement was: economical, affordable first cars that didn’t look like the economical, affordable car that Grandma drives. So what do they do? Instead of making vehicles for the McDonald’s crowd they became like most of McDonald’s regular customers- fat and out of shape.

By: autonut

autonut — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:25:05 +0000

I think it was smart idea to create youth brand but execution was screwed up after 2 years. Why do you leave you market/segment without cars for 8-9 months? why move those cars upscale (weight, cost, mileage) when it was wildly successful with smaller models? why create boxy version of Camry?
New xB is 600lbs heavier then old xB and looks ridiculous. And at this point it is not my esthetically challenge opinion – nobody buys them. Student will buy Yaris before Scion. The whole idea of inexpensive first car is out of the window. Price of gas did not help, going up it never help overweight cars. My guess is that Fit is taking over this segment. Toyota needs to certify Yaris hatchback and ditch xB.

By: howsmydriving

howsmydriving — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:48:53 +0000

The wisdom of creating a youth-oriented brand (Scion) is questionable.

By: 400horseSS

400horseSS — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:51:32 +0000

Ugliest cars on the road period, i saw a Xb coming down the street and went to my mailbox expecting my Sports Illustrated, how the hell can you sell a car that looks like a mail truck.

By: LJ

LJ — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:00:51 +0000

Also, Scion needs a small pickup, the long rumored “xP” could fill the bill. (something much smaller than the current Tacoma).

Comment by rms492, posted on March3 at 4:18 pm

A-Bat? That’s the rumors(from LLN, and other sites)…for a “truck(let”).

The guages should be in front of the driver, (xB).
The xD is ok, but for such a small car, it should get 38-40MPG, not 33 MPG, like the rental we had(overnight) awhile back.
33MPG… the tC gets that..and has 160HP.
tC is almost as fast as a Mazda3, but 3 is faster,not by much(and costs more, if you add sunroof to a 3, etc. More dealerships of Toyota/Scion, too, vs 1 mazda in 78 miles from us, vs 40, with 2 Scion dealerships)time:http://www.montecarloforum.com/m_78190/printable.htm
QUote from site ——————————-
The Quickest Cars of 2007: Less Than $20,000 – Feature
[:-]

Introduction

Tenth Place: 2007 Subaru Impreza 2.5i

Ninth Place: 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS

Eighth Place: 2007 Honda Civic

Seventh Place: 2007 Hyundai Tiburon GT

Sixth Place: 2007 Honda Accord

Fifth Place: 2007 Scion tC

Fourth Place: 2007 Mazda 3 s

Third Place: 2007 Nissan Altima 2.5

Second Place: 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt SS and Pontiac G5 GT

First Place: 2007 Ford Mustang V-6
———————————————————-
Others have said the tC is faster.
Anyhow, if they put the 200 turbo on the tC…that can be had from Scion… there’s the “faster” right there.
—————————————————

Who knows what’s going to happen. Someone said to me that the Scion’s are now aimed for older people( well, 30’s and 40’s, vs late teens-20’s), but is still younger than the avg Toyota buyer.

Maybe a clean diesel tC, with 235 torque(like the 09 jetta will have, at 1,500 rpm)… 40-50 MPG, 0-60 of 7.5 seconds(or so)?
18-19K, loaded?
Who knows?

To each their own..Buy What You Like…
like I told my neighbor..when he told me what I should drive” You Make The Payments, And I Will Drive Whatever You Say I Should Drive!”
Take care/not offense.

By: TOZO

TOZO — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:44:20 +0000

Also worth noting: Toyota (Company) is back down to 3rd place this year so far in US Auto sales. Ford is ahead by over 1000 units Jan & Feb ‘08. Bad Toyota news all around today.

By: rms492

rms492 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:18:54 +0000

Yeah, that’s because we don’t need so many 4-door cars.
The tC is the only Scion I would buy, because it’s as close to the Celica and good ‘ol Integra that one could have. I can’t wait for the next tC, and IT BETTER be two-door or else.

Also, Scion needs a small pickup, the long rumored “xP” could fill the bill. (something much smaller than the current Tacoma).

By: Heart64

Heart64 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:07:27 +0000

BUTT UGLY is the only word that comes to mind

By: sprockkets

sprockkets — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:06:55 +0000

Easy why they don’t sell. No one liked the xA to begin with, and the new xB looks like a small cargo van, that and Toyota can’t get over the fact that the instrumentation should go in the middle, and the tC is just a wannabe Mazda3. Don’t believe me? This model year they put on projector lens headlamps (should have been there since day 1) and the same style tail lamps as the Mazda3.

The fact that you have to use a Marque brand to sell them should say something to begin with. That and no haggle pricing is definitely for first time buyers, and for Toyota to screw people on the pricing.

That and their commercials are so retarded. I don’t want a car that is associated with college students who put in HID xenon headlamps in their POS reflector based headlamps, which suck at controlling all that extra light and end up shining into the trees with it.

What the hell Toyota? Sell a Toyota Matrix or a Scion xD or xB or whatever, but not both.

By: LexusSoarer

LexusSoarer — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:04:03 +0000

LMAO at some of these utterly juvenile posts here! Amazing…. Anyway, Scion fcuked itself when they revamped the xB. That was the vehicle that people identified with the brand, and they quickly went and ruined it.

By: SwerveEarly

SwerveEarly — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:53:18 +0000

Long4Penis7/24: You are the man. Keep it up, I am so sick of anyone trying to make a point on this blog. Name calling is where its at. I dont even like cars, I just come on here to learn how defend myself in arguments with your unbelievable kick ass comebacks. Smart people suck.

By: Htay9500

Htay9500 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:52:58 +0000

blakkar: I agree. I adore toyota from the 90’s and earlier. now they’ve been in a somewhat odd direction.

By: agent09

agent09 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:44:44 +0000

see lp, everyone is gonna rip on you. but i think you’re the type of person that won’t realize it.

By: SwerveEarly

SwerveEarly — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:43:29 +0000

Toyota you let your teenagers get old and fat.
Now no one wants to take them to prom. Just kill Scion.

By: Blakkarr

Blakkarr — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:36:26 +0000

Toyota is rumored to be working of several new smaller cars, a successor to the legendary Trueno/Corolla “AE-86″, a new Celica, and possibly another try at the MR2 (the least likely to be true- twice tried once failed… badly).

Obviously, the youth market is not as turned on anymore as Toyota thought. I would blame it on boring vehicle dynamics and Styling that does not attract like the first xB (b=box, no relation to the XBOX).

Looking at popular Toyota’s that still draw fan interest, they are all roughly-mid 1980’s designs that still draw attention today. Boxy, angular, simple and not fussy to look at. That overdone, 21st century, anime-feeling stuff was bound to fail. The xB and xD look like “one of the crowd” instead of happily and smartly individualistic against a back drop of rather uniform looking cars and smaller SUVs.

The tC is looking a little long in the tooth, but is still solid against the Tiburon, which is a bit older, and the Civic which may turn people off with it’s eye-catching and yet detracting futuristic styling. But then the Tiburon is going to be replaced fairly soon. If this “AE-86″ revival is for real, rumors have it that it would be a Scion to replace the tC while the Celica would remain a Toyota.

Then you have the ever-loving problem of redundancy, but we’ll see how this plays out in the next year or two.

By: johnnycanuck

johnnycanuck — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:26:51 +0000

They don’t officialy sell these in Canada but many dealers import them from stateside. I saw a TC on my local Suzuki lot about two weeks ago: the asking price was 25k cdn. Drove by the same lot 3 days later and it was already gone. I can’t speak for the rest of Canada but here in Vancouver they could sell these by the boatload. We have a very large Asian population who have been thirsting for something from Toyota worth tuning. Try and find a last gen Celica around these parts- darn near impossible.

By: eriNY

eriNY — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:20:31 +0000

LargePenis… very offensive. I am not a gay man, but from what I can see gay man here in NY are are very successful and they usually drive nice cars. And I think is wrong to determine sexual orientation by a car.

By: RicardoHead

RicardoHead — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:19:44 +0000

You mean overpriced and unappealing cars don’t sell well?

Scion needs to allow price flexibility and not nickel and dime every damned add-on.

By: SoLoveLA

SoLoveLA — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:17:29 +0000

The Yaris is way cooler so why would you want a Scion anyway?

By: cookie4me

cookie4me — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:15:33 +0000

That is because the new models are styled more like Toyotas.

By: Madcapp

Madcapp — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:13:15 +0000

How about refresh the tC, and cough up a 6 cylinder with 6 speeds while you’re at it.

By: eriNY

eriNY — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:02:59 +0000

To me it looks like Toyota is expanding too much, why don’t they focus on their Toyota cars and make those look and drive better and make sure they have no problems…
The reason why the new Matrix and Corola look so ugly is because they are focused too much on scion.

By: edgeguy

edgeguy — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:56:43 +0000

Is this really a big surprise? Scion’s offerings were initially appealing because they were interestingly “odd”, but now they are so old and tired looking. The tC should have been replaced this year. But can we really be surprised with the boring selection of Scions? After all, they are made by Toyota.