Origin Sticker question

Umm, I meant 462,000 Camrys, Avalons, and Siennas are assembled in Kentucky, not NUMMI.

It looks like the Aichi Camrys are built in the Tsutsumi plant, not Tahara. But that's good too. The Prius is also built in Tsutsumi.

From a maximum reliability perspective, would you buy the Georgetown, Kentucky Camry or the Tsutsumi Camry?

Darn, having a little trouble finding out how many Camrys are built in Tsutsumi...

Hmmm, it looks like there aren't any Siennas built in Japan at all, but there is something called the "Sienta" (with a "t") built at the Takaoka plant. No Avalons built in Japan either, according to the chart I'm consulting.

This is an interesting question no one seems to have an answer to. I was working at a Toyota dealer this summer and noticed most of the new Camrys were made in the USA. We did have one come in with the Origin Sticker you mentioned. Same thing: 75% US/Canadian content, 25% Japanese. There were a few more after that, but most were made in the USA.

If you look at the sticker again, you will notice that the engine and transmission are of Japanese origiin. Of course, this also happens in about

25% of the cars made in Kentucky.

No one had an answer for me, and I posted this a few months ago when I first noticed it. My best guess: the bodies are assembled in the US minus the drive trains, and then put on one of the Marus and sent back to Japan for final assembly. The reason? Who knows? Perhaps Toyota has to manufacture a certain amount of autos in Japan to still be considered a Japanese auto maker (?) It certainly doesn't make much sense to assemble 75% of a car in Kentucky and then ship it to Japan for the drivetrain; my only other guess is that they are sending parts to Japan and then assembling them there. Notice that the sticker only indicates the parts origin and the *FINAL* assembly, not the entire assembly point of the vehicle!

The county of origin can be determined by the first digit of the VIN#. A '1' indicates assembled in the US of at least 70% north American parts, A '4' indicates assemble in the US of between 40% and 70% north American parts. A '5' indicates assembly in the US of less than 40% north American parts. Camry assembled in the US today exhibit a '4' or '5' with the majority being a '5.' The balance exhibit a 'J' made in Japan.

mike hunt

-- Original Message ----- From: "Hachiroku" Newsgroups: alt.autos.toyota,alt.autos.toyota.camry Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 8:06 AM Subject: Re: Origin Sticker question

Camrys are assembled at the Tsutsumi plant.

Check out the chart near the bottom of this web site if you want to know what vehicles are assembled in what plants:

See the web site I referenced above. Toyota has 12 assembly plants in Aichi Prefecture.

The plural of Lexus is Lexus.

Quality does not improve with quantity. Quality improves with improved manufacturing and assembly methods and improved quality control.

NUMMI does not assemble Camrys.

I believe the majority of Camrys assembled in Japan are sold in Japan.

IMO, the longevity of the Camrys assembled in Tsutsumi and Georgetown are going to be pretty much the same. I've driven 30 or 40 of each and cannot tell the difference.

What difference does the number assembled in Tsutsumi make?

The Sienna and Avalon were designed for the U.S. market and are not sold in Japan.

Anyone ever question this, take a look at Windows. BTW, last Tuesday was Microsoft black Tuesday - don't forget to download and apply the latest bug fixes - most of which fix bugs in other bug fixes which "adjust" other bug fixes, etc. You too Scott!

Back on topic..; though reliable, Camrys and Lexus are sloppy handlers and not much fun to drive. Very Buick like which is probably where Toyota got the idea.

Having used Linux for 3 years now, I will never ever switch back to Microsoft. Linux is so much better. Dare I say "Linux is to Microsoft" as "Toyota is to Ford." Remember those word association S.A.T. tests?

I won't mind buying either a Kentucky Camry or an Aichi Camry--I know both are *Excellent* excellent cars. But I have to admit, I will be leaning a bit towards the Aichi/Tsutsumi plant.

I didn't make a close, careful examination of my dealer's Aichi and Georgetown Camrys. For one thing, it was freezing outside, and I musta spent 20 minutes just deciding on whether I liked the Salsa Red Pearl or Lunar Mist Metallic (silver?) better. Still undecided on that dour red and odd silver. The Mineral Green Opalescent is kinda nice though. Too bad the Camrys don't come in Impulse Red Pearl like the Corollas--now that's a snazzy car color.

I will say this about the two Camrys. I noticed that all the domestic Camrys had a driver-side fender top edge point that didn't fully line up with the lower left edge of the windshield frame piece. I'm not sure what the official names of these pieces are. However, in the Aichi Camrys, they lined up perfectly.

I hate to say it, but I think our Kentucky plant's management may need to look into this? Come on guys! I know you can do it. You're probably almost there.

I will be perfectly happy with either a Georgetown or Aichi machine.

Still haggling over price. Told my local dealer that I'm willing to spend only $300 over the

18,200 that I can get from a dealer one-hundred miles away. Local salesman says he isn't going lower than 18,900. I suppose we'll see at the end of the quota month if he really isn't budging and won't accept my 18,500 offer.

Meanwhile the dealer 100 miles away just emailed me a lower selling price: 17,988 from his original

18,200. Gee, some dealers just try harder, it seems.

I would prefer buying locally, though. If I wait till the end of the month (or actually January 3 is when the $500 rebate expires) and my local dealer really does not budge from 18,900, do you think its likely Toyota will renew the rebate for January?

Thanks very much.

If Linux is so much better why are your Pan posts not generating the proper message IDs so they will stay grouped within a tree view of the conversation? Everyone of your replies are creating new conversations.

The explanation: For some reason today, my newsgroup server isn't downloading new messages. The server is allowing me to post, but that's it. So I am having to read new messages at the Google Groups web site and respond by manually typing in the subject line "Re: Origin Sticker question"

Good question, though.

You just proved my point. The quality of the Georgetown and the Tsutsumi Camrys is about the same. People mistake "quality" manufacturing as being perfect when in the manufacturing world, "quality" is adherence to a tolerance or specification. If the fenders within a production range on all of the Georgetown Camrys are equally mis-aligned, then the assembly quality of the fender is perfect but the specifications are incorrect.

For Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., the end of a sales month is the second working day of the following calendar month. Toyota-to-dealer incentives are typically stair-stepped. That is, the incentives go up as they reach pre-determined sales levels. If a dealer is 1 or 2 cars away from getting the next higher incentive level, then you will get an excellent deal for that 1 or 2 cars but if he is a long ways away then the deal will not be any better than the next dealer.

My guess is that Toyota's rebate in January will continue but at a lower rate.

I'm in the PNW and the majority of the camry's I've seen about here are "J" VIN. Probably has something to do with the ports and shipping.

I have an '03 "J" VIN camry, and have had several "under warranty" problems with it. They aren't perfect over there.

Build quality is a function on management not the workers,

mike hunt

Gosh, it's just a car not a heart-lung machine.

LOL

Ray O wrote: snip

snip

I had the privilege to tour Toyota's Industrial Manufacturing plant in Columbus, Indiana, where they make fork lifts. One of the first things several of us noted was that so many of the workers were in a good mood. They weren't partying or goofing off, but were having a fun-loving type attitude towards all things in general. When talking to anyone I came in contact with that day, everyone was at least cordial and polite but, the majority were friendly beyond minimum requirements. The place was clean, if you did see a scrap of paper blowing around, the FIRST person to encounter the paper would pick it up and if trash, throw it away and if not carry it away to where it was supposed to be I presume. I know when you have visitors in a plant that things aren't always what they would normanlly be but, this was beyond that, they projected a warm fuzzy feeling towards outsiders. One other thing most noticeable was if a group had a problem they stop their process, a red light flashes, a siren sounds and everyone converges on the problem. After a very short time period people from other groups come over trying to help solve the problem and people will continue to converge until there is no more room. So, I agree with your statement that quality improves with improvement and is a management function. But in the scenario I saw, the workers were a part of the process to a large degree and probably had a say in how/what/when whatever was done. This is probably a large part of the equation on the worker's attitudes. Finally, I agree with the assessments on how quality is initiated, but if the correct attitudes are conveyed to the working people, input from them solicited and feedback welcomed by management when there's a problem then quality will improve. davidj92

Toyota has had an obsession with quality since before I went to work for them. They track warranty expense by production range, supplier, POE, dealer, and assembly plant. The team spirit is pretty strong and all associates are motivated to improve quality and reduce expenses. I worked at the POE where accessories were installed, I've toured the Georgetown, Cambridge, and Tahara plants.

I remember reading in the employee newspaper about a guy who installed "Toyota" decals on truck tailgates at the POE who got a huge bonus, something like a half million dollars, for submitting a suggestion on reducing the size of the masking on the decals. He received 50% of the first year's savings. Needless to say, every employee started thinking real hard about how to improve work processes and quality!

Toyota's forklift division used to be called Toyota Industrial Trucks - the acronym was not politically correct so it was changed to Toyota Industrial Equipment, and more recently to Toyota Material Handling.

Rather than do that, just use the Google Groups interface to respond to the message. Your method is unintuitive and breaks up the message flow.

You can say anything you want but this simply isn't accurate.

Take another sip and go back to sleep!