by: Ted Biederman
Mercedes-Benz has taken the stinging in recent J.D. Power and Associates quality reports seriously. (The Westlake Village, Calif. marketing and research firm had the high-end automaker ranked at and below industry average in several studies on initial and three-year quality surveys).
In a determined effort to keep a high profile and a good image among premium luxury car buyers Mercedes has decided to replace 2,000 of their E-Class vehicles that were purchased with a navigation system that was to be installed by dealers at a later date.

As it turns out the cost and complexity to retrofit the navigation systems combined with Mercedes’ concern that the retrofit would not meet customer expectations led to the decision to replace the vehicles.

According to reports from the automaker and from industry journal Automotive News as many as 1,000 additional customers who had expressed an interest in the retrofit program, but who hadn’t pre-paid for the system, would receive a coupon voucher for up to $3,250 toward the purchase of their next Mercedes. There was no expiration time for the use of the coupon mentioned
in the reports.
In an interview with Automotive News, Stephen Smythe, president of Beverly Hills (Calif.) Ltd., said, “It is a wonderful thing that Mercedes-Benz is doing. I have never seen any car company do anything this big.”
Smythe expects that the replaced E-Class cars will end up in dealership used car inventories.
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Guess who is becoming a part of the “Good Old Boys” network?

None other than Toyota and the Japanese automaker is planning an assault on NASCAR and hopes to play a major role in this most American sport.

Up until this year the National Association for Stock Car Racing has been a showcase for Detroit brands with Fords, Chevys, Dodges, Pontiacs, Buicks, Plymouths, Mercurys, Chryslers and even Hudsons winning championships.
But come next February, on the banks of the Daytona International Speedway in Florida, as many as six Toyota Tundra racers will make their competitive debut in NASCAR’s  Craftsman Truck Series, one of the sanctioning body’s three competition levels.

It will mark a giant step in the gradual 45-year Americanization of Japan’s largest automaker. The move will play a major role as a major marketing tool for Toyota’s most American of pickups, the Tundra. Plus think of all that TV exposure that NASCAR provides.

While Toyota’s trucks will compete against Ford 150s, Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge Ram they also hope it takes the edge off the introduction of the Titan, the full-six pickup being introduced by Nissan this fall. Size wise the Titan is more like the traditional domestic offerings while the Tundra has often been criticized for being smaller and softer.
Toyota will also launch the Tundra Double Cab this fall to get passed some of that criticism until the company’s redesigned Tundra debuts in 2006 as a product of its new Texas plant.