They're Not Making Those Any More
 

I'm at my Toyota dealership waiting on scheduled maintenance, so I went over to say hi to the salesman who sold me my last two Toyotas. I told him I love my car but I'm thinking of trading in my AT for an MT. He replied "Oh, they're not making those any more."

Granted, this is the dealership that knew absolutely nothing about the car when I bought it. Still, not encouraging. I was hoping to at least test drive an MT.

I suspect this news would be plastered all over this site. Finish your service, find a new dealer. Or at least a different salesman. If the next dude/ette says the same thing, come back and ring the alarm!

Certainly. My intent was not that I believe them, or to spread false information. Just to relay what's going on at (some) dealer level.

I knew what you meant! Get the 17 MT, OFT, E85, profit.

Sounds like he has too many AT's in stock he needs to get rid of

Jalopnik missed this???!!

He's lieing, but he probably doesn't know better, it's sad sales people from dealerships are still not educated on the 86/BRZ. Most likely his dealership no longer has the manuals in stock. I noticed in my area as well that only autos seem to be in stock locally....

Maybe salesman was trying to say “Don’t have MT currently”?

Cuz 86/BRZ isn’t going away anytime soon... at least atm they’re planning to keep making it.

Hmm.. strange about the "Oh, they're not making those any more". Model F production started October '17. They have at least Summer to end the current production cycle and go to model G or decide to stop overall the production. Unless, the factories are so busy with the new "global" platform (new impreza, forester, xv, etc.) and the current year production of 86/BRZ is already finished.

They didn't have any (AT or MT) in stock.

So they already proved to you that they don't know anything, yet you're somehow still believing them?

Tell them to give you proof.

Salespeople will tell you anything you want to believe.

Well, even if the guy is wrong the writing is o the wall. As good as the car is it failed to gather any attention outside of a handful of fans. Its not quite a Subaru, because its their only RWD and it is surpassed by the heavy, but perhaps more practical for the masses WRX, and it's not really a Toyota because it was a SCION first.

There is a massive amount of support that comes along with offering a car in the US market. It might be different if they could just put them on a boat and ship them over here and sell a few to the cool people in-the-know, but that does not work. We even go as far as bemoaning the dealers who do not know anything about the car.


Toyota dealers knowing little about this car are the ones hurting the sales volume? I would guess that a big Toyota dealer sells more Corollas in a week than they do a 86 in a year. Has nothing to do with the quality of the car, it was designed to be an affordable, lightweight RWD coupe. It was actually right on target, but it is priced a little too steep. I bet we'd see less Corolla S on the road if the 86 was 15-20% lower priced.

They killed the FJ Cruiser while it was wildly more popular than the FRS/86. I would be shocked if there is an updated one or if this one makes it past model year 2019.

Uhh what??

... What drugs are you on?

I'm not saying that.....its the general public's perception.

Same with the BRZ .......as soon as you mention one to the Subaru faithful they glaze over "because if it were a real Subaru it would be AWD".


Obviously it is different on here.

WTF are you talking about?

The general public don't know the difference between Scion and FR-S. When someone who isn't into cars asks me what kind of car I have, I just say it's a Scion.

There is no difference between Scion and FRS so you could just say it is a Scion FRS. What they don't understand is there is no difference between Scion and Toyota (other than the badge).

It's done. Toast. Outta here. They'll sell off the remaining stock, then quietly remove it from the Toyota and Subaru websites with no fanfare or announcements.

Then buy back all the ones ever sold, grind them up, cleanse the internet of any reference and pretend it never happened.


https://media.giphy.com/media/R7m04yMaGWVeE/giphy.gif

I still think of the boxy old xB when I hear Scion.

Still, dealerships don't know much about the 86/BRZ. Last time I took mine in for service the tech was looking over the car, saw my STI wheels, APR skirts and lip, and the spoiler up on Drambeenie's risers, and they were like "oh yeah, we have one like this on the showroom floor if you want to check out a 2018." Of course they were talking about a tS, but to them it was the same thing as a lightly modified '17 AT.

But when I say Scion, they say "Oh, those are nice cars". I wonder what car they're thinking of.

I direct you to this comment of mine:

Say whaa???? There is a big difference between fanboys and true enthusiasts.
A true Subaru enthusiast would know that for the first 13 years the company built front wheel drive cars & trucks. It didn’t start producing the boxer engine until the mid-60’s. The first 4WD Leone didn’t show up until ’71-’72.


Here’s a brief history:
https://www.subaru-global.com/ourstory/heritage.html

xb and tc. Those are the ones that are everywhere. The tc was a home run in every way.

Hey there champ if you think the Subaru "fathful" are the 10th of 1% that care or even know the history of the brand then we have a disconnect.

Their core customer are probably not here, but I will not describe them as to not offend anyone. They certainly do not market to the WRX crowd.

When I walked into 3 local Toyota dealerships to get the service history on my new to me 2017' 86, non of the service department employees had a clue what the 86 was...... including the dealership I bought it from.

I liked them both.

IT HAS STARTED!


https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...12#post3100512

If you hear it from a salesman, you might as well pretend you haven't heard anything, because there is zero chance his comment is based on any shred of truth and instead, is based 100% on hopes that he can move something he has in inventory. Cars, vacuum cleaners, George Foreman grills...doesn't matter.

I can't publicly say why but you know how I know. The forecast for some certain parts appears to be the same as the 2018 MY production for the next 2 years. Contract is up for renewal in 2021 so there is no forecast beyond that. Now of course the current forecast could drop to zero at any time but at this point it is still unchanged.

I put little faith in the majority of those who work at dealers. Everyone needs a paycheck so I understand. Blissful ignorance I find funny though.

I had a argument with somebody years ago when I was eyeing a viper on the showroom floor, with the hood open. A salesman was trying to convince me it was a V12. I promptly counted out the number of pipes coming off the exhaust manifold, while staring gleefully.
He couldn't even read the brochure :bellyroll:

There are two kinds of car salesmen in this world.


One has worked at a dealership for many, many years. They take the time to understand their product and are able to answer most reasonable questions. They may not know the history of the car and all the stuff that comes out in forums but they care enough to learn the basics. They make a good living because people keep coming back to them for years or even decades since they will sell you what you want not just what they think they can move. They know that a happy costumer is a return one so don't have to resort to some of the shadier sales methods. I usually look for the scruffiest appearing old fart in the sales office since they are usually that guy.


The other is the guy that has failed at almost everything he has tried and ended up trying to sell cars since it seems easy (how many other high tickets sales jobs do the customers come to you?). They don't know squat about their product and they don't care. Since they have no interest in you or your wants/needs they will try to sell you whatever they can. These are the guys that generally apply the strong arm tactics since doing a real job of knowing the cars is too much work. They usually don't last long in the business. They can be hard to tell from appearance but most often are the guys in the expensive new suits that magically pop up right beside you when you walk through the door instead of watching you for a few minutes to see where your gaze is headed. If they look even remotely hipsterish just turn around and walk out (unless shopping for a unicycle or Prius).

Nailed it!

This was my Father-in-Law. He sold cars for almost 30 years at three different dealerships in Maryland, Florida and Georgia. He treated folks right, know just enough about the product to speak to it but couldn't have turned a wrench to save his life. He has customers from Maryland that would call him up in Florida once he moved to buy cars, and then customers from both Maryland and Florida that bought cars from him in Georgia, even though he sold Buicks in Maryland, Chevys in Florida and Hondas in Georgia.

A good salesman can sell anything because he knows to learn about his product and make it relevant for his customers.

Before I bought my FRS, I looked at several cars, and encountered two salesmen who didn't know how to drive a stick. They tried to get the car off the lot for me to take over, but couldn't do it and had to turn it over to me.

Guys on all forums are very much car snobs and if a salesman doesn't know the pitch of the thread on the wheel lugs then they consider them useless. They spend hours and hours researching and dreaming about a vehicle and then don't understand why everybody doesn't have that same level of knowledge. Now of course there is zero excuse for one that says "Yes the BRZ has AWD since all Subarus do" but the vast majority don't. Like everything else we hear the complaints about the bad ones and nothing about the good so it appears that all are bad.

Nobody has asked. What did you say back? Did you ask for clarification on that statement?

I don’t know what kind of dealers you guys have south of the border but up here in the Great White North most have to participate in Product Knowledge Testing. I’m sure each manufacturer has their own name (acronym or whatever) but it boils down to; if the employees read the material and pass the tests they get their full pay and bonuses. Those who fail take a hit in the pocket book. This goes for 95% of employees, from sales to finance right through to service.
As I’ve mentioned before my wife has been in the business (motorcycles and automobiles) for over 40 years. She’s worked every department and nearly every job. She’s worked for the Big Three as well as imports and they all have some form of product knowledge system in place. I find it odd that Canada would be the only country with this, don’t you!
That’s not to say that everyone is a genius and has all the specs and stats memorized. The wife works for a Ford dealer and over three years they only received/sold 3 Focus RS. Why would every sales person, F&I manager and tech need to know every detail about that model? Two of the three buyers new everything there was to know before they waked in. The third knew my wife and asked her what she knew. With the deal they gave him anyone with good sense would have jumped on it. Having first spoken with my wife he was well informed by the time he decided.

This ^


My wife has also been in the business (auto, trailer, RVs) for a few decades although she has only been in the finance and add ons end of it. Makes it fun to buy new stuff since she and the person in the dealership just sit down and speak gibberish to each other for a few minutes, do the secret handshake and we walk out with great deals.

I just nodded and went on my way. It was a busy Saturday, he was in the middle of paperwork for several sales, and I really didn't want to explain why I thought he was uninformed. He's an older dude, not internet-savvy and I just didn't see any good outcome.

The guy worked hard to get me good deals on two cars, and I didn't want to bother him, especially because my next car will likely be a BRZ, unless he can work some crazy money-saving magic for me on a 2019 86.