Toyota shoots down four-year LandCruiser wait claims

TOYOTA Australia has quelled recent claims of a four-year waiting list for its inbound 300 Series LandCruiser, the company’s vice president of sales, marketing and franchise operations Sean Hanley personally putting an end to the rumours last week.

Speaking at an Australian media roundtable on Friday, Mr Hanley said that while there had been production delays through September and into October, the notion of a four-year stock delay was “just plain wrong”.

“Right now, we’re expecting production for our market to resume in November,” he said.

“This is an evolving situation, and given this is an evolving situation, and to support our guests and dealers, we will not be confirming orders until they can be matched to a specific production month. 

“However, let me set the record straight on customer delays – four years makes a great headline, but any suggestion that the reported situation in Japan could be repeated in Australia is just plain wrong.

“Allocation is market specific, always has been.”

While customers will not be waiting four years to take delivery of their new vehicle, Mr Hanley was simultaneously unable to give a definitive timeframe, saying he would be able to shed more light on the subject towards the end of the month, although Christmas was floated as a possibility.

“We’ll have better clarity around the LandCruiser 300 situation towards the end of October, and we’ll update our dealers and their customers accordingly,” he said.

“But we are hopeful of having cars on the road, a certain amount of cars at least on the road before Christmas, but we’ll continue to update our dealers and customers on the evolving situation.”

In the meantime, Toyota Australia has 500 examples of the 300 Series in showrooms around the country acting as demonstrators so that customers can at least sample the new LandCruiser before placing their order and be sure about their purchase, especially with the current delays.

Like most brands, Toyota’s stock delays are not limited to a single model or select variants and the majority of its portfolio faces some sort of supply setback.

While the delays vary by model and grade, Mr Hanley said around three-quarters of the local range was facing a delay of “six months or less” while a third was looking at about “four months or less”.

There are a few outliers in the form of the 70 Series LandCruiser and hybrid versions of the RAV4, both of which will take between nine and 10 months to arrive Down Under after being ordered.

As expected, the HiLux will also be coming into short supply during coming weeks and months due to production halts in South-East Asia and flow-on effects in Japan.

So far, a timeframe for the best-selling ute is yet to be announced.

Mr Handley said the plan “is to recover that volume across subsequent months”, meaning there should not be as prolonged a delay for the HiLux as there is for the 70 Series or RAV4.

Despite the holdups, Toyota Australia is anticipating an annual sales tally of around 220,000 units due to a late surge in deliveries expected to come in December.

For reference, the brand sold 205,000 units in 2020 with more than 156,000 deliveries chalked up across the first eight months of 2021.

Whether or not the 300 Series LandCruiser helps achieve that 220,000-unit projection remains to be seen.