Toyota PH boosts preowned cars program

Toyota Motors Philippines officially announced on Tuesday the rebranding of its preowned cars program citing several improvements in the service features offered which include, among others, the expansion of the financing coverage for used vehicles.

Toyota Motors Philippines first vice president for vehicle sales Sherwin Lim said it has rebranded the “Toyota Certified Used Vehicles Program,” which was launched 10 years ago, to “T-Sure” saying it was a fitting change to the rapid changes in the automotive industry.

“It’s part of our vision of moving to become a mobility company instead of an automotive company, and therefore part of our goal of mobility for all. We have rebranded our certified used vehicles program with a lot of improvements we are launching,” Lim told the Inquirer on the sidelines of the event in Manila.Lim cited improvements in their 211-point inspection process as well as the expansion of the financing coverage, which will now include vehicles that are up to nine years old.

Lim said that Toyota offers in-house financing to would-be buyers through their financing arm, the Toyota Financial Services Philippines Corp.

Lim said that the market for used cars in the Philippines is significant, estimating it to be around 1.5 times bigger than the brand-new vehicle market segment.According to the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (Campi), which Toyota is a member of, the local automotive industry sold 223,793 brand new units in 2021.For 2022, Campi said the industry is aiming to sell 336,000 vehicle units by year-end.

Lim said that Toyota alone is aiming to sell more than what they sold back in 2019, which is around 162,000 vehicle units.

Lim said that Toyota increased the prices of all the vehicles in their lineup by 2 percent to 4 percent, attributing it to higher production costs due to the weakening of the Philippine peso.Depending on the model, Lim said the price hike ranged from P20,000 to P80,000. INQ

“It’s across all models including our newly-launched lite-ace,” he said.

Lim said the price increases are calculated based on the passed-on costs to them as distributors, as well as the added cost on parts during the manufacturing process.