Country Of Origin

[Tel]

Has anyone else noticed all current Lexus/Toyota cars no longer have the country of manufacture displayed on the windsreen:how long before they start building cars in China for the U.K.?

Tel

[Kazi]

Sure there would be nothing wrong with China building the cars. During the early 60/70s I think it was, Japan was regarded as being a cheap source of labour that built crap. Today their second to nobody for build quality. Aside from which, Chinas economy and GDP is expanding at an impressive rate.

[Northern Boys Luv Gravy]

Has anyone else noticed all current Lexus/Toyota cars no longer have the country of manufacture displayed on the windsreen:how long before they start building cars in China for the U.K.?

Tel

Toyota already have plants in China building cars largely for that market. These plants are not the highly automated plants they have in Japan but very labour intensive with workers pushing handcarts and moving vehicles on dollies by hand. The labour is so cheap it's not worth investing in robots and if there is a downturn in demand it can be laid off easily. However the aim is to match quality levels set in Japan.

[Kazi]

I can't see anything wrong with China building the cars to be fair.....

[Habeeb]

very few cars are actually built in the country that the manufacturer originates from. Some mercedes benz for example are built in south africa, and porsche are built in eastern europe somewhere, and these are examples of high end manufacturers. Its just pure economics, wherever is the cheapest location to build, you go there.

[Northern Boys Luv Gravy]

very few cars are actually built in the country that the manufacturer originates from. Some mercedes benz for example are built in south africa, and porsche are built in eastern europe somewhere, and these are examples of high end manufacturers. Its just pure economics, wherever is the cheapest location to build, you go there.

Porche Boxters are built in Finland, Audi TTs in Hungary, BMW X3s in Austria by a third party contractor, Mercedes MLs and BMW Z4s in the USA, many right hand drive BMW 3 series in South Africa....

[Tel]

So when you buy your IS 500 in 4years time & the Auto is from Japan & the manual is from Vietnam you

would be quite happy to spend c.40k.on the Vet-car IF you had choice?

In 2003, BMW exported to the U.K. South African 3-series cars & the warranty claims went through the roof

whilst Car magazine recently advised to always go for the Stuttgart Boxter & not the Finnish version IF you had choice.

Tel