Toyota South Africa Motors stood out in the 2016 Vehicle Quality Survey by Ipsos with total of twelve Gold awards; five in the Passenger category and a further seven in the Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) category. This once again demonstrates Toyota’s commitment to quality.
The Hilux was certainly a hero for Toyota in the survey achieving the best quality score for the Petrol Single Cab (37). It won a further two category awards including Best Diesel Single Cab and Best Diesel Double Cab. Hilux was also awarded the best One-Ton Single Cab Commercial Vehicle Brand and the Best Double Cab Commercial Vehicle Brand. In fact, Toyota made it a clean sweep in the LCV category by pipping its competitors and winning the Best Light Commercial Vehicle Brand overall. A highlight was the award for the Best Light Commercial Vehicle Plant, the Gold award for its manufacturing facility located in Prospecton, KwaZulu-Natal.
It’s worth noting that the Prospecton plant recently received a R6.1 billion investment to upgrade various areas linked to Hilux and Fortuner production. This investment had a direct knock-on benefit of increased production, the creation of almost 2,000 jobs and increased local components on both vehicles. Toyota is focused on ‘built-in quality” which translates to extensive training programmes for staff to ensure all processes are completed to the highest standard. Attesting to this, training for staff during the upgrade period amounted to R205 million. Quality is one of our priority areas at Toyota. We focus on building quality, durability and reliability into each of our vehicles because we know that this is a big consideration factor when customers purchase vehicles and we endeavour to maintain the highest levels of customer service. We are delighted at the overall Toyota results and especially the Hilux results. I believe this is testament to our stringent internal quality standards and our commitment to our end customer,” says Calvyn Hamman, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Toyota South Africa Motors.
Toyota also fared well in the Passenger Car category winning an additional five gold awards for the Best Small Hatch (Yaris), Best Top Hatch (Auris), Best Small Sedan (Corolla Quest), Best New Volume Passenger Car (Corolla Quest) and Best Volume Passenger Car Brand.
“Notably, we have seen a direct correlation to the scores in the survey with our sales figures. When analysing the Product quality scores, it once again illustrates that South Africans are purchasing vehicles they trust to be reliable and built with quality in mind. These results further solidify Hilux as SA’s most loved vehicle,” adds Hamman.
This is the largest study of this kind in South Africa and forms part of Ipsos’ Syndicated Automotive Research. The study currently talks to more than 30 000 vehicle owners each year. The quality survey takes place three months after purchasing a new vehicle to ascertain any problems experienced with the vehicle. The Vehicle Quality Survey is an expansion of the PP100 measurement to provide insight not only in terms of ‘defects’ experienced by customers, but also the effectiveness of vehicles in meeting the ‘taste’ requirements of customers.
“We are really proud of this result. We pride ourselves on our quality and when our customers confirm this, it shows that our efforts in this regard are being recognised. We have two goals at Toyota; to create ever better cars and to be rewarded with customer smiles and I think this proves to us that we are headed in the right direction,” concludes Hamman.
