Toyota Recall: Ford, Honda, And Hyundai Gaining The Most

By Bengt Halvorson

Bengt Halvorson

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Bengt Halvorson is Deputy Editor of High Gear Media's portfolio of car sites, overseeing the production of reviews, evaluating vehicles firsthand... More

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6 3,872 views February 16, 2010

2010 Toyota RAV4

2010 Hyundai Elantra

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2010 Ford Focus

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2010 Honda Accord Sedan

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Ford, Hyundai, and Honda—not GM or Chrysler, as some sources have claimed—look to be making the most conquests from customers who've had it with Toyota due to recall uncertainties.

In looking at the market share that Toyota has lost, that's what the pricing intelligence service TrueCar found. According to the company's data, a full 25 percent of customers migrating from Toyota are going to go to Ford or Honda vehicles, respectively. Hyundai is another big winner, close behind at 20 percent.

It's likely not coincidencal that both of these brands currently carry the reputation for reliability that Toyota has long enjoyed.

TrueCar, which gets a lot of traffic from shoppers looking to get a run-down of the numbers as they close the deal on a new vehicle, saw a drop in traffic of about 30 percent for Toyota vehicles following the recall. Traffic for models covered under the recall fell by 46 percent, TrueCar Reports, while it was down 16 percent for other models. Traffic rose the most overall for Hyundai, up 15 percent, post-recall.

Up close, TrueCar looked at both the 2010 Toyota Corolla and its competitive set before and after, and at the 2010 Toyota Camry before and after. Looking at Web traffic before and after, the Kia Forte saw the largest gain in interest, with traffic up by a third; the Hyundai Elantra also did well, with traffic up nearly 26 percent. Also doing especially well were the Ford Focus (+14 percent) and the Honda Civic (+13 percent). The only vehicle in that class that didn't see a gain in traffic over this time was the 2010 Nissan Sentra. Prices for any of these vehicles didn't change by more than two percent over the same period.

In the Camry's set, the firm saw that the 2010 Ford Fusion and Hyundai Sonata both saw huge jumps in traffic (up more than 26 percent), while the 2010 Honda Accord and Nissan Altima both got double-digit boosts.

TrueCar sources actual sales transaction data covering more than 43 percent of all new vehicles sold in the U.S., which as of January includes more than 300,000 vehicles.

You'll find full access to TrueCar market-data numbers here at TheCarConnection.com as you browse our new-car reviews, specs, and prices.

Today another site, CarGurus, revealed that search volumes for the ten days directly after the main Toyota recall announcements on January 26 were down between 6 and 16 percent, with models from Ford and Chevrolet up the most. Among the models CarGurus reported on, search volume for the 2010 Toyota RAV4 was down the most—more than 16 percent—with the 2010 Honda CR-V and Ford Escape seeing the greatest increases in search volume. CarGurus' data however conflicted with that of TrueCar, showing that several GM products were seeing increased search volume.

[TrueCar; CarGurus]