Toyota Prado sets new record

Expecting record sales, Toyota is moving to cap waiting lists for the new 250 Series LandCruiser Prado to 12 months.

With first examples of the highly-anticipated new 4x4 Toyota Prado wagon rolling into dealerships now, Toyota has announced it has already received more than 17,000 orders, a record for any generation Prado.

It has also confirmed it expects 12 month production supply to top 27,000, shattering the previous record of 21,299 sales set in 2021.

But to counteract the excessive multi-year waiting lists that have dogged other popular Toyota models such as the Toyota RAV4 and LandCruiser 70 Series in the recent past, a new dealer allocation system has been announced.

“This is a whole new way of doing business in terms of allocating these vehicles and communicating with customers,” said Toyota Australia vice president of sales, marketing and franchise operations, Sean Hanley.

Toyota’s 232 Australian dealers will be supplied a rolling 12 month allocation of Prado availability.

That is intended to stop dealers accepting orders beyond 12 months, although customers can still place an expression or interest and be notified when they enter the 12 month window.

“We will not go back to the days of open-ended order taking for such a popular model,” insisted Hanley.

“It’s not in our own interest and it’s certainly and definitely not in the interests of our customers.

“Instead, each month we are advising each of our Toyota dealers exactly how many cars they will receive for the following 12 months.

“This is quite different to anything we have previously done,” added the senior Toyota exec.

“So should a dealer reach their rolling 12 month allocation in any given month ... and the likelihood is they are going to hit the ceiling pretty quick, they will not be able to place another order in our system until further allocations are confirmed.

“There will be a wait time between one and 12 months but the dealer will be in a far better position to give the customer more exact delivery times than the way we previously did it.

“Obviously those who got in early will get their cars early and those who are coming in now will probably have a wait,” he cautioned.

However, Hanley admitted that Toyota could not prevent side deals between car dealers and customers willing to pay over the odds to move them up the waiting list, which in turn could lead to inflated prices.

Nevertheless, he promised that Toyota would act to discourage that behaviour where it learned about it.

“We would ask them to stop doing it because it is impacting on the customer experience,” said Hanley.

“But we don’t have a big issue with that,” he added.

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