Drive

Toyota opens Body and Paint Service Centre

Sri Lanka's only purpose-built repair facility for best-in-quality service by a team of highly-trained professionals The Toyota Body and Paint Centre is Sri Lanka's only facility purpose-built to undertake repairs of Toyota vehicles.

Catering to a range of repair needs from minor repairs or paint touch-ups to major damage, the service center is dedicated to ensuring global-standard vehicle care.

The state-of-the-art facility is equipped to undertake small, semi-heavy and heavy repairs within a brief period of time, ranging from under two hours for minor damage and under two weeks for major damage.

Featuring a separate team of personnel for engine repairs, the Toyota Body and Paint Service Centre offers a superior service that carries with it the assurance of safety and reliability of the Toyota brand.

With training from various locations around the world including Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan, and Bahrain, the region's training hub, the Toyota Body and Paint Service Centre features specialists on par with Toyota's professional standards, handling specific tasks.

"At the Toyota Body and Paint Service Centre, we take great pride in offering a service that meets a multiplicity of repair and servicing needs," said Manager - Service Royce Nugera, "Our facility, which is the only one of its kind, meets all global Toyota standards from modern tools and equipment to genuine spare parts. Customers are therefore, guaranteed a speedy and efficient service at the hands of skilled personnel.

Toyota Lanka is a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation Japan and is authorized to use Toyota technology. Meeting the strict safety guidelines and standards of the Toyota Motor Corporation, all equipment at the service centre is imported specifically for Toyota vehicles - known as Special Service Tools (SSTs) - such as the Car-O-Liner, a computerized measuring system for alignments on the Body and Frame, advanced Welding Machines, Ultra Violet (UV) heaters for uniform and speedy drying.

Customers are also assured that vehicles are returned to their original condition following repairs. The Toyota Body and Paint Service Center also features 24-hour roadside assistance and tow services.

AMW launches Suzuki SX4 Sedan 2008 Model

There were massive crowds to witness the motor show exhibition 2008 which was held at the BMICH and organized by Ceylinco Classic Car Club. AMW presented a number of new vehicle models as it usually does at this event.

Among them the Suzuki SX4 Sedan 2008 model was the centre of attraction and gathered the greatest attention from the entire crowd. The SX4 Sedan is a vehicle with new and exciting features and imported directly from Japan by AMW, to provide customers with true value for money.

Due to its distinctive feature of high ground clearance, the Suzuki SX4 sedan can be driven on any rough terrain, without any discomfort to the passengers. With a high demand for the Suzuki SX4 Sedan in USA and Japan, it has now become a very popular family vehicle in Asia too. Due to new technology, outstanding protection and luxury features, there has been a wonderful response for the Suzuki SX4 Sedan within Sri Lanka as well. This was very apparent at the exhibition.

Many people made prior reservations for a test drive of the Suzuki SX4 Sedan.

Hyundai Motor profit tumbles 28% on higher costs

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest automaker, said fourth-quarter profit tumbled 28 percent, missing analysts' estimates, as lower contribution from overseas units, and higher marketing and warranty costs damped earnings.

Net income totaled 243.6 billion won ($177 million) in the three months ended December. That missed the median estimate of 510.3 billion won according to a Bloomberg survey of 11 analysts. Sales rose 1.1 percent to 8.83 trillion won, the Seoul-based automaker said in a statement.

Hyundai is cutting production at all of its factories as mounting job losses and tight credit deter consumers from buying cars. Still, the won's 26 percent drop against the dollar last year has shielded Hyundai's earnings from the worst of the market slump, while the yen's 23 percent gain has ravaged earnings at Toyota Motor Corp. and other Japanese rivals.

"The impact of the currency is just a mirage. It appears and disappears,'' said Choi In Ho, who overseas $6.5 billion at UBS Hana Asset Management Co. in Seoul. ``It's time for Hyundai to improve its fundamental competitiveness to avoid copying the collapse of Detroit's Big Three.''

Operating profit slid 8.9 percent to 581 billion won, as Hyundai spent more on marketing to woo reluctant car buyers and the weak won raised warranty costs for cars sold overseas. Operating profit is defined as sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses.

Kia Motors Corp., 39 percent owned by Hyundai, reported net income almost doubled to 74.8 billion won and sales rose 7.5 percent to 5.04 trillion won helped by exports and higher sales at home.

Kia is slashing domestic production 24 percent in the first quarter, and paring output overseas, as the global recession damps car sales. The automaker's full-year vehicle sales may drop 22 percent, based on a Morgan Stanley estimate.

Bloomberg

Toyota ahead of G.M. in 2008 sales

For the first time since the early 1930s, General Motors cannot call itself the world's largest automaker. Its sales fell behind Toyota in 2008, a year when G.M. celebrated its 100th anniversary and narrowly avoided a bankruptcy filing amid a significant downturn in the economy.

G.M. said on Wednesday that it sold 8.35 million vehicles in 2008, about 620,000 fewer than Toyota's 8.97 million. G.M.'s sales were down 11 percent from 2007, while Toyota's declined 4 percent.

G.M. had been the largest carmaker since it overtook Ford in 1931, two years before Toyota began making cars in Japan. Toyota had been closing in on G.M. for years; its sales surged around the world while G.M.'s global expansion was tempered by decades of falling market share in the United States.

The two had traded places from one quarter to the next in recent years. G.M. had been widely expected to slip into second place in 2007 but held off Toyota by about 3,000 vehicles.

Both companies struggled in 2008, as global sales for the industry fell by 3.5 million vehicles.

Toyota said it expected to report its first operating loss in its history for the year ending March 31. But demand fell the most in North American and Europe, regions where G.M. is a larger player. As a result, executives from the Detroit company, which has lost money every year since 2004, warned that it could run out of cash without billions in loans from the United States government.

G.M.'s global sales fell 26 percent in the fourth quarter, and the company received a $4 billion loan in December; it is expecting another $5.4 billion installment soon.

"Our goal is to fight for every profitable sale," Michael C. DiGiovanni, G.M.'s executive director of global market and industry analysis, said Wednesday. "Right now we're focused on getting past this economic crisis we're in and becoming a stronger company for the future."

In 2008, 64 percent of G.M.'s sales occurred outside the United States, up from 59 percent the previous year. It still outsells Toyota in the United States by a wide margin - nearly 800,000 vehicles in 2008, or 33 percent more than Toyota - but Toyota sells more in the rest of the world.

G.M., now describing itself on official statements as merely "one of the world's largest automakers," expects a rough road ahead. It recently reduced its United States sales forecast for all automakers in 2009 to 10.5 million, compared with 13.2 million in 2008.