General Motors recently announced that it was dropping Mr. Goodwrench, their ubiquitous brand for service across all their products. They are now moving to brand-focused service for their remaining four car lines; Buick Certified Service, Cadillac Certified Service, Chevrolet Certified Service, and GMC Certified Service. This is, finally, the right direction for them to be taking.

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Today, the Lexus suspended sales of the GX 460 because a Consumer Reports issued a “Don’t Buy” warning due to rollovers in their testing. Toyota is finally listening, but consumers may give the credit to the Lexus brand, and not the parent brand – Toyota. [Read more →]

Back in the late 1980’s, Toyota made a bold business decision to separate its luxury products into a new company to compete directly against Mercedes and BMW. The creation of the Lexus brand quickly was followed by Nissan (formerly Datsun) renaming its luxury business Infiniti. This was brand separation with many questions. How much brand equity should be shared with the parent? Does Toyota quality or engineering bring anything to the party for Lexus? Can Toyota be believable as the manufacturer of a luxury product? Should a Lexus dealer be situated in or near a Toyota dealer? Should they look the same? Should they act the same? [Read more →]