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Toyota Chairman Goes Full MAGA At NASCAR-Inspired Event He Threw In Japan - Jalopnik
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this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2025
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Easy: So I can scratch Toyota from the list of potentially interesting car companies for my next car.
You can simply scratch every single new car from that list while you're at it. Every single one is a massive privacy violation with zero right to repair and corporations that soft-support the Nazi's in myriad ways. Buy used and repair yourself, or walk.
I'm learning a hard lesson that you can't fix much after ~2016 either. You can replace the parts, but good luck resetting the computers without proprietary dealership software.
Yeah, you have to go back to the 2000s-2010s era and when abundant spare parts and junkyards start to run out, be prepared to invest new-car level cash in custom fabrication and mechanical work to keep it on the road. Cars don't really have to be as complicated or expensive as they are, but for now, they're always going to be. People have always been custom-building cars for show, for history, for racing, for performance, and pretty soon we're going to start doing it for daily drivers too, and it'll stay that way until they start changing the laws to try to force these cars off the road for environmental reasons. Until then, support your local custom car builders, they're going to become the future of repairable cars, at least when it comes to the pre-EV gas guzzlers.
Basically, start taking notes from Cuban car culture. They're custom fabricating everything to keep their yank tanks operating.
Should be a full business keeping pre 2014 cars on the road or resto modding them to use after market user serviceable ecus.
Really depends on the car though. You can do amything with any 5.0 mustang and keep it going forever. An 02 focus though, youre screwed and there's no parts avilable any more and no aftermarket for it
Most manufacturer software is easy to find online.
Are you allowed to share or at least hint? Interested in this.
I have BMW (ISTA) and Toyota (Techstream) software. Both are easy to find if you search for it.
Porsche, Mercedes Benz, Mitsubishi, Subaru, BMW, and VW: "Haha yeah, soft support, riiiight...."
I love my 14 year old vw with no smart system (what little smart infotainment system it has hasn’t worked since I bought it and I’m replacing it with a regular stereo eventually) that I bought with a little cash. It has no frills like blind spot detection, lane stuff, nor backup camera, and I love it. But it has the right frills like heated seats and a sunroof.
I’m not sure I want a newer vehicle.
Maybe not Slate. We'll see.
Isn't that the one created/owned by Amazon? I'm not sure you'll be correct.
Bezos is an investor, yes. I don't think he has actual direct control over anything though.
Its literally funded by Amazon. Hard fucking pass.
It’s still required to have all the mandatory safety systems like automatic braking, back up camera etc. And to have those systems, all the brake and steering systems will require the same electronics as every other brand. It’s also why Toyota techs hate working on the Supra, because it actually uses design/tech from this decade, and it even uses BMW electronics that are two generations behind current BMWs.
Buy a used (ICE) car, and you're supporting the fossil fuel industry. Walk, cycle, and public transport.
public transport isn't really an option for me (though I regularly advocate for it in my area and vote for people that will fund it), so I go the route of inexpensive used car and avoiding driving as much as I can
I'm all for alternative transportation but that blanket statement is closed minded.
Do you own clothing? Do your groceries come in packaging? Do you live in an insulated, electrified, and plumbed dwelling? To dismiss someone with 'buying x supports big oil' ignores the lack of viable alternatives and the society we have to live in.
It's the same line of thinking that leads talking head of corporate media to question Stop Oil protesters about the plastic buttons on their shirt as if exemplifying hypocrisy.
Many people do not have their needs met in terms of public transport, cycle infrastructure, or even sidewalks. Buying an old combustion vehicle for a few thousand dollars is leaps and bounds better than spending tens of thousands an electric vehicle.
They are literally the only ones who make a decent car anymore. Every other brand is horrible and constantly breaks down.
Hard disagree. Toyota has its lemons as well and people who bitch about problems far outweigh people who are happy and don’t say shit.
I’ve driven and owned Jeep (80-90 model), Eagle, Nissan, Mazda, Hyundai, and now Subaru and my vehicles have all been spectacular and lasted a long time with routine maintenance.
Do some model years or brands have some duds? Yeah. No one is perfect and plenty of other brands are just great.
This is the real key here. I have had vehicles that have lasted forever because I took the time to learn what to check regularly and do a lot of my own diagnosis and basic repairs.
The idea of modern automobiles is actually absurd when you think about it. It's a massive combustion engine that starts up instantly, every day, multiple times and runs for thousands of hours, across huge distances at incredible speed and most of the time the operators never even think of it past refueling or cleaning the shell.
I owned generators and many other kinds of engines, and without incredible engineering they are a pain in the ass to keep running all the time. Heat and cold cycles, multiple fluids that have to interact, timing between components, a vast array of materials and different kinds of moving parts... we really take it for granted, and because of that the newer cars are designed to be more hands-off and harder and harder to actually maintain. They are now counting on people not giving a fuck and just buying a new one when it starts to "run funny."
Yes, exactly this. Many people just don’t do the basics and part of that is money. The labor costs are what get ya. The complexity of narrowing down what’s wrong as the cars are more computerized and have more electrical components also makes it difficult to diagnose even for the pros.
Key detail is that routine maintenance is important. Spark plugs, oil changes, flushes, timing belt, radiator, tires, brake pads, etc.
My last vehicle literally overheated on the highway and the engine block warped because the thermometer broke but I had no indication that there was a coolant leak or it was overheating. It had a good, long run but now that I have a home office, I wholeheartedly agree it's more of a waste of money if you don't absolutely have to drive to work every day. I uber weekly, rent a car every couple months when I need to travel and still save a fortune on regular car costs.
A motorcycle is a better deal if you have somewhere to keep it safe. 3x the gas mileage and self repairable in a day.
Toyota CHR was a certified peice of shit.
and I say this as I post from work at a Toyota Dealer.
apparentley they're bringing it back as either an EV or a plugin EV like the Rav Prime.
Ask owners of new Tundras what they think about “reliability”. But, It is true, Toyotas are so fucking basic in design, there is not much to break or wear out. They are 10 years behind most other companies.
Made in the USA btw. If you want a good Toyota, you have to get a J VIN car. (From Japan) The Mexican Tacoma's are ass too.
All RAV4 are built in Canada.
Not all of them. Some hybrids are made in Japan as well. My wife's was. Granted, it was a 2016. From what I've read, they still make some there.
Idk I know they aren't perfect. I kind of dislike them more that their executives are maga. Still I wouldn't buy any other car because cars are too expensive to be buying dumb shit.
Uhhh... Subaru?
Man, we had a Subaru outback for a while. Still miss the space, but the interior flooded every time it rained.
Turns out, the roof doesn't actually have a place to shed water externally - it drains through the car before going out the bottom. Apparently part of regular maintenance involves cleaning out that channel... and where we live has enough tree debris that it always clogged up early, and backed up into the passenger compartment.
Now, I don't know a lot about car design... but draining the roof through the body of the car, in such a way that you have to have a service tech see to it to keep it weatherproof? Makes me wonder what else might be waiting to go wrong.
What model year was that? Never heard of such a thing. I suspect you had a defective car.
I want to say 2014-2016? It was bizarre, but the dealership didn't seem to have any notion that it was a real problem. Just kept hearing back "Oh yeah, sounds like it needs blown out again" whenever it happened.
And it was never a problem right after it was serviced, just in the month or two before it was due to be serviced again. It seemed like there was a SOP that could address it, it just required frequent maintenance to be able to handle rain falling on the roof.
That's so weird. I know two people with that model year who don't have that issue. Your comment spurred me to ask around. Very weird, sorry you had to deal with that.
Yeah, like I said, it sounds like normal maintenance is enough to keep up with the "typical" use case. We live in an area with a lot of trees, and had nowhere to park it where debris didn't clog it fast, apparently. They did recommend we park it in the garage at one point, but... the car was longer than our garage! Seemed silly to renovate our house to expand our garage when the problem was that the car wasn't built to shed dirty rainwater safely, so we sold it and got a shorter car instead.
I don't know anything about them.
Take a look at Volvo or Mercedes
Volvo's offering in my country:
No prices on their website, so I checked out used Volvos, year 2025 and an XC40 starts at 36k EUR with 10k km on it.
I don't think this is a brand I can seriously get behind because I feel like they're trolling me.
Also Volvo is as Swedish as Shanghai. Geely owns them and it shows.
Mercedes reliable? Not since the early 80s.
Dude Mercedes are garbage nowadays and Volvos are built by the Chinese. Honda is the obvious choice.