Dealers To Lobby Congress

Dealers To Lobby Congress
Toyota Motor Corp. beleaguered dealers moving to Washington this week to try to convince Congress that what is bad for the Japanese auto giant is bad for America.

With the safety issues that threaten the reputation and subsequent investigations by Congress, a federal grand jury and U.S. securities regulators, and Toyota is reaching out to merchants and workers of the company in the United States to support the company's efforts in lobbying before the hearings in Congress this week.

"Our hope is that Congress does not jump to conclusions, it allows time for the facts to come out," said Susan Scarola, who has a total of eight agents Toyota and Lexus in New York and New Jersey and California, which together employ 700 people. "Congress can not let politics get in the way."

With the first of three hearings in Congress about Toyota's safety problems due to start Tuesday, most traders want to make the case that tens of thousands of jobs are at stake.

Ms. Scarola, who is chairman of DCH group of car dealerships, is one of the traders are more than 100 Toyota Motor Corporation from various parts of the country who gathered in Washington this week to pressure members of parliament. Toyota itself also flown in dozens of factory workers in an effort to help make the point that we can mention the cost of jobs in the uproar congressional districts across the country.

Toyota in five large manufacturing sites, which amounts to about 1,200 agents, and employs about 172,000 people in the United States

Car Dealers in the country, with networks that reach into the country in many small towns, have shown themselves to be powerful strikes + bying force in the last year.

Merchants helped champion last summer cash for clunkers program, which boosted sales of cars at a cost to taxpayers of $ 3 billion. (Toyota Corolla was the program's biggest seller.) Dealers also received the General Conference of Force Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC to review the forced closure of thousands of traders in the past year.

Staff and the owners of the Toyota dealer gave $ 158,000 to federal candidates and political parties in the past three years, according to data released by the Federal Election Commission. Officer of Toyota itself gave an additional $ 69,000 in the past three years.

Now, Toyota dealers are suffering from low sales. Many feel that regulators in the United States, the media and now federal prosecutors are unfairly targeting the company because of problems.

Others suspect that Congress and the federal government is trying to clip wings of Toyota for the protection of the United States from competitors, especially General Motors, which is majority owned by the government.

Many of the Toyota dealers give high marks to the speed with which it has shipped millions of small parts, which the company says will fix the gas pedals and wrong. Toyota had problems with the gas pedals, brakes, mats, and in many of the most popular models, including the Camry, Corolla and Prius, and required agents to carry out reforms in a section of about 55,000 a day.

But at the same time, some fret that the company was slow to calm jittery.

"The truth is that Toyota did not have a lot of problems the previous recall, so I just did not have much experience dealing with something like this," said Jack Fitzgerald large auto dealer in Washington, DC, area, which has two agents Toyota. Chose to air his own ads in recent weeks to reassure consumers that their cars were safe and keep them from would be resale value.

Toyota Dealers in most parts of the country has seen sales decline sharply since the beginning of the crisis recall began in January. Ms. Scarola said that the agents at the east and west coasts, and sales this month were off by about 25%, compared with February last year.

Paul Atkinson, who owns two Toyota dealer in Texas and chaired the Toyota National Dealer Council, says he was concerned to see the General Motors-owned government in an attempt to take advantage of the Toyota calamities by offering special discounts to customers who decide to trade in their Toyotas.

"I woke up one morning and realized I was in competition with the Governments of the special," said Mr. Atkinson, who is also traveling to Washington this week to rally support. "As an American citizen, I have a problem with this."

The Ministry of Transport, which regulates the safety of cars, and denies any favortism, saying it was investigating complaints regardless of the auto industry.