Are older Toyota trucks popular in Mexico?

[Claud]

The same thing happens over here. You will see plenty of Polish, and other former Warsaw Pact nation registrations hauling truckloads of written off vehicles home to be fixed. Labor is cheap and standards are low.
A lot of vehicle from parts of America affected by hurricanes also end up in mostly the Baltic states, later offered for sale on European ebay sites.

Claud.

 

[Delta]

Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
I've seen the "IN-TOW" vehicles all over the Southeast. Seems like any older light truck, SUV, or minivan is game; not so many cars.

As stated by others, labor is cheap in Mexico, and the demand for cheap, durable vehicles is high. I have heard of people in the US, especially Texas, taking cars there to have body work done for far less than it would cost in the US. It also seems a lot of people from Mexico have auto body repair skills...not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg, but it seems like a popular cottage industry of sorts there with many small shops repairing many severely damaged vehicles that were not worth it in the US. Some of my regular customers are shop owners/car lot owners who immigrated from Mexico. They are not phased by major crash damage and buy all kinds of out of the ordinary things.


Now that you mentioned this, I seen this alot on my travels from MS to PA several years ago. Going south, around TN, there would be alot of vehicles "IN TOW" that would be damaged, headed south obviously. I figured they would be going to Mexico. Most times their towing apparatus was rather sketchy.

 

[nthach]

I was in TJ and Ensenada two weekends ago, while I didn't see any older Toyota trucks being hauled between TJ and San Diego via San Ysidro I did some cars we don't get here that Nissan and Toyota sell in Mexico. I also saw lots of older cars with California plates and dealer frames from the Bay Area/LA/San Diego, I presume either they are stolen or were cars that failed smog but instead of handing it over to CARB/BAAQMD/SCAQMD, the original owners probably did an under the table deal and it ended up in Mexico.

I saw a few Thai-built Hiluxes(even though the Tacoma is also built in Baja), but what was odd were the vans using used as taxis or hotel/resort shuttles. I don't know the model but the Nissan NVs I saw were Mexican-built, the Toyota ones were of known origin, I was looking off the glass stampings and it was a mix of Japanese and Thai glass. They looked kinda like an boxier and more spartan Previa.

 

[ArcticDriver]

Originally Posted By: nthach
I was looking off the glass stampings and it was a mix of Japanese and Thai glass.


Now this is intriguing and worth a thread of its own.

 

[dareo]

The saying used to be that any Toyota w/o immobilizer in California ended up stolen and in mexico. Who doesn't love older Toyota trucks anyways.

 

[Ammofirst]

Are you kidding ? Long considered a Cartel favorite.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Silverado12
A car salesman told me years ago that a vehicle from the USA that's over 10 years old pays little or nothing to be imported into Mexico. This explains the older stuff going down there.


Last time I heard the law is if the vehicle is EXACTLY 10 model year old then it is little to no tax for personal vehicle import, but if you are hauling in a salvaged scrap or parts, then it is not going to cost much anyways compare to a running vehicle.

The money is in the labor difference: $100/hr vs $10/hr (or whatever the going rate) and little regulation (crash worthiness, lawsuits, environmental regulation, labor law) makes a huge difference. Their customers are also not as picky as ours.

 

[nthach]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear

The money is in the labor difference: $100/hr vs $10/hr (or whatever the going rate) and little regulation (crash worthiness, lawsuits, environmental regulation, labor law) makes a huge difference. Their customers are also not as picky as ours.

I actually saw a newish BMW 3 Series getting bodywork done at one of those shops in TJ when I was down there. That poor thing was getting lots of Bondo glopped onto it. Looked like it had some moderate structural damage as well.

 

[doublebase]

I think any old vehicle is popular down in Mexico or the Caribbean. I see a ton of them all of the time. I used to teach automotive (night school), post secondary as part of a government/state outreach program to employ or re-employ adults. It was probably 50% filled with minorities (mostly Dominicans) and one guy (he was Dominican) said the main reason why he was taking the course was so he could buy, fix up and transport vehicles to the Dominican. He said it was profitable. His plan was to ship them...boat loads of them. This guy was already a somewhat successful business man - and he paying for the course himself (not the state) - he owned a pretty busy barber shop. Ran into him a bunch of years later...he decided to take what he learned and continue into air craft mechanic/aviation school. He was a technician at a local airport at that point. Asked him about the car thing, didn’t sound like he was doing it. Asked him about his barber shop, he sold it. I guess he liked working on airplanes more than people‘s hair?

But I see the old Toyota’s all over the place down there...dominican, Mexico, Aruba, Curaçao, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Bahamas. And as a tech myself, I can’t help but notice (and listen for) all the stuff that is wrong with these cars. My lord!! When you’re in a taxi down there, good luck! They drive like crazy and the wheels are literally ready to fall off. I said to one guy in curaçao...hey, you know you have a bad wheel bearing? Like, really bad? And he said, yeah my mechanic said that too...as we drove 90 mph down a dirt road, lined with palm trees two inches from the side of the road, in the pouring rain...on bald tires...with one windshield wiper working...

 

[Donald]

Are these the ones with the frames mfg by Dana that have severe rust problems?

 

[svtrit]

You see it here on I-35 all the time. MN junk gets driven/towed to Mexico for parts or resale.

I saw all kinds of rusty cars with MN plates running around Mexico on a trip down there 5-6 years back.

 

[Jake_J]

Old Toyota's are the official vehicles of the developing world, so I'd expect they're also very popular in Mexico. Exporting older vehicles from well off counties to less affluent ones is popular all over the world from western European cars going to the Middle East and Africa, American cars going to Latin America, Japanese cars going to SE Asia, etc.

 

[Job]

Stories made from assumptions can grow and take on a life of their own. More likely the parts going to LA are going to be harvested there, if anything can be assumed at all. More old unsmogged trucks in vast areas of CA because in those areas no smog is needed biannually. A new car as long as it stays with the owner never needs to be smogged. So what happens in CA is the vast less populated areas are filled with more old cars than the urban smog required areas. The people in LA want those parts.

 

[PandaBear]

I know a lot of Mexican builders swear by older Tacos. The customer facing general contractors usually likes full size new domestics.