Toyota Tundra Incentives Not as High as Stated, Edmunds Says

Last week, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc.’s Bob Carter, group vice president and general manager-Toyota Div., strongly denied the auto maker’s incentives on its Tundra fullsize pickup truck were as high as Edmunds.com had reported.

He was right.

This week, Edmunds is retracting its assertion that Tundra incentives were approaching $7,000 in July, saying it miscalculated the spiff level.

“Incentives analysis has many components and complicated national and regional considerations,” says Jane Liu, vice president-data analysis. “Unfortunately, in this case our team misapplied a piece of data that had widespread repercussions in our report.”

Measures have been put in place to assure a mistake like this doesn’t occur again, she says.

Edmunds now is reporting the True Cost of Incentives for the Tundra, which takes into account all U.S. incentive programs as well as subvented interest rates and lease programs, was $4,625 in July, down from the earlier stated $6,861.

The change means Edmunds’ TCI for the large-truck segment last month was $3,895, not $4,189, with Toyota Div.’s TCI $1,245, not $1,807.

Furthermore, the Toyota Tundra did not have the highest TCI in the segment last month as previously stated, Edmunds says. That honor goes to the Dodge Ram 1500, with a TCI of $6,739. Tundra placed third, behind Nissan’s Titan ($4,835).