City Extra - September 2020

Sydney City Toyota

CITY EXTRA

The hits keep coming It’s been a record few months and there’s a heap of new Toyota models coming.

At Sydney City Toyota we’ve just taken delivery of the brand-new Toyota Yaris and it’s going to set a benchmark in the light-car market. And alongside it is the new Hilux, Australia’s most popular vehicle of all; and its stablemate the equally new Toyota Fortuner. All produce more power and deliver even better fuel economy as well as being packed with safety and convenience features, they’ve never had before.

Right now, we have the first wave of Yaris and Hilux models. By the end of the year we’ll have the lot, including cross over versions of both vehicles and the spectacular, eagerly anticipated GR Yaris – the hottest little hatch of all.

The cutting-edge Yaris has a new 1.5 litre engine developing 10 percent more power and delivering 15 percent better fuel economy – below 5 litres/100km.

The top two grades are available as a hybrid as well.

1 | SYDNEY CITY TOYOTA | CITY EXTRA

Hilux’s turbo-diesel engine now delivers 150kW and 500Nm of torque – a beautiful set of figures. Power is up 15.3 percent and fuel use is down 11.1 percent.

We don’t expect any of our allocation to sit on the showroom floor for long.

We’re a registered covid-safe business: A note from Dealer Principal John Roca.

Sydney City Toyota has become one of the first car companies in NSW to register with the state government as a COVID-safe Business.

We are proudly displaying our COVID-safe posters in our dealership and on-line, and even more importantly we’re practicing all the compliance requirements necessary to achieve accreditation.

It’s important for both our guests and our team members to know that we’re doing all we can in these fragile times.

I guess the important thing to point out is that we weren’t compelled to register for COVID-safe recognition.

That mandatory requirement is reserved for the hospitality industry. But we know how important it is to help everyone stay safe, so we willingly sought out the government to assess our application.

Before you visit the dealership by appointment, we will have sent you a full video walk around of the Toyota of your choice. We’ve even invented a Sydney City Toyota exclusive - a poke-pole – which enables us to point out a feature without actually touching it.

And when it comes time to pick up your new Toyota we’ll provide you with a video introduction to its features so that the time you spend in our dealership is minimized (a pity really, we love our guests visiting).

On the positive side, we’ve met a lot of new people during the pandemic. There’s been an increase in retail activity, and it continues to be strong. The pandemic has sharpened everyone up. We’re encouraging our guests to review their finance and insurance arrangements to make sure they’re getting the very best deal.

Right from the start of the pandemic, Sydney City Toyota has been doing its very best to stay COVID-safe. We’ve introduced some practices that are so good we’ll keep them in place long after the COVID-threat has (hopefully) gone away.

More than anything, we’ve learned that now is the time when people appreciate the security of strong and respectful relationships in everything we do. And we’re doing all that we can to ensure that everyone in the world of Sydney City Toyota stays safe.

If you call us to enquire about a certain feature of a Toyota, our team member will walk you around the vehicle with a phone-camera and show and explain it to you on the spot.

With best regards, John Roca, Dealer Principal

2 | SYDNEY CITY TOYOTA | CITY EXTRA

Outstanding performance - 2019 Sales Society Recognition Awards from left to right: David Xuereb, Brian Rochester, Gemma Dawson, Nick Maniatis, Allan Dabbagh, Jason Benjamin, Tim Chen.

These are for our guests Sydney City Toyota has been named one of Toyota’s Top 20 dealers this year – for a record 32 years in succession.

It’s not something we take for granted and not something we’ll ever treat lightly. We’re driven by a need to look after our guests with top quality sales and service, and to do it even better than your expectation.

Sydney City Toyota has been overwhelmed with awards this year – and it’s all down to our guests.

In the last six months we’ve been named Toyota Fleet Management’s Dealer of the Year; we’ve won the Toyota Knights award for new vehicle sales and importantly we’ve been recognized by Toyota for Excellence in Service and Excellence in Fleet sales.

“There’s an immense sense of pride amongst our team of dedicated professionals that they’ve set such high standards,” John Roca, Sydney City Toyota Dealer Principal said.

Outstanding performance – 2019 Parts & Service Excellence Program Outstanding Service Bronze Excellence Achievement from left to right: Nico Pearce, Neil Dodimead, Chris Demetre, Con Hatzivasiliou, Craig Loy, Peter Demetre, Abdallah El Abdallah.

SYDNEY CITY TOYOTA | CITY EXTRA | 3

Hilux-led recovery Last New Year’s Eve, volunteer fire fighter Steve Hillyar and his wife Mandy lost their house and their car in the horrendous bushfires that swept through the NSW South Coast.

They’re still waiting for a new home to be built, but they’ve already put 7,000km on the replacement double cab Hilux ute they secured with major financial assistance from Sydney City Toyota and the company’s ambassador, financial whizz Mark Bouris.

Steve was on a 24-hour shift on December 31, saving other’s homes, when he returned to the Malua Bay RFS to find his own ute destroyed, and then, even worse, his home in ashes.

Mandy escaped with their three daughters, and the farmyard’s dogs, pigs, chickens and sheep, and went back a second time for their wedding rings.

Steve says the new Hilux has been the one bright spot in a dismal year, but still reckons they’re better off than many of the fire victims. “At least we’ve got a home,” he said. They’re living in Steve’s parent’s holiday home –

4 | SYDNEY CITY TOYOTA | CITY EXTRA

“not much bigger than a caravan”, and last month Steve, a chippy, went back to work after six months.

The emotion has been draining: “Until recently, I didn’t feel like doing much at all,” he said. And Mandy keeps having flashbacks to the night of the fire when the phones were down and she “didn’t know if Steve was alive or dead.”

They’re now regrouping – bought another block of land but won’t go back to their original homesite where the memories of what happened are just too overwhelming.

COVID-19 has slowed recovery even more and Steve is concerned that not enough attention is being paid to preparing the bush for the upcoming summer period.

“It could be as bad as last year,” he said not as an alarmist but with the realism of a firefighter whose experienced disaster.

And the Hilux – “not a moment’s trouble”, and Steve has been putting in a lot of off road 4x4 kilometers, moving building equipment and generally helping to rebuild the community. “I was so grateful for the help John Roca from Sydney City Toyota and Mark Bouris gave us when we could see no way forward,” he said.

Genuine is always best Sydney City Toyota is working closely with a team established within Toyota Australia to crack down on the spread of counterfeit parts and accessories, which pose safety risks for Toyota Guests.

Counterfeit parts pretend to be genuine, often wrapped in imitation packaging with Toyota logos making it difficult to tell the difference. Some counterfeit parts may even cost the same, but they cannot offer the same assurance of quality and safety as a Genuine Toyota product. For example, if involved in a car accident there is a chance that the counterfeit part may fail and harm passengers.

If it wasn’t for Toyota Australia’s Brand Protection Team, these counterfeit parts and accessories would be flooding into the country. More than 70% of counterfeit products are purchased from online marketplaces. According to Toyota Australia’s Brand Protection Team, counterfeit parts are found on online marketplaces putting at risk the health and safety of Toyota Guests who may have unwittingly been exposed to these substandard and, in many cases, dangerous parts.

“We like to think of them as The Untouchables,” Sydney City Toyota’s GM Service Con Hatzivasiliou said, referring to Elliot Ness’s crime busting team in Chicago in the mid-1920’s.

In early 2020, the Brand Protection Team successfully took legal action against a large Australian parallel supplier, SSS Auto Parts, which was found to be selling counterfeit

‘Toyota’ grilles. Toyota’s action against SSS Auto Parts shows that they will act decisively whenever counterfeit parts are being sold to Australian consumers. This case was also an opportunity to educate and raise guest awareness on the fact that some parallel importers may comingle Genuine parts with counterfeit parts.

The threat is huge. On average, each month, the Brand Protection Team takes down hundreds of online infringing listings selling counterfeit products which claim to be ‘genuine’ from various platforms such as eBay, Amazon, Gumtree and AliExpress.

The Brand Protection Team devotes significant resources on investigations to ascertain authenticity of parts being sold on online marketplaces. The Team also works closely with the Australian Border Force to catch offending components at the point of entry to Australia. “Repeat offenders need to be really concerned because our team is onto them and monitoring them closely,” Con said.

Con and Sydney City Toyota are especially aware of the danger that counterfeit components represent to their guests. “It’s impossible to overstate it – a part that is not genuine is most likely not fit for purpose and that can be dangerous,” he said. “We’re not the police and we’re not here to dictate to our guests, but we will bring a potentially dangerous situation to their attention.”

SYDNEY CITY TOYOTA | CITY EXTRA | 5

2019 IBF Youth World Boxing Champion, Brock Jarvis (left) and Jacob Roca (right).

We renew our support of our Young Champion Sydney City Toyota has renewed its association with professional Boxer & young Champion Brock Jarvis, who in 2019 won the IBF Youth World Title.

Like so many young sportspeople, COVID-19 has put Brock’s career into temporary hold – but he’s been using the downtime wisely.

“I’ve moved up from Super Bantamweight (55kg)

6 | SYDNEY CITY TOYOTA | CITY EXTRA

to Featherweight (57kg)” he told Jacob Roca when he visited the showroom recently to show the staff his belts.

For most of us extra kg’s would be the result of COVID lethargy. For Brock, it’s all calculated muscle, developed through a rigorous and unrelenting training program.

“I’ve missed three bouts already because of COVID, but I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in, ready for what is next,“ he said.

Here for The Long Run Thirty years - seems like yesterday Sean Parmenter joined Sydney City Toyota thirty years ago, on the day it was incorporated – and he brought his father Bernie and brother Mark with him.

All three were parts people, skilled in forecasting the replacement parts stock necessary to keep a fleet of several thousand cars owned by our guests, securely on the road.

“I was maybe the least skilled,” Sean joked. “I told my Mum not to bother packing me lunch because I might be home by then when they figured out how bad I was.”

Today Sean is in charge of Sydney City Toyota’s entire parts inventory turning over better than $1.2 million of stock each month, as well as supervising all important pre-delivery of each new car before it passes to its new owner.

Bernie, who loved being on the road “talking to his old repairer mates,” according to Sean, has retired and Mark has moved to a dealership on the Central Coast. Sean is reveling in the constant improvements that make his job, and his service to our guests, increasingly efficient.

“When we first started, we all had our heads buried in microfiche files answering enquiries from customers on a bank of telephones,” he said. “Then Toyota Australia used us in a program to trial a new computer. When the trial was over, we wouldn’t give it back.”

Sean now claims better than 92 percent parts stock availability for all cars serviced by Sydney City Toyota: “and I know where to look for the other eight percent,” he grinned.

Sean Parmenter, General Manager of Parts & Pre-Delivery.

Ten years – seems like ten seconds Peter Demetre, service manager at Sydney City Toyota, Glebe, counts time in seconds.

He is a multiple Australian drag racing champion and his proud claim is that he’s driven a sports modified sedan over the standing 400 metres in 8.8 seconds with a terminal velocity of 248kmh.

He’s also crashed into a wall at near that speed when his car hit water just 50 metres from the finish line, which is why his drag car is now parked safely in his garage behind the family’s Toyota Kluger Grande.

Timing for Peter is everything. Exactly ten years ago he met his now wife Elyce and almost simultaneously made the decision to leave his job with a specialist tuning company (he’s an ace at making rotary engines go obscenely fast) and join Sydney City Toyota.

He started as a service advisor and now runs all of SCT’s Glebe service. As a motor racing man Peter is comfortable with the concept of team work but: “I see my team here as far more – we’re a family,” he said.

Peter Demetre, Service Manager at Sydney City Toyota, Glebe.

SYDNEY CITY TOYOTA | CITY EXTRA | 7

Sydney City Toyota GLEBE 36-38 Parramatta Road Glebe, NSW 2037 T 02 9565 6313

Sydney City Toyota WATERLOO 824 Bourke Street Waterloo, NSW 2017 T 02 9690 9999

www.sydneycitytoyota.com.au