Site loosing its end goal?

[Guest]

So admittedly I've only been on here a fraction of the time that others have, but I'm getting dismayed by what it seems to be so far.

From my perspective, it feels less like an owners club of any kind, and really just a free technical support website for Toyota owners who have a problem. - Owners who do a once off "punch in, punch out" - "solution please?" post.

I'm not saying that it shouldn't have that, that's an  important component, but it should command a lot more of itself than that.

All I've seen to date is mountains of posts seeking technical help. There's no discussion on almost anything else. There is no sign of club meetings or club events. Any news about Toyota and its cars goes through seemingly unnoticed and uninterested. - And this is from a club which could potentially have one of the largest national membership bases.

From the viewpoint of a club initiate, I'm struggling to remain interested in it. Was it always this way?

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

Clubs really are what members make them.

Yes for the past 10 years or so, there has been a high incidence of members raising a query, and when the query is answered or not, whichever  is the case, they may not post again. A typical example is those who have recently experienced the AD engine head gasket issues outside of the goodwill help Toyota offered.

I'm also a member of another club dealing with a separate marque, and that's the same.

There is always some discussion going on - for example the recent discussion on Yaris v Prius economy, etc. The amount of discussion does vary from week to week, and events like the World Cup, Wimbledon, etc can have an effect on this.

As regards news, there have been four new model announcements this year - the 2019 Auris, 2019 Rav4, 2019 Camry and the 2018 Aygo facelift - , news on the forthcoming Supra, and news about production cessation of two models (Verso and Avensis), plus also news on changes to specs of existing models, etc. These have all had topics raised on Toyota Owners Club, either by members or moderators, and some incorporated into the News section.

As regards club events, as we deal with Toyotas across the board rather than a single model (eg the Supra) it is quite difficult. I'm not sure what the appetite is for club events given the relatively wide scope of models covered. Members are able to raise topics about specific events - eg Japfest, etc.

[Heidfirst]

9 hours ago, Supra_knight said:

There is no sign of club meetings or club events. 

when I first joined about 10 years ago there were Scottish TOC meets occasionally but they tended to mostly attract the MR2/Supra drivers or perhaps T Sports .i.e. enthusiast type cars - I always felt a bit odd turning up in a diesel Avensis estate.

As Toyota dropped those sports models & the remaining cars aged/were replaced by owners the meetings fell away. I suspect that there may well be meets for GT86/Subaru BRZs but through their model clubs.

People buying standard Auris/Avensis/Aygo etc. are largely buying with the head rather than heart & probably a very small % are car enthusiasts, they just want reliable transport.