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Toyota pushes dealers to add service bays.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Mark Rechtin, Donna Harris

Toyota is forcing dealers to make big investments in service bays, even though some say their service areas are underused. It's part of the company's growing pains as more Toyota vehicles in operation demand more service.

For Toyota Division, it is a huge issue. The number of its vehicles on the road has skyrocketed this decade, while the number of Toyota dealerships has stayed about the same.

Now the company is clamping down on dealers who fail to meet long-standing guidelines prescribing how many service bays each outlet must have.

Some dealers say Toyota is getting tough with stores that don't comply by shortening the length of renewed franchise agreements.

"Some guys are having to triple the size of their service departments because it's 50 percent of what it should be,'' said Mark Johnson, a Seattle-based dealership mergers and acquisitions consultant. "There is a lot of angst and pressure to spend money.''

One Toyota dealer says he renovated his store a few years ago, meeting all of the company's requirements. Now he says he has to spend an additional $1 million to add service stalls, even though his existing bays are underused. Instead...