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It is a well established way of sweating the manufacturing assets to cover as much of the market as possible - Honda/Acura, Nissan/Infiniti and of course Volkswagen, there are others of course. Hence you might see a Dacia Duster in one market and a Renault Duster in another. Toyota too swap labels on their products depending on the market. My brother in law living in Kenya had a Toyota Harrier, that we otherwise knew as a Lexus RX300.
The trick here is brand credibility, how far can you stretch a brand before the public perception breaks down. Ford are the classic middle of the road brand, and the aim to sell upmarket Granadas etc didn't cut it against BMW etc. So they went out and bought Jaguar in order to play in that market, but their DNA is cost management and they put a jaguar skin on a Mondeo and in the process badly affected the value and perception of the Jaguar brand.
Personally I am a great fan of Toyota thanks to their quality and reliability. They don't necessarily excel in any one area - price, luxury, handling etc but put it all together and they are great value for money.
I think they have just played a blinder with their offer of a ten year warranty provided you have your vehicle serviced at Toyota. They will know how reliable their cars are and can now play the value game. Drivers value and are prepared to pay, one way or another, for the warranty but Toyota know that on average it wont cost them much or anything.
Thanks to this new initiative I am now actively considering swapping my Toyota for a Lexus who offer this as well. With a ten year warranty the threat of big bills of Lexus proportions is significantly reduced.
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