Toyota has so far resisted expanding its dealer body in the wake of the Japanese automaker’s unprecedented climb up the sales charts. In eight years, Toyota has gone from having 15 million of its vehicles on the road to 22 million today. So far dealers have been able to keep up with the torrid sales pace, but at the service end, dealerships are busting at the seams. In an attempt to alleviate some of that pressure for landlocked dealers, Toyota has piloted off-site service centers and oil change centers. The early results show that the nine dealers in the pilot received significantly more customer pay (non-warranty) repairs than the average Toyota dealership, which translates into more money for the dealer.

For Toyota owners near dealers with satellite shops, this means your car or truck will be fixed in a more timely fashion, and 15,000-mile checkups won’t land you on a three-week waiting list. We totally understand why Toyota doesn’t want to have more dealerships, but the added service capacity is a no-brainer. Making Toyota owners wait weeks for needed repairs is just bad business.

Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler has revealed it is relying on demand from China, India and Russia to offset North America’s ailing car and truck market this year.

The luxury car maker said the North American market for cars and light trucks is likely to continue to suffer from the impact of falling house prices in the wake of the sub-prime crisis.

	Daimler is relying on China, India and Russia to drive sales

The group also expects the market in western Europe to remain flat, with sales of 14.8m units.

The news came as the group beat analysts expectations, reporting profits of 1.7bn euros (£1.3bn) for the fourth quarter.

Driven to despair, and to a loss, by its merger with Chrysler, Daimler finally offloaded the US car maker to private equity firm Cerberus Capital for £3.74bn last May, after a decade of miserable results.

Cost-cutting initiatives over the period included 9,700 job losses at Mercedes-Benz.

Still together this time last year, the merged group reported a loss of 12m euros. Minus Chrysler, which is best-known for the Jeep, Daimler beat analysts’ profits expectations of 1.31bn euros for the quarter.

The group’s shares rose almost 4pc to 55.85 euros in response today - their highest level in nearly a month. Daimler’s shares have tumbled 18pc this year, reducing its market cap to 55.1bn euros, amid growing concerns for the auto industry.

In a statement today, Daimler said: “Global growth in 2008 is once again expected to be primarily driven by the high growth rates of the major emerging markets, especially China, India and Russia.”

Commercial vehicles are likely to fare better, with Daimler expecting the North American truck market to recover in the second half of the year. The Stuttgart-based company said it expects a “moderate increase in revenue” from the division.

It added: “From today’s perspective, all operations should contribute to growth. (But) the regional focus of expansion is likely to be mainly in Asia and Eastern Europe.”

The group reported a net profit of 4bn euros for the year, despite a 2.2bn euro hit related to the sale of Chrysler.