SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Though Toyota certainly saw a drain in purchase intent during the midst of the "recall frenzy," interest in the brand has begun to rapidly recover in the days following the automaker's announcement of a fix, according to Edmunds.com.

Contrary to some other reports, Edmunds.com sees Toyota bouncing back even more quickly.

"Toyota purchase intent fell from 13.9 percent of Edmunds.com car shoppers to 9.7 percent during the height of the recall frenzy," stated Edmunds.com senior analyst David Tompkins.

"Toyota purchase intent is back to 11.8 percent and seems to be climbing steadily," he added.

That said, officials noted that some of the brand's competitors saw purchase intent growth "at Toyota's expense." 

For instance, Honda, which had the highest upward movement, showed a 1.1-percentage-point upswing.

There was a 0.8-point climb in purchase intent for Ford, while Hyundai and Mazda both experienced a 0.7-point increase in buyer interest.

Nissan was up 0.4 points, and Volkswagen saw its purchase intent improve 0.3 points. Meanwhile, Chevrolet and Subaru each showed 0.2-point gains.

Not to mention, the temporary halt of more than half the brand's models pushed monthly sales below six figures for the first time in over a decade, Edmunds.com analysts noted.

Despite this, Edmunds.com anticipates "a full recovery fairly quickly."

"The Toyota recall stopped sales for about 55 percent of the company's models, causing its monthly sales to drop below 100,000 for the first time since January 1999," explained Ray Zhou, Edmunds.com senior analyst.

"However, we expect that Toyota will make a full recovery fairly quickly," he continued. "And Toyota dealers may enjoy higher profit margins as they will have less inventory to offer because of the production stoppage while the company will likely boost demand through brand-building goodwill incentives." 

Impact on Toyota Trade-In Values

Continuing on, Edmunds.com also examined the current state of trade-in prices for affected Toyotas, noting dealers are seeing significant declines.

"Affected Toyotas' trade-ins have taken about a 10-percent hit in value," Edmunds.com analyst Joe Spina pointed out. "Dealers will take them at a lower price because of the uncertainty even though many of them will end up enjoying a higher profit margin when they sell them in a few weeks after the recall issue is resolved."

Spina added: "For unaffected vehicles, if there is an equal competitor in the marketplace — like the Honda Odyssey competes with the Toyota Sienna — there is as much as a 3-percent decrease in value for the Toyota today, but for vehicles without a direct competitor like the Toyota Tacoma we aren't seeing any change in value.

"Once the recall is resolved, Edmunds.com anticipates Toyota prices will rebound quickly," he concluded.