Toyota U.S.A. to Create Parts Division : Autos: The bulk of the company’s $75-million investment will go toward building a distribution warehouse in Ontario, a move that will bring 400 jobs to the Southland economy.

Injecting 400 new jobs into the ailing Southland economy, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. said Tuesday that it will spend about $75.5 million to create a North American replacement parts division designed to speed deliveries from Japan.

The new division will also help Japan’s largest auto maker meet its promise of substantially boosting U.S. parts purchases in an effort to reduce the ballooning U.S. trade deficit with Japan.

The biggest chunk of the investment will be a $67-million warehouse in Ontario, to be built by 1996. The facility will be Toyota’s main replacement parts distribution center for the United States, Canada, Guam, Saipan and Puerto Rico. It will also export replacement parts to Europe and elsewhere for vehicles manufactured in the United States.

Toyota will also invest about $8 million in new parts-ordering and distribution systems.

The announcement reflects the growing independence of Toyota’s U.S. sales arm from its Japanese parent as the corporation’s Tokyo headquarters focuses more and more on its troubled home market.

Toyota now buys about $400 million a year in replacement parts from U.S. suppliers, or 42% of its total. With the new division, the company plans to increase its use of U.S.-sourced replacement parts to 50% of the total, or $750 million, by 1995.

Unlike U.S. auto makers--whose dealers compete with dozens of independent suppliers for the business of auto parts customers--Japanese auto makers and their dealers have until recently enjoyed a near-monopoly in the replacement part market. Accordingly, the prices for Japanese replacement parts traditionally have been higher than those for U.S.-brand cars.

But as the Japanese sell more cars here, the challenge from independent suppliers only grows.

Toyota’s new division will help the car maker be more competitive by reducing inventory costs and shortening Toyota distributors’ wait for replacement parts to about seven days, from 40.

The 800,000-square-foot Ontario warehouse will maintain an inventory of about 200,000 parts valued at more than $100 million.