The cars that Chrysler is counting on

[PatS....]

"Chrysler is scrambling to revamp its product line. These are the vehicles that will be critical to its success."

Here's the list:

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/autos/0911/gallery.chrysler_comeback_plan/index.html

Sounds as though in a couple of years, all Chryslers and Dodges will simply be rebadged Fiats.

I wonder why they bothered with the stimulus billions to save an American company only to gut it out like a chicken??

Looks as though the Italians will gain the engineering and R & D jobs, not Americans.

[aero3113]

you guys see the recall on the chrysler 300 and challengers. Some cars left the factory without front spindle nut. They said the wheels can possibly fall off

http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/091103-Recall-Alert-Chrysler-300-Dodge-Challenger-Charger/

[P-12 Tommy]

Ahhhhhh..........the liquid lunch routine again!

Tom

[Frank Elder]

I'm not a big Ford fan, but at least they were healthy enough to gut it out.

[B-Watson]

"Chrysler is scrambling to revamp its product line. These are the vehicles that will be critical to its success."

Here's the list:

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/autos/0911/gallery.chrysler_comeback_plan/index.html

Sounds as though in a couple of years, all Chryslers and Dodges will simply be rebadged Fiats.

I wonder why they bothered with the stimulus billions to save an American company only to gut it out like a chicken??

Looks as though the Italians will gain the engineering and R & D jobs, not Americans.

Although the next generation of cars will be based on Fiat platforms, the personnel engineering and designing the vehicles for the American market will be Americans in Auburn Hills. The reason for the Fiat input now is the firm has neither the time nor the financial resources to tool new platforms from scratch. It will mean Chrysler will have to hire more people as the managers under Cerberus gutted Chrysler's development staff.

And let's face it, Chrysler desparately needs smaller cars to survive and it needs them now. Fiat has the platforms to work with and Chrysler will be able to get the new models to market in about 18 months, half the time if Chrysler did not have Fiat to turn to.

Without Fiat there would be no Chrysler today as neither the American government nor the Canadian government was willing to pump billions into Chrysler if they were to continue building the products they were in 2008.

Bill

Vancouver, BC

[greg g]

From what I have read Fiat is seeking waivers from the American market crash worthiness standards so they can bring over some of the smal stuff. Which if they do get around the standards, they will be allowed to sell them here knowing that they will not meet American standards. Which will probably really pi$$ of the folks from BMW (mini) Toyota (Yaris) Nissan (Versa), and some other makes (opel/Saturn) who had to spend Millions to get their $#!+ boxes to meet those same standards. This of course not withstanding ignorance of the American buyers who may not be aware they are buying waiverd products. Of course this will oly be a couple of years or so, so that they can be eventually retooled to be compliant. Hope nobody runs into anything in their Fiat 500 in the interim. Not a lotta crush zone there......

[Captain Neon]

Asking does not imply receiving. I can ask for a raise, but I probably won't get it.

[Dennis Hemingway]

What no Jeep Wrangler?

I still think they should bring back the Fiat Topolino 500 and put in a Dodge Hemi engine. To get something like this.

Dennis:eek:

[greg g]

I'm betting the bailout money they get it, and you will see non federal 500's blasting around sooner than later.

[chipsb3b]

I listened to 2.5 hrs. of the 7 hr. marathon that Sergio and team delivered to the press, etc. this past Wednesday.

My perspective is that of a Chrysler retiree who worked there 35 years through Townsend, Iacocca, Eaton and the Germans.

What caught my attention was the young but seasoned team of exec's that Sergio has assembled. Some worked for me and others I knew of while we worked together in International.

The ability to pull off the presented plans depends completely on these people. For me there is a contrast between this young group and the 77 year old guy at GM who would occasionally doze off after lunch at a 1 PM meeting when he worked at Chrysler.

It should be an interesting 3 or 4 years.

[greg g]

Grande Cherokee and some player to be named later smaller "jeep" on a Fiat Platform.

Commander, Liberty, Patriot, Compass, and Nitro are ari verdacci. Can't see them killing the Icon Wrangler but they haven;t been selling a lot of them lately.

Seeing the Nitro and liberty are built on the same line, just depends what pile o parts shows up on the trolley, and Caliber / Compass are basically the same platform, built on the same line. Nixing one noxes the other.

[B-Watson]

Grande Cherokee and some player to be named later smaller "jeep" on a Fiat Platform.

Commander, Liberty, Patriot, Compass, and Nitro are ari verdacci. Can't see them killing the Icon Wrangler but they haven;t been selling a lot of them lately.

Seeing the Nitro and liberty are built on the same line, just depends what pile o parts shows up on the trolley, and Caliber / Compass are basically the same platform, built on the same line. Nixing one noxes the other.

The Wrangler is staying as it is what Jeep is all about, according to the new management.

If the new group of people running Chrysler get everything together as they plan, Chrysler will survive. And I think we Mopar fans are in for some fun times.

Chrysler made a small profit in September so things appear to be going in the right direction. Same over at Ford.

Bill

Vancouver, BC

[Robert Horne]

What bothers me the most about Chrysler, is the dealers. Before I bought a Dodge Avenger for my wife, I went to many Dodge dealers. ALL the sales people were the most dishonest car salesman I have every know. I know sales people are there to make every $ they can, and I am trying to spend as little as possible, but for them to be completely dishonest for over 2 hours trying to get every $ they can, is just not right. Since all the Dodge dealers had the same dishonet tactics in this area, I believe this can hurt sales as much as not having good quality or desirable cars to sell. Anyway, the 2000 Avenger with the V6, can get 354 miles on 9.7 gallons. Wonder what the new econ cars will get, MPG.

[T120]

" The ability to pull off the presented plans depends completely on these people. For me there is a contrast between this young group and the 77 year old guy at GM who would occasionally doze off after lunch at a 1 PM meeting when he worked at Chrysler.

It should be an interesting 3 or 4 years."

....Some don't realize they may have passed their "best before" date

[Norm's Coupe]

What bothers me the most about Chrysler, is the dealers. Before I bought a Dodge Avenger for my wife, I went to many Dodge dealers. ALL the sales people were the most dishonest car salesman I have every know. I know sales people are there to make every $ they can, and I am trying to spend as little as possible, but for them to be completely dishonest for over 2 hours trying to get every $ they can, is just not right. Since all the Dodge dealers had the same dishonet tactics in this area, I believe this can hurt sales as much as not having good quality or desirable cars to sell. Anyway, the 2000 Avenger with the V6, can get 354 miles on 9.7 gallons. Wonder what the new econ cars will get, MPG.

Now, that statement about the sales people really gives me a good chuckle.:D But..........those same types of sales people are not confined to just Chrysler dealerships. You'll find them at any make car dealership. That said, there are some honest ones out there. They are not all that way.

You have to remember the car sales people usually don't get paid a real salary. They are normally paid a low weekly salary, plus commission. In addition, the salary is not a real salary in most cases. It's a draw against future commissions for their sales. What that means is. If they get paid $150 salary this week in salary and earn $300 in commissions. The $150 salary is then deducted from the $300. So........their check for that week is only $300, not $450, because they had to pay back the $150 draw against their commission. The $150 draw is only paid when they don't make any commissions that week. Now, if they go so many weeks without earning at least enough to pay back that $150 draw salary, they are usually let go. That's why you see so many ads in the classified ads each week for car sales people. They have a very high turn over rate. Any business that uses that type of pay system is usually encouraging that type of behavior of over selling the product. It's really not a good system in my view, but.....it does allow the business to hire many sales people at one time, because they really aren't paying those people.

[Fireball]

Quite interesting setup that Chrysler has no "word" on the issue, looks like Fiat is now pulling all the strings? I haven't heard a single change on Fiat lineup here in Europe due to merger, but suddenly no more Dodge where I live, no more Chrysler 300 either, no PT no Avenger Caliber or Jeep here. If they quit Viper, they'll regret, that performance part of the brand and image is not replacable by any Fiat based platform. It might be a different story with grocery getters though.

I found it interesting also that these posts here contain quite a little if any patriotism. I was under impression that more people are used to breath mother mopar air and would become more sentimental due to so dramatic takeover and cutting off models, but I quess we are all adults and more or less understand that there is not that many choices left. To have some Mopar still is better than nothing..duh?

Chevrolet here is long gone already, only Daewoos under bowtie logo, it really does not get more sad than that. I really really hope they won't start doing the same with Fiat/Chrysler Co. and end up with FiasCo imagevise. There's no coming back. As long as there is separate lineups it might be ok.

[Frank Elder]

FIASCO...now that is funny:D, even though the situation is not.

[Robert Horne]

Now' date=' that statement about the sales people really gives me a good chuckle.:D But..........those same types of sales people are not confined to just Chrysler dealerships. You'll find them at any make car dealership. That said, there are some honest ones out there. They are not all that way.

You have to remember the car sales people usually don't get paid a real salary. They are normally paid a low weekly salary, plus commission. In addition, the salary is not a real salary in most cases. It's a draw against future commissions for their sales. What that means is. If they get paid $150 salary this week in salary and earn $300 in commissions. The $150 salary is then deducted from the $300. So........their check for that week is only $300, not $450, because they had to pay back the $150 draw against their commission. The $150 draw is only paid when they don't make any commissions that week. Now, if they go so many weeks without earning at least enough to pay back that $150 draw salary, they are usually let go. That's why you see so many ads in the classified ads each week for car sales people. They have a very high turn over rate. Any business that uses that type of pay system is usually encouraging that type of behavior of over selling the product. It's really not a good system in my view, but.....it does allow the business to hire many sales people at one time, because they really aren't paying those people.[/quote']

What I ended up paying for the Avenger was $3900 less than what the starting price was. I was prepared with newpaper adds, and other documents from prior sales. The "lies" the sales person told me was one after another, after another. $399 document fees. (title),,,$864 for "special car finish protectant" (run it through the car wash).,,,,,pay tax on MSRP, rather than actual amount paid for car. One lie after another.

[greg g]

Never pay more then 85% of the cars sticker price,start with an offer based on 80% and work from there. Never buy any "extras" from the dealer. Under coating. protectant, extended warrentees, etc are all come ons designed to boost the profit for the dealership. At the dealer I worked at a 5.00 can of scotch gaurd, sprayed on by me, was a 150 dollar interior protectant package. Also negotiate with your bank or credit union before you go to the dealer, and have a financing offer locked in based on your trade/down payment, and finance rate for the amount you think you want to finance. Then tell the Finance guy at the dealership he needs to beat that deal in order to finance through the dealer. Selling financing is a lot more profitable than selling the car.

So if Robert's Avenger stickered at 22000 or so he did good.

[blueskies]

Hope nobody runs into anything in their Fiat 500 in the interim. Not a lotta crush zone there......

Saw this on Youtube...

Pete

[RHDSP15C]

There is no such thing as a merger, someone has to die, it's cannibalism in it's

worst form. The little one eats the big one and chokes on it's meal. Benz were

smart they sold off Chryslers' assets and bailed out before they could get really sick.

I was a second line executive with a large whitegoods manufacturer, we were

lean and mean until we "merged" with a smaller competitor, it was great, my salary doubled in two years, lot's of travel, nice hotels,wet lunches.

Then we started dropping product lines, our engineering standards were degraded and they even changed our part numbering system.

I went to so many meetings I didn't have time to do my work.

When I woke up to the nonsense our turnover had halved and I quit.

Two years later they "merged" with EMAB (electrolux) who systematically

destroyed what was left and sold the real estate. Now EMAB have left to make

their rubbish in China.

There is absolutely NO hope for Chrysler and I don't feel sorry, my father and I supported them from 1938 til 1980 when they sold out to the Japs.

[B-Watson]

There is no such thing as a merger, someone has to die, it's cannibalism in it's

worst form. The little one eats the big one and chokes on it's meal. Benz were

smart they sold off Chryslers' assets and bailed out before they could get really sick.

I was a second line executive with a large whitegoods manufacturer, we were

lean and mean until we "merged" with a smaller competitor, it was great, my salary doubled in two years, lot's of travel, nice hotels,wet lunches.

Then we started dropping product lines, our engineering standards were degraded and they even changed our part numbering system.

I went to so many meetings I didn't have time to do my work.

When I woke up to the nonsense our turnover had halved and I quit.

Two years later they "merged" with EMAB (electrolux) who systematically

destroyed what was left and sold the real estate. Now EMAB have left to make

their rubbish in China.

There is absolutely NO hope for Chrysler and I don't feel sorry, my father and I supported them from 1938 til 1980 when they sold out to the Japs.

Chrysler sold out to the Japs? How?

Bill

Vancouver, BC

[Rollie���]

He's from Australia.

[boxer_inv]

Not sure, but I think you're right about Chrysler in OZ being sold off to the Japs a long time ago. Mitsubishi? if I recall, but I may be wrong.... something along the lines of Chrysler - Talbot - Mitsubishi... Lots of re-branding of the same cars (both in OZ and NZ), and a lot of that stemmed from changes in the UK I think.

Some of the more 'mature' Aussies here will know more, cos I wasn't old enough to know

[boxer_inv]

Not sure, but I think you're right about Chrysler in OZ being sold off to the Japs a long time ago. Mitsubishi? if I recall, but I may be wrong.... something along the lines of Chrysler - Talbot - Mitsubishi... Lots of re-branding of the same cars (both in OZ and NZ), and a lot of that stemmed from changes in the UK I think.

Some of the more 'mature' Aussies here will know more, cos I wasn't old enough to know

This from the ALLPAR site from a google...hey...is that 'our' B-Watson?! Bill?

The Horizon as a "world car" (by Bill Watson)

Chrysler initially got a toe-hold in Simca when they bought Ford's 25% interest in 1957. But the Horizon went into production in the U.S. market in the summer of 1977, and Chrysler did not sell their European operation to Peugeot (cars) and Renault (trucks) until a year later in 1978.

The Horizon was meant to be Chrysler's world car, but the car only got as far as Poissy and Detroit. It did not even get to Ryton-on-Dunsmore in the U.K. as Chrysler let Chrysler U.K. tool a completely different vehicle. The Horizon was designed and engineered in France with torsion bar suspension, but Detroit re-engineered it with MacPerson struts for the North American market.

The Volkswagen 1.7-litre engine with a Chrysler-made head was used from the 1978 model year through 1983. 1983 was also the first year of the Peugeot-built 1.6-litre engine, and was last used in 1986. But I believe the Peugeot engine was, indeed, a Peugeot engine and not a Simca unit. The Simca engine was noted for high maintenance, needing such things as having the head retorqued after a few thousand miles. That is something a Japanese car owner would be used to, but no owner of a Chrysler, Ford or GM product would tolerate that back then.

Peugeot built the Horizon in Europe until about 1982, selling it initially as the Talbot Simca Horizon. The 1979 Talbot Simca Horizon even had the pentastar in the grille for a few months.

Chrysler Australia was sold to Mitsubishi in 1981. Chrysler in the U.S. at one point owned 30% or so of Mitsubishi, plus had a 50% interest in Diamond-Star Motors, a joint venture with Mitsubishi. But, in both cases, the need to break the connection was strictly financial. Chrysler needed the money. Chrysler, however, continued to work with Mitsubishi developing the Eagle Talon, Plymouth Laser, Dodge Avenger and Chrysler Sebring. The Colt was dropped as it was considered a potential rival for the Neon. When the Neon was first introduced, the 4-door sedan sold for less than the 4-door Colt.