Chrysler to close So. St. Louis Plant

Just saw on CNNMoney that Chrysler will close the South St. Louis
plant.

Isn't this where the Grand Caravans and Town & Countrys are all
assembled?

-KM

 

June 30, 2008 - 3:25 pm ET
UPDATED: 6/30/08 4:30 p.m. EDT


Chrysler LLC plans to idle its St. Louis South minivan plant indefinitely,
effective Oct. 31. Chrysler is also cutting production at its St. Louis
North truck plant to one shift, effective Sept. 2.

But Chrysler co-president Tom LaSorda said Monday that it is not likely the
plant will reopen.

"We see no intent to rerun this plant. We're idling it and it will likely be
fully closed."

St. Louis South, in Fenton, Mo., has been making minivans on one shift and
employs about 1,500 workers. The St. Louis North plant, which had been
working on two shifts, will lose 900 jobs after the second shift ends.

St. Louis South makes three vehicles: the Chrysler Town and Country, the
Dodge Grand Caravan and the Chrysler Grand Voyager for Europe. Chrysler also
makes minivans at its Windsor, Ontario, assembly plant on three shifts. Two
of those shifts make Chrysler Town and Country and Dodge Grand Caravan
minivans. The third shift makes the Volkswagen Routan.

LaSorda said Chrysler had a difficult choice to make between Windsor and St.
Louis South: "When you look at one plant on three shifts and another on one,
we had no choice but to go with the volume plant. We have the capacity for
three shifts of work. So that's what we did. Those are the tough decisions
we have to make."

For the first five months of 2008, sales of the Chrysler Town & Country and
Dodge Grand Caravan have declined 13.4 percent and 34.6 percent
respectively.

Jim Press, Chrysler co-president, said economic factors drove Chrysler's
decision.

"Obviously we're at slow point. Consumer confidence has been hit by oil
prices and the credit crunch. It has created a situation if we want to meet
or exceed the targets we have to move responsibly. We're a market-driven
company and it's important to match production" to sales.

St. Louis lost out for political and economic reasons, said Glenn Kage Jr.,
financial secretary at UAW Local 136 representing workers at the St. Louis
North pickup plant.

Chrysler can make minivans in Windsor, Ontario, for $1,000 per vehicle less
than St. Louis South because of the savings to the company of Canada's
national health care system, Kage said.

St. Louis North also is at a disadvantage because it is smaller than its
counterpart pick-up assembly plant in Warren, Mich., Kage said. St. Louis
North can churn out only 41 pickups per hour at full capacity compared with
65 at Warren, he said. Politically, Chrysler was more willing to sacrifice a
plant in St. Louis far from Detroit than a plant like Warren or Windsor in
its own backyard, he said.

"Detroit's a national industrial hub and we're far away," he said.

Kage downplayed the influence of labor relations on the decision. St. Louis
North and South soundly defeated last fall's master contract agreement
between Chrysler and the UAW.

That defeat encouraged dissidents and forced a full-court lobbying effort at
crucial Detroit-area locals by UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and his
minions to narrowly pass the contract. One of the locals that passed the
agreement was Warren Truck.

"I wouldn't put too much into the negotiations," Kage said. The St. Louis
UAW locals already had key local operating agreements before the master
negotiations, granting flexibility in work rules and other factory
operations, he said.

Kage said Chrysler has spent about $300 million over the past two years on
plant improvements at St. Louis South and $500 million at St. Louis North.
He said he hoped the State of Missouri would audit the tax abatements
granted for the investments in light of job promises made for the factories.

 

Bummer- that's the plant where my '69 Coronet R/T was built.

 

Not surprising they are cutting back mini van production.
With the higher gas prices van demand must be down and the new Journey
short length mini van replacement is taking some of the van volume.

IMO the Journey isn't a crossover, but a short van.
The step down is more than a crossover, it's higher, and the spare is
stored exposed underneath in van fashion.

 

Maybe it's just my perception, but I have not seen very many 2008
Chrysler
Minivans on the road. We are almost to the end of the 2008 model
year.

I have been thinking of buying one, but if gasoline prices continue to
climb, I obviously
don't want to sink money into something I can't use.

-KM

 

They're out there and they still have the biggest share of the minivan
market. But the whole car market is WAY down.

I had a rental Caravan (08 model) a couple of weeks ago. It was a
definite step down from the Pacifica I had not long before, but on the
whole it wasn't nearly as van-like as previous minivans- much more like
the Pacifica. And that's a GOOD thing. One thing I really liked was that
the sliding door windows rolled down- Chrysler always did a better job
with small but useful innovations like that than ANY other minivan maker.

One gripe I had at first was HORRIBLE wind noise- but then my co-worker
and I realized that some doofus had installed the roof-rack bars
backward (pointy edge forward- the blunt edge is supposed to point
forward.) We flipped them around and it fixed all the wind noise
problems. I hope to God that the idiots at Avis don't do this to many of
them, or a whole lot of people would come away saying "I'm never buying
one of those things as long as I live!"

 

Uh, Toyota and Honda had this before Chrysler. Chrysler's only recent
innovations for minivans are the stow-n-go and swivel-n-go seats.

Now, if Chrysler had spent a few bucks and improved the handling,
steering, braking, and ride of the new minivans, they'd be competitive
with Toyota and Honda, given the seat innovations, but no. Still beam
rear axle. Handling and steering worse than previous models,
according to all tests. Cheap interiors (Chrysler seems to cheapen
out on the interiors of all their new models lately).

Why are they still putting a 175-hp engine into a large minivan? Why
team it up with the antiquated 4-sp auto, when economy cars for half
the price offer 5-speeds?

And the exterior styling -- were they trying to appeal to those in the
witness protection program? Because they sure are anonymous and
plain. Look back at especially the 2nd gen minivans -- those had nice
styling.

 

The handling was superb, no complaints there. Its a farquing VAN, its
not going to corner like a Viper no matter what you do to it.

Good- better for interior space and ruggedness. I'll know Chrysler
engineers have become irrelevant and the advertising toads are running
the company when the minivan gets an IRS. IRS makes good glossy brochure
advertising, but has absolutely no real-world benefit in a minivan and
has some definite drawbacks. Its bad enough they put an IFS on the
Liberty, but at least it still has a real beam rear axle that prevents
it from being 100% poseur like the Escape and RAV-4 (and, I might add,
the Compass and Patriot...)

Can't argue that, but then the rental I had was the absolute lowest trim
level available. And let me back up- the interior *looked* cheaply
styled, however the materials themselves felt very high-quality on close
inspection. Nary a squeak nor rattle nor buzz to be heard.

Only the second half of the question is valid to me. Early minivans had
a 100-HP engine option, its a VAN not a top-fuel dragster, there's
nothing wrong in offering a low-output economical engine provided it
actually achieves the goal of economy- which the transmission seems to
prevent it from doing. Give the 175 HP engine another gear and it might
actually beat the economy of higher power engines. As it is, it barely
matches them and often gets WORSE mileage in the real world. I could say
the same thing about offering a 2.7L/4-speed combo in the LX cars, where
the 253-HP 3.5/5-speed performs way better and gets the same or better
real-world fuel economy.

 

No, but it doesn't have to corner like a 50s DeSoto either. Ever try
an Odyssey?

Actually worse. It takes up space which could be used.

Absolutely false.

And Range Rover?

Hey, it's what ever tester has said.

But even on the upper levels, too much plastic, hard feel, sharp
edges, flimsy pieces...

Yes, but they weighed a LOT less too.

They should have put the Pacifica steering, brakes, and suspension in
the new minivans. And the 4.0 L sohc V6 only and 6-speed only.

 

Odyssey has had power windows in sliding doors for many years.

 

Try driving an Odyssey then get back to us. Also compare prices. With or
without rebates the Odyssey is thousands less.
Every other minivan in my neighborhood is an Odyssey. Chrysler and Toyota
make up the rest.

 

Polly want a cracker?

 

I'm not quite sure whether it's more amusing that (1) you and your
co-worker set out to fix a *rental* vehicle, (2) were able to diagnose
the wind-noise problem, (3) had the tools on hand to do it, or (4)
several days after your post, nobody else has thought any of these
things unusual enough to warrant mention.

 

Yes. the only discernable difference is on REALLY nasty washboard while
cornering rather fast.

No, it doesn't. It allows the use of leaf springs which intrude into the
below-seat area far less than A-arms or multi-link suspension required
for IRS. The axle itself is a drop-center crossbar and remains below the
floor pan and doesn't interfere with things like the wells for stow-n-go
seating, which IRS would.

The ultimate poseur offroad vehicle. Now if you'd said H1, you might
have a point. Of course the H1 has geared hubs and about a hundred other
things (including about a foot and a half of articulation) that make its
independent suspension offroadable, too.

I'll wager that the steering gear (generic Saginaw issue) and front
suspension of the Pacifica IS identical to the Caravoyager already. But
since the Pacifica has IRS, it can't have stow-n-go seating. A fair
trade in a sportier vehicle where the slight handling advantage is more
important than the lost stowage.

 

1) has two explanations. The first being- you KNOW me Joe. I'm not going
to ignore something like that. The second is that neither of us could
hear ourselves think nor could the passenger carry on a cell phone
conversation. It was enough to make us a little crazy. Uh, craziER. It
was pure self-preservation after the first 50 miles.

2) See first answer to #1. I'm a geek. So's my co-worker (maybe more
than I am- the xkcd strip about "bad shopping combinations" is on his
AND his wife's office doors.)

3) No tools. Release the thumbscrews that lock the bar sliders in place,
flip em, clamp 'em back down.

4) You're a geek too.

 

Ah, that's interesting. I was assuming tools would be needed.

So my daughter keeps telling me.

 

Yeah, leaf springs. Real 1950s. Hey, even Chrysler has seen that
light -- next year's Ram goes to rear coils.

Really? Why was Honda first with the disappearing third seat then?
In fact, every other minivan has IRS (except the dying Uplander) AND a
fold-in-the-floor third seat.

"Air suspension allowed variable ride height to suit on and off-road
conditions, and the crosslinking of the suspension elements achieved
similar axle articulation to that available with the previous live
axled generations. This was important to retain the off road
excellence and the desired on-road improvements that were core to the
marketing position of the new product." -- wikipedia

Huh? Stow-n-go refers to the middle seats, not the third one, the one
over the suspension.