Who's Number Three?

Toyota blew past the Chrysler Group and captured third place in new

That means, Chrysler, you aren't going to make it by competing with
GM, Ford, or the Japanese auto industry.

You need to establish a new niche. That of engineering par
excellence; reliability beyond reproach. I.O.W., start listening to
your customers.

All your feedback comes from your executive suite. Your engineers are
afraid to speak up or they'll be given the boot. You are afraid of a
two-way customer feedback channel (might get sued, right?, for good
ideas). What's left? In the good old days, car company executives
owned the company and created the products; try that now, go ahead and
give your C.E.O. a drafting board and tell him to design a good car.
He'll crap out on you, that's what.

You have been told already what's wrong with your cars. There's a
list a mile long, beginning with timing belts, head gasket troubles,
in-tank fuel pumps, plastic engine covers, 100 wire ignitions, rat's
nest engine compartments, impossible to service systems, lack of
redundancy, overweight iron, and much, much, more.

You need to start with a clean slate. Solicit advice and take heed.
Its out there for free. Why? Because those are your future
customers. Then hire some Russian aircraft engineers and get to work
to build decent cars you and their owners can be proud of.

I own one of your cars and its drek. Cheap, but drek. Cheap drek.

 

Part of the problem also is that many bought Chrysler products a few years
back since it was a US manufacturer...one of three options. Now they are a
foreign company, which causes probably 1/3 to 1/2 of their customer base
that won't buy a foreign car to move on to Ford or GM. Daimler made a bad
move buying Chrysler and the Chrysler execs at the time did a disservice to
the US car buying public to have allowed it to happen. Daimler, spin off
Chrysler into it's own US-owned company again...please!!

 

I don't doubt that is a factor. I'm a long-time Chrysler owner, having
owned a Chrysler or Jeep vehicle continuously since 1976. I now
consider Chrysler in the same vein as Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi, etc. (I
owned one Honda and won't make that mistake again), but not the same as
GM and Ford. I probably won't own a Ford again either, but have had
good luck with GM cars of late and wouldn't hesitate to buy another.
I'll probably replace my Grand Voyager with another Chyrsler van only
because the Sienna is too expensive, I won't buy a Honda on principle,
and the GM vans just aren't yet the equal of Chrysler in design.
However, if the next generation of the Venture catches up, I'd favor it
over a Chrysler product.


Matt

 

Business Week speculates 2 ways DC could break up:

1. DC declares bankruptcy for its Chrysler group.
2. DC sells Jeep and Dodge trucks to a buyer, and then sells the car business
for $1 to some "interested Chrysler" fans.

For the 2nd scenario, who needs another truck/SUV line? Not Ford (Ford,
Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Land Rover), not GM (Buick, Chevy, Cadillac, GMC,
Isuzu, Suzuki, Subaru), not Toyota, not Nissan. Honda maybe? Or a European
concern such as VW, or Renault? (That'd be ironic!)

 

What's the definition of "foreign?" Long before the DC merger/takeover,
we looked at buying a Dodge Stratus or a Mercury Mystique. In neither
case was the power train built in the USA: the Stratus's was built in
Japan, the Mystique's was built in Mexico.

Our '02 Chrysler 300M was built in Canada (as was the old Dodge Mirada
my late father-in-law owned -- all the while insisting that he would
never buy a foreign car). Isn't Canada foreign?

-=-
Alan

 

I think it has something to do with who heads up the board of directors or
makes the decisions.

I don't think any of the production workers in Japan or Mexico have the
ability to change the direction of the entire company. Guess what? The
Germans do.

This is a question of management and decision making; not outsourcing...

 

I personally have no problem with buying a vehicle made in Europe,
Canda, or Japan - because they have proper wages and standards of living
as well as environmental controls in place.

Unfortunately, it seems like the "domestic" makes are all being
built elsewhere in order to remain competetive.

That leaves Mitsubishi, Nissan, Honda, and a few smaller ones as
good choices because they are the only independant companies left.

 

It's even worse than that. Most people in the factories just south of the
border don't have electricity 24 hours a day(among other things).

How skilled can your workforce be when they spend half of their day
working and the other half trying to get food and basic necessities?

 

Fortunately, Chrysler got rid of that POS Mitsub*shy engine years ago,
replacing it with their home-grown 2.7L engine (which has its own set of
problems, but not nearly as rotten as the mitsu garbage was).

I don't count cars made in Mexico or Canada as "foreign." Chrysler has
been building cars in Canada for decades- my '66 Dodge Polara was built
in Windsor Ontario.

I will not buy a Japanese branded car even if "assembled" here in the
US- I want to buy cars where the engineering brainpower AND the assembly
force are north American.

As for whether Chrysler is now "foreign", I consider the car lines to be
very corrupted by Daimler, but the trucks (Jeep/Truck Engineering Group)
has remained very autonomous. I now have to do some background checking
to see if a Chrysler-branded vehicle is "really" still Chrysler or not.

Just my personal view of things.

 

And that was different exactly HOW before Chrysler put in plants down there?

And yet, Chrysler products assembled in Mexico (eg. the PT Cruiser and a
large fraction of the Ram trucks) have some of the best assembly quality
of any vehicle you can buy. And the pay that Chrysler is sending to
Mexico is raising the standard of living down there- its hardly "sweat
shop" labor, and hardly unskilled. I think you err in the assumption
that electricity is a "basic necessity" or that workers in Mexico are
unskilled simply because they live in an underdeveloped area.

 

Not if it's southern Ontario...

;-)
DAS

 

Independent of what? What do you mean?

And anyway, check out the links:

Mitsubishi - DC
http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0,,0-5-7145-1-9426-1-0-0-0-0-0-13-0-0-0
-0-0-0-0-0,00.html

Aside from that, DC owns 43% of Mitsubishi Truck & Bus
http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0,,0-5-7145-1-72589-1-0-0-0-0-0-13-0-0-
0-0-0-0-0-0,00.html

Nissan - Renault
http://www.renault.com/gb/groupe/alliances_p1.htm

In case you didn't know it, Renault appointed a Frenchman to sort out the
problems at Nissan.

Oh, and they have a share in Samsung Motors(KR) as well.


And what is the point you wish to make about Honda?

DAS

 

Why?

And anyway, aren't you glad that those pesky foreigners are losing money
hand-over-fist rather than good ol' Americans?

DAS
--

 

Just curious: why?

DAS

 

| What's the definition of "foreign?" Long before the DC merger/takeover,
| we looked at buying a Dodge Stratus or a Mercury Mystique. In neither
| case was the power train built in the USA: the Stratus's was built in
| Japan, the Mystique's was built in Mexico.
|
| Our '02 Chrysler 300M was built in Canada (as was the old Dodge Mirada
| my late father-in-law owned -- all the while insisting that he would
| never buy a foreign car). Isn't Canada foreign?
|
| -=-
| Alan

Where a company is headquartered is typically the criteria that defines it's
place of origin.

 

So that makes Jaguar an American company now? Along with Volvo, Land Rover,
Mazda, Saab, and Subaru?

 

So you take issue with all the Republicans, who still treat companies that
move their HQ to Bermuda or Aruba to avoid paying US taxes? They still want
those companies to be treated as American when it comes to giving them
contracts.

 

Hence, why it's so much easier to determine it by two things:
1: where the prodduct is manufactured(component source is secondary)
2: where the majority of their employees reside.

FYI, that makes Honda and Toyota "Domestic" for certain models, since
the entire line is made locally. Camry and Accords I know are U.S.
made, among others.

 

Would it not be better not to break one's head on such issues and buy what's
best for oneself, whatever the reasons?

DAS

 

| So you take issue with all the Republicans, who still treat companies that
| move their HQ to Bermuda or Aruba to avoid paying US taxes? They still
want
| those companies to be treated as American when it comes to giving them
| contracts.

The US government buys from anybody...case in point...a Chinese company now
making the Army berets and a scandavian company making their grenades. I
wish they wouldn't do that and that includes companies that relocate outside
of US borders. Of course, if the companies are taxed so high that they
can't compete internationally that they have to move or die, then that is a
issue also that needs to be fixed.