In 1997, U.S. automakers relinquished the title of "best-selling car in America" to the Japanese brands– and never got it back. Now another market segment is on the verge of falling to the transplants. CNNMoney reports that unless Chrysler can rev-up sales of the Dodge Caravan, it will surrender its long-held position as America's most popular minivan to the Honda Odyssey. At the end of November, the Odyssey was about 3.5K units ahead of Caravan. If the current sales trend continues through December, it'll finish the year as sales champ. Chrysler explains the loss to the changeover to the new version this year. Oh, and reduced fleet sales. And that the minivan market is dwindling overall. Whatever the reason, rest assured they'll do everything they can to hang onto the "most popular minivan" title– even if they have to pile on incentives and dump inventory into the fleet market. And it still might not be enough.
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
Isn’t the new CR-V also in the run for the SUV sales title???
T&C & Caravan combined sales are still the leader by a wide margin. Just as the Silverado and Sierra are the true pickup platform leaders.
Caravan sales include about 40-50% fleet sales comapared to < 1% for the Odyssey. The resale value of a Caravan is abysmal losing 50% of its value in the first 3 years. The Caravan has lost the retail sales crown 3-4 years ago (this was most significant).
The minivan market is shrinking - even the Odyssey is down YTD by ~ 2%. However the Caravan is down ~20%. Both offer incentives - Honda ~ $1,200 and Caravan ~ 2,700 even on the brand new metal.
The new Caravan is very conservative and mimics its late 80's styling rather than the roundy styling of the previous versions.
It's been a while since I read the points I noted above. These were the stats / facts that I recall.
jaje :
T&C & Caravan combined sales are still the leader by a wide margin.
Chrysler doesn’t advertise “our minivan platform is the best selling minvan platform in America.” They specifically promote the Caravan as the minivan title holder. Therefore, if Odyssey sales go above Caravan, it’s the best selling minivan.
Caravan sales are down 21.4%, year to date. T&C sales are down 16.4%. Curiously, one factor in the declining Caravan sales is the T&C. Since Dodge discontinued the short wheelbase Caravan, there’s not much to differentiate the Caravan from the T&C in some trim levels. And now that they’re selling them in the same showrooms, the inter-brand cross-shopping will be even worse.
Among the transplants, Odyssey sales are down 2.3% and Toyota Sienna sales are down 14.5% YTD.
It’s the same argument Chevy makes – the Siverado / Sierra combination is America’s best selling truck – but the concept is too hard for 50% of Americans to understand (pretty sad imo).
Frank, I understand your reasoning about sales titles, but I have to agree with Jaje. The financial guys don’t care if you are number one in a brand, they care if you are making a profit and your total sales/market share.
To further muddy the waters, how many potential T&C buyers ended up buying a Pacifica instead? They are almost the same type of vehicle. No way to know for sure, but I bet it’s not a insignificant percentage.
I also wonder when Toyota Camry sales exceeded the combined sales of the Taurus and Sable since they are the same car essentially.
“how many potential T&C buyers ended up buying a Pacifica instead”
Not very many. The Pacifica was a flop.
Between them the Sienna and Odyssey kick Chrysler’s minivan but. True that they are from two different companies, but also true that for years neither company was in the minivan business when Chrysler dominated it.
In many ways the last two redesigns of the Chrsyler minivans have been steps backward in interior quality and space utilization. The third generation design of 1996-2000 was probably the high point in those regards.
Toyota and Honda keep investing in making their product better while Chrysler penny pinched itself to death.
Can a three headed dog bite itself?
A moot point for us, only the Marketing types and folks who skim car ads in Newsweek will be affected.
The Odyssey sells with little or no incentives…even if the Caravan keeps up the pace, Honda won ($$$) the Minivan battle many, many months ago.
JT, you haven’t answered the question. Yes the Pacifica didn’t set the market on fire. But it wasn’t a flop. My latest issue of Automotive News shows that even in this down market, and with the eminent discontiuation of the vehicle, Pacifica production as of 12/1 is 51,286 and 112,604 for the same period last year. By using sales figures from an earlier issue I am extrapolating sales of 65k units this year and 86k last year (sorry I can’t be more accurate). That’s a lot of potential minivan sales that could go to this vehicle. I never understood why they did this except that Daimler told them too.
To further the discussion, how will the introduction of the Dodge Journey affect Caravan sales? Will the Journey become the new short wheel base Caravan?
Windsword,
I think people buying Journeys will be getting out of Durangos and Grand Cherokees, more than Caravans.
On the issue of platform vs. model, Chrysler actually did a really smart thing when it introduced its new small car in 1994. It produced the Dodge Neon and Plymouth Neon. Same car, but for the badges. This allowed them to save millions by forgoing the “platform engineering” and redundant marketing campaigns.
I might suggest they do the same with the minivans. Call them all Caravan, regardless of whether the dealer is Chrysler or Dodge, and make T&C the high line trim.
SherbornSean –
I concur 100% on all three points.
As for minivan sales, in my all too frequent forays into the Enterprise lots, you’d swear I stumbled into a Chrysler minivan only retailer. The people in front of me at the checkout asked for lowest priced vehicle without mentioning class – and guess what they got?
Blautens,
Funny coincidence — I just got spam from Enterprise asking me to check out their used cars for sale. You guessed it: Caravans, Sebrings and (old design) Tauri.
One positive consequence of Chrysler stuffing every possible channel with unwanted minivans is the rise of a class of tradesmen I call “Caravan guys.” You see them at Home Depot loading stripped 12 year old Caravans and Voyagers with sheetrock and 2X4s.
These are the kind of guys I like hiring to work on my house — their rates are reasonable because they don’t have to make payments on $45K F-250’s.
If you want to crown them go ahead. I don’t know about anyone else but I have actually owned 2 caravans an 87 and a 97. After 10 years the 97 is starting to have its first problems. A starter and an alternator. Ironically, these are both Denso parts.
I think the fact these 12 year old vehicles are still being used and abused by low buck contractors is quite a compliment. I guess we all know where those early Toyota transplants are.
My old ’91 Grand Caravan AWDis now owned by my daughter.
Since having its transmission rebuilt and a new trans. computer installed in 2000, it hasn’t needed anything major.
It squeaks,creaks,rattles,eats prodigious amounts of gas, and is harder on tires and front brakes than either of the Voyagers that I owned previously (just this particular AWD,or do “they all do that”?), but the damn thing still looks good(except for some peeling paint on the sliding door),the upholstery has worn well, the carpets quickly wore down to a given point and pretty much haven’t gotten any worse in the past 6-7 years. It always starts and always runs.
I wonder if the Daimler/Cerberus junkers with their hollow middle-row floors and overall nasty cheapness, both inside and out, will even be around in significant numbers, by the early 2020s.
My parents’ ’92 Grand Caravan was so bad, they traded it in after 6 years and 5 transmissions.
Also, don’t even think of applying the parking brake, or you’d never get that thing unstuck.
They traded for a 98 Mazda MPV. Though it’s way too overweight for its engine output, it’s had only electrical issues that have not occurred in a long while. They still have it with about 150K on the odo.
Juniper, I was Caravan owner too. A 94 LE Sportwagon. I test drove the Mitsubishi engined 3.0 liter and the Chrylser 3.3 liter Grand Caravan. The 3.3 drove way better. So we got that one. It had infamous 4 spd auto and the built-in child seats. The tranny never gave us a problem (most of the early bugs had been fixed by then). Actually I can’t remember having to take it in for any warranty work at all, and I’m the kind of person that remembers everything that goes wrong or is done to my cars. I can still remember every warranty issue with my first new car purchase over 20 years ago.