For want of a nail, the battle was lost, and for want of a gear the plant was idled. The Chicago Tribune reports this week's cessation of activities at Chrysler's Belvidere assembly plant was due to a broken gear in a stamping press used to make body parts. Belvidere's boffins are taking the dies from the press to another location to try to get the lines moving while they effect repairs. Apparently, no replacement parts for the broken gears are available, and no one at The Crisis Corporation will give an estimate on how long the repairs will take. This is the third time the plant has been idled. Chrysler shut down the plant in January "to adjust inventory." Last week, the Plastech parts embargo idled lines. As several TTAC commentators have pointed out, Chrysler is not exactly hard pressed to get the presses pressing. At the beginning of this month, they had a 45-day supply of Calibers, a 75-day supply of Compass' and an 83-day supply of Patriots.
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I thought that normal supply was somewhere between 60 and 90 days worth. Chrysler seems to have found the right balance. Of course, they all could still be sitting in airport or parking lots, like the one on my campus.
45-day supply of Calibers? That number sounds Toyota-ish. Maybe someone with more time could look up their numbers.
Those supply numbers are actually on the low side for the Caliber(Autonews.com reports 47 days for the Caliber).
It could take quite some time to get replacement gears. The cardboard compactor at the grocery store I work at broke down in December. The part needed wasn’t availabe, so it had to be custom made. The estimated time to fix it was about 3 weeks. But, it took about 6 before the compactor was working again. So I’d expect at least a couple weeks before the gear is fixed.
Has Detroit fallen so far that a custom bit of metal can’t be manufactured overnight? Sad, if true.
Those numbers imply the Compass is selling better than the Patriot. Both have nasty interiors, but I would rate the Patriot as much more palatable. I wonder what gives?
picard234
Those numbers imply the Compass is selling better than the Patriot. Both have nasty interiors, but I would rate the Patriot as much more palatable. I wonder what gives?
Actually, they’re about neck-in-neck. In 2007 they sold 39,491 Compasses and 40,434 Patriots.