A TTAC reader writes: “Did you read the Wards AutoWorld article about how full Chrysler’s product pipeline is? So inaccurate. I had to throw away the magazine because of it. As a former product planner for Chrysler up until April of last year (on the Jeep WK (Grand Cherokee)), I can tell you the state of the business that I knew.
There was plenty of pinching on the interiors of the cars. We called it the “thousand dollar challenge;” which included reducing the amount of leather in the car seats (think lower back and where your butt is, but not the back of your thighs; all else vinyl). At the same time, unrealistic volumes were driving business decisions, with calculations for how JNAP [Jefferson North Assembly Plant] will be filled on three shifts for WK, endless management reviews and preparation for management reviews—leading up to a canceled product (CT, WC).
Chrysler tried to make product lines profitable by figuring out how to maximize profit by take rates and bundling. Eliminating an engine on the vehicle ultimately makes sense for reduction of complexity, but from a business case perspective, it is almost always negative (upcharge on the optional motor).
Now working in a different industry altogether, I get a sense of just how management-focused Chrysler had become. That is something the Germans can take credit for. There’s much more structure in the product development process, with the resultant inability to make a decision and endless preparation for meetings.
The “dream team” that Cerberus built was not. Specifically, the two Toyota execs were remedial. Jim Press was well liked internally, but Debra Meyer was not overly bright. She spoke and presented well, but she didn’t know cars.
I hear now that if you discuss the understaffing of ENVI relative to their proposed task you face retribution. I’ve also heard that the Jeep Patriot concept car/electric vehicle was nothing more than an interior (with cool cluster), Viper style wheels, and some other minor stuff. Nothing electric about it. Good PR tho.
They actually lost almost 35-40% of their staff in the Nov 26 buyout of white collars, not including the additional 10% they retired early (totaling then almost 50%). Of my product planning department, exactly none were left.
Brand Management and Product Planning have since been merged, an event that took until January to announce. They lost a month because they didn’t know who was going to be left, they didn’t tell people before they made a decision what was to be their future etc.
Look what happened to Mopar guys. They were mostly contract guys working for a 93 grade band supervisor. They outsourced all of the jobs to suppliers and transferred some of the contract guys over there.
XXXXXX XXXXXXX was one of the suppliers (plastic injection stuff among others). They told their guys that they were not able to work them the full 40 hours a week due to financial limitations (payments from Chrysler?) and that they’d get one day off a week (in addition to the 10% pay cut). THEN they said you need to work five days a week and simply book those comp days for the future (where you’ll never get to use them).
They really don’t have any idea of how to approach their business. They are building a WK (2- row only), a WD (3-row Dodge), an LX that the dealers council said needs to look more different than the existing model (the one that they showed in the filing to the government to get more dollars was the revamped one, the one before was even more vanilla but not much different), and no other product that I am aware of.
I heard (was not directly involved) that the D-segment quotes from Nissan were within single digit dollars of their projected internal costs to do it inside. With only 100 people on that platform working previously, they were definitely going outside. Now virtually all of those people are gone (retired or bought out). Normally 600–700 are required on a platform.
Internally, a platform’s profitability depends on how much overhead is assigned to it. The WK was over-assigned overhead, to the point where it was always negative. Usually it was based on sales + an arbitrary amount decided by management. The WK was always under water with the fully accounted system we used (DCAV). But I think it was an attempt to make the platform stretch for profitability (hence the unrealistic volumes).”
I have not worked in the automobile industry but I have worked in the consumer electronics industry. This whole story sounds familiar. Take one part corporate takeover add one part poor market another part bad management and you get voila – very little staff left to do the work. It’s very hard on the remaining staff and the work isn’t satisfying at all. And the final product isn’t very good. I would be very concerned about the ultimate viability of the organization.
It’s over for the Pentastar.
I get a sense of just how management focused Chrysler had become. That is something the Germans can take credit for.
Said it before and I will say it again….the Germans ruined that company. No argument about it.
@derm81: No doubt about it. They were on fire until then, now they’re just ashes in the wind.
———-
This article was a coroner’s summary, not a blog post, right?
I’m so sorry. Chrysler had the best and most enthusiastic folks I’d ever worked with. The successive owners squandered that talent. Now its scattered to the winds. Chrysler is just a ghost now. So so sad.
The only hope for survival now is to turn it into an engineering technology design and prove-out house but Cerberus is not interested, nor does it have a willing buyer. What a GD waste.
It sounds like Nardelli’s days at Home Depot.
Everywhere this fool goes companies fall apart.
If your reader is who he claims to be then I feel vindicated. I have been shouting to the rooftops that this new Grand Cherokee/Durango makes NO SENSE. There’s no way Chrysler is going to keep JNAP running at anywhere near capacity nor profitability with these monsters. This industry has too much capacity. The last thing we need is another 3-row SUV or bloated Jeep. Chrysler should have been working to pare Jeep down to Wrangler, Wrangler Unlimited and maybe a steel-roofed Wrangler (to replace the Liberty/GC) and a Wrangler-based lifestyle sport pickup all built in Toledo. Add a 4-cylinder option and get rid of the ridiculous oversized wheels. Aim for full capacity at 200,000 units or so — talk about profits.
Fits perfectly on Jon Stewart’s road, “Clusterf&$# to the Poorhouse.”
Problem was, these issues were solidly in place before Nardelli even stepped foot in the door. He/Cerberus just exacerbated the misery.
I’m so sorry. Chrysler had the best and most enthusiastic folks I’d ever worked with. The successive owners squandered that talent.
This.
I had an internship there and my father and his father both spent nearly 40 years working for Walter P. When the “merger of equals” happened, my dad knew it was over. Within 3 months, some of their best designers were gone as well as engineers. They were either scared away or shifted to designing products for the Germans.
The one thing my dad noticed that Germans are hellbent on job titles. Plus, there was a culture clash from the onset. The Germans had this air of superiority and they would put down a great deal of the designers.
If those salad-tossers were so great at what they did, they would have won the war.
THEN they said you need to work five days a week and simply book those comp days for the future (where you’ll never get to use them).
I don’t think that is even legal to do. Sounds like a violation of labor laws. I wonder if management is willing to trade 20% of their pay for future comp-time?
@ getacargetacheck:
I’d add a base Cherokee to your Jeep lineup, possibly a Comanche light truck based on the same platform. I would ice or run very limited GC production.
@ derm81:
Thanks for sharing your story. Ever have any thoughts on the historical ‘what if?’ involving Kerkorian and Iacocca’s attempted takeover of Chrysler in the late ’90s? If they’d managed it, do you think Chrysler would be better off at this point in time?
I love these Insider-spills-the-beans pieces. But I’d suggest writing out the acronyms and explaining the code letters. We’re not insiders, after all.
So am I right that specifying the amount of leather in the seats is a responsibility of a product planner? Could we have other examples of management overriding product planners’ decisions?
About allocating overhead: yes, when accounting gets corrupted, the bigwigs cost nothing at all but every product becomes a money-loser.
“… they said you need to work five days a week and simply book those comp days for the future (where you’ll never get to use them). … I don’t think that is even legal to do.” Presumably, the unlucky employees were exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act, thus vulnerable to such dirty dealing.
The more I read about it, the less I think Cerberus could have made a difference. Clearly Daimler didn’t know what to do with the company and ran it (or let it run itself) into the ground, and Cerberus stepped into a bigger mess than it realized. Chrysler probably should have been spun off and declared bankruptcy years ago.
Cerberus is a POS who cares not for it’s workers. Do canadians a favour and get lost and leave Canada. Offer your Canadian workers a package and GET LOST. Some of the workers DARE YOU TO LEAVE CANADA. I hate Chrysler so much and only wish the worst for a company who is nothing more then a vulture on the Canadian taxpayer , workers , suppliars , and anyone else they can exploit in their greedy plot. PLEASE GET OUT OF CANADA NOW! I DARE YOU!
Most of the criticisms I’m reading of Daimler management’s handling of Chrysler could also be levelled at Chrysler management’s handling of Simca and Rootes 30 years earlier. Sorry, but I can’t offer Chrysler any sympathy.
Ever have any thoughts on the historical ‘what if?’ involving Kerkorian and Iacocca’s attempted takeover of Chrysler in the late ’90s? If they’d managed it, do you think Chrysler would be better off at this point in time?
Well a few years later Eaton mentioned in the Det News that Chrysler would have been worse off. Lido said the opposite. I feel they wouldnt be in the trouble they are in. Chrysler didnt run itself into the ground, Daimler did that for them.
I was always curious as to what led Eaton to sell Chrysler to Daimler. I remember reading that he mentioned a “perfect storm” coming for Chrysler, and that is what lead him to dump it on the Germans. What was this huge problem building for Chrysler that lead Eaton just to wash his hands of the company?
I always have compared Cerberus’ purchase of Chrysler to that of BMW’s purchase of Rover. Each one thought the company had a promising future, but it wasn’t until after they had bought the company that they learned how deep the rot went. I bet that Cerberus was enticed into purchasing Chrysler by the promise of the new Caravan and Ram, only to realize after they purchased the company that they had gotten a turd with no future. It was then that they learned that Chrysler had a thoroughly shitty product line, no product development, nothing in the pipeline, and just the overall fact that Daimler gutted anything of value out of Chrysler.
I think the final nail in the coffin for Chrysler was when Cerberus booted Tom LaSorta and brought in Nardelli, because from reading the previous Suicide watches, it seemed that LaSorta had a good plan to fix Chrysler, but had no time to implement it. But, I feel kind of sorry for Nardelli. Chrysler is going to finally die from the abuse the Germans gave it, and Nardelli is going to be left holding the bag, and that will lead to him being falsely labeled as the CEO who killed Chrysler. He was set up to fail. You could have stuck Carlos Ghosn, Alan Mulally Sergio Marchionne, or even Lee Iacocca, and you would have gotten the same result as what you have now after a year and a half of Nardelli’s leadership. Nardelli hasn’t done anything to save the company because there is no company for him to save. Chrysler is pretty much just a shell.
No wonder that when I listen to the song “Our Town” from Cars, I think of Chrysler.
I’m always amazed at how these executives so adeptly manage to delude themselves. What does MBA stand for anyway? Magical Business Alchemy?
Ever have any thoughts on the historical ‘what if?’ involving Kerkorian and Iacocca’s attempted takeover of Chrysler in the late ’90s? If they’d managed it, do you think Chrysler would be better off at this point in time?
‘What if’ Rick Wagoner listened to Jerry York and ditched Hummer while it still had value, and paired down the other brands then hooked-up with Carlos Gohen. Thats the big ‘what if’.
Chryslers ‘what if’,is a hypothetic answer to a question few very few people give a shit about anymore!
Nardelli had plenty of time to fix the Sebring debacle and did nothing.
Looks like the $210 Million Home Depot paid Nardelli to go away was a bargain…
All we see aboved is the blame game. Can’t it just be this simple; chrysler fell behind in a visciously competitive industry. They did this at a time the Japanese were solidifying their gains and the Koreans were getting established. To stay around, Chrysler would have had to beat or match much of this competition. The buying public has cast their vote, and it’s not with Chrysler or GM. Chrysler was never as good as the pundits above like to think. It has had a boom and bust mentality for 50 years. Also,, it produced and competed in far more areas than it was competant in. Yes, it got better under Iacocca, but then began to slide in the late eighties. It revived in the nineties (so did everyone) but the 2000’s have not been kind to all auto makers and chrysler is obviously the weakest of the lot. You ask why Eaton was scared and sold out. He was afraid of the very down turn that we now have and that his company would be the weakest performer. Was Daimler who builds expensive cars up to the job of josting with the Japanese? Probably not. Everyone forgets the Japanese mfgs. have been paying their dues for some 40 years in America. They have listened, learned, sometimes got set back, but in the end they have a more solid matrix than any of the American three. If you think anyone comes in and dethrones these compeitors, get ready for the next scalps to fall.
@Dan, tell us how you really feel :)
Chrysler probably would be a lot stronger had they not had the merger of equals. Mercedes bled them dry, and they sent through the ringer to get the remaining blood. Cerberus had no idea what they were getting into… although the way they financed the whole deal was genius, and they stripped out the property from the corp. Chrysler is days away from chap 7. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how there can be a merger with Fiat, without dealing with the huge debt load, accounts payable, and pension obligations.
I´m curious; How did Mercedes ruined Chrysler?
Did they take all the money?
Eaton was an ex-GM executive, that should tell you something about his management acumen. And he walked away with over $50-million for his recommendation to sell. When Eaton came on the scene Chrysler was the most profitable US automaker, they were sitting on billions in cash, and they had a solid team in place. Daimler grabbed the cash and immediately put Chrysler on a road to ruin.
I too am wondering how can FIAT save Chrysler,if Daimler could not?
The CEO of FIAT is Canadian born and educated(U.of W), maybe he just wants to come home to North America eh?
All we see aboved is the blame game. Can’t it just be this simple; chrysler fell behind in a visciously competitive industry.
No, you are somewhat wrong. There were plenty of external factors that ruined Chrysler. Sure bad mgt decsions caused some of tghe mess but how can American mgt operate when they have had 70% of their top talent removed to work on Gerrman projects?
Explain that to me…I’d like to hear your opinion, since I was right there when it happened.
Me thinks ‘JNAP’ is an acronym for Jefferson North Assembly Plant … which I believe is the very last auto assembly plant operating within the city limits of Detroit. We are witnessing the slow, painful death of the last of the dinosaur.
A TTAC reader writes:
Hopefully when the dust settles someone will have the guts to sign their name to one of these ‘former insider’ pieces. This person claims that he/she now works in another industry altogether, so why the anonymity? I can think of only two reasons. One, they sincerely believe someone would retaliate against them for telling the truth about working at Chrysler, or two, they are lying. Either is possible but there’s a problem with the former; sadly, not one word is surprising to to even a casual observer of the auto industry. So why not sign the letter?
I hope for the sake of credibility that we will start putting some faces on these letters from the resistance.
THE problem is overall industry volume divided by too many manufactures. Has been the same problem for decades.
When was GM making the best cars? When they had massive volume in the 50s and 60s.
Unless American’s start buying 30M car a year, some manufactures have to go.
I just hope GM and Chrysler going away will be enough.
Hey Sean 362880: one reason former insiders might not want to sign their name is that their posts might violate non-disclosure agreements they may have signed as employees.
When was GM making the best cars?
When they didn’t have foreign competition that raised the bar.
Companies such as Toyota made far better cars, even when they had lower sales volumes. They didn’t need to have more scale to get better quality.
What counts is a commitment to build quality and reliability. The Japanese companies identified that as a weakness and used it to their advantage. They redefined customer expectations and won, and Detroit failed to respond adequately to the challenge.
We will be better off when we can just admit that the best Japanese companies won the battle by building a better vehicle. Until we can admit that the US companies just didn’t do as good of a job and need to do it better, with no excuses, we aren’t going to fix the problem at home.
This person claims that he/she now works in another industry altogether, so why the anonymity? I can think of only two reasons. One, they sincerely believe someone would retaliate against them for telling the truth about working at Chrysler, or two, they are lying.
Not many people are fond of an employee or prospective employee who complains about his former employer. That’s true, even if the employee was previously in a different industry.
It wouldn’t be wise to attach your name to something like this unless you’re retired or dead. I would stay anonymous, too, if it were me.
I don’t care if the name is there or not, as long as the story is accurate.
At least Mr Source and I share a disdain for the Grand Cherokee.
Geo. Levecque
Right now, Chrysler is in a race against time. Compared to the rest of the industry, they can’t even pretend to have the same engineering base as the rest of the industry, both in existing technologies and the means to create those technologies.
The only fields they are still competitive in (I define competitive as the ability to create a best-in-class) in big cars, such as the Ram, minivans, the LX siblings, V8’s, and (soon enough) V6’s. Even if, in theory, they could make it out of this downturn, the next gas price climb would demolish them, plain and simple.
So, the connection with Fiat will allow them to snag technology that would take them years to create otherwise in smaller vehicles.
Now, I’m not saying this plan will work, I’m just saying that this is what they’re trying to do.
I wonder how Eaton sleeps at night.
George, chrysler just lost the race against time. You are only in a race when you are rushing a new game changing product to market before the competiton. The last time chrysler did this was thirty years ago with the minivans. They have become a full ,product line company with one horse success stories on given years. ie. the 300 was a two year success, never to be improved or followed up upon. The minivan has been bested by both toyota and honda. But the real tragedy is that there is no more race. The pipeline is empty and the competitors are locking and loading with their next batch of new products. As to Fiat, can chrysler wait at least two years to bring out low profit econoboxes? Race over, thanks for the memories chrysler.
Great piece, I hope we continue to see more like it.
Jerry Weber nailed it with Eaton. Eaton knew the company didn’t have what it takes, even at its peak, to survive in the long term.
During the Lutz years they focused on styling and price. Quality was awful, by design. There was only so long they could continue with that strategy before it caught up with them.
Iacocca would have, if anything, made the situation worse. Iacocca didn’t realize it, but his personal taste never evolved past 1982. Lutz recognized this together with Iacocca’s inability to delegate, and couldn’t stand Iacocca as a result.
Of course, Lutz’s personal taste never evolved past 1998. Seems to happen to everyone at some point. But Lutz appears to delegate better than Iacocca did. The best thing he did while at Chrysler was empower the product teams to make many decisions that top managment makes at other companies.
One thing is not in doubt: Daimler managed to kill the few strengths Chrysler once had.
I spent a bit of time at Chrysler while in college in 2003. Even then, talking to the people working there, Daimler had chopped up the development teams. They didn’t seem too impressed with the way things were going. The biggest being they felt as if they were assigned work, but the German management had no intention of actually implementing much of it. Remember the whole sharing of parts and platforms? Should have been a pretty good fit. Dodge and Jeep were lower end, Chrysler somewhere in the middle, with Mercedes Benz filling out the top. Instead, they took what they wanted from Chrysler, then told them they didn’t want to “dilute” the Mercedes brand by sharing ANYTHING with Chrysler products. That was about the end of it. Well they did give them the old E Class architecture and the old-SLK platformed Crossfire just as they were introducing a new SLK.
They had a CHANCE with the 300. Car was on fire. All that was needed was to keep it genuinely fresh. Use it to build. Instead that car is going on 6 years without any sort of significant update, and the follow-ups to that were the turds known as Avenger and Sebring. They had a lot of good press and good will because of those LX cars, and blew it.
I feel for those left. I have friends and family. But you had to know this was going to happen at some point. They seemed to have life, but were struggling with billion dollar losses in 2003. Now look where we are. Even the BEST companies are going to have a big problem staying viable if we sit like this for awhile.
FYI. JNAP is Jefferson North Assembly Plant on E Jefferson and Connor on Detroit’s east side (maybe a few miles from Grosse Pointe Park). Built the Grand Cherokees and Commanders. Connor Avenue assembly where the Vipers are built are just a few miles north of JNAP. There is actually the GM Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant in Poletown that builds Buicks and Cadillacs. Otherwise, I think only those three are still assembling within Detroit city limits. Mound Road engine is behind JNAP. Detroit axle is still open on Lynch road (former Mopar muscle car assembly facility dating back to 1917). Other various big-component facilities are still around, but I think just those three are the only final assembly still there.
Its a shame. So many different reasons, there isn’t one particular thing. I do think this is a disturbing trend of not caring one bit about manufacturing in the US. A service-only economy simply will not be one where the US remains a global power in the world; politically or economically.
DPerkins:
“Eaton was an ex-GM executive, that should tell you something about his management acumen.”
You sir, get the Gold Star. It was Lee who picked Eaton to succeed him, because he so despised Lutz.
akear:
“I wonder how Eaton sleeps at night.”
I’ve wondered this too. If I were God I would sentence him to forever be taking his Mercedes car to a dealer for the same electrical malfuntion, over and over, only to be told each time that his car has “superior German engineering”.
rochskier:
“Thanks for sharing your story. Ever have any thoughts on the historical ‘what if?’ involving Kerkorian and Iacocca’s attempted takeover of Chrysler in the late ’90s? If they’d managed it, do you think Chrysler would be better off at this point in time?”
Well, like anything involving alternative history, that depends. Assuming Lee or York did not disrupt the product platform teams and piss the money away on silly aquisitions like Gulfstream, then yes things would be better. At one point in 2007 someone calculated that the 10 or so billion that Chrysler had in cash would have sustained it during the downtime so far AND paid for new product development. Exactly what it was designed to do. Mgt was actually forward thinking and proactive for a change. Chrysler would have been regarded like Ford is now or the Japanese. The only company to take their “SUV” profits and use them to develop new products, to quote the current meme from the NYT and others. This wasn’t rocket science. Everybody knew automakers “print” money when times are good. Everybody knew they lost huge sums when times were bad. The difference was that GM and Ford had way more access to lines of credit than Chrysler did.
A better ‘what if’ would be what if Lutz succeeded Iacocca? He would not have gone to GM. What would GM’s product look like now? Would the Malibu be as good as it is now? Would the Lambda’s be as good, would they even exist? It’s quite possible that only GM would be on life support.
To all those in the “Chrysler was the most profitable auto company in the 90’s with billions in the bank” camp. Do recall that at the time Chrysler was only a sales leader in the minivan. The Grand Cherokee was a profitable line but the Explorer was outselling it 2:1 or more. The Ram truck was popular but was still taking a back seat to the F-Series and Silverado trucks. All the “cab forward” LH sedans were selling only a fraction of the units compared to the Taurus, Accord and Camry sales titans of the 90’s. Even the Neon couldn’t match the units of a quite mediocre Ford Escort or Chevy Cavileer.
In the 90’s at their best point in the last 30 years Chrysler was still a distant 3rd place in the US market and was watching Toyota and other transplants gain more market each and every year. That’s a fact.
Even though Chrysler was supposedly “hot” at this time don’t forget that the ghosts underneath the sheet metal were starting to get exposed prior to the Daimler sale. My father’s company quit using Intrepids as company cars because they we piles of junk costing them too much to maintain. The bar of quality was never raised along with the new products. The products were left too long and went stale. Then instead of improving what they had Chrysler threw another hail mary on RWD large sedans, Hemi engines, etc. Meanwhile Toyota kept chugging along constantly improving their existing linup and eating more and more and more and more and more of Chrysler’s market each and every year.
Without a doubt in my mind nobody at Chrysler had what it would take to stop the Japanese even in the 1990’s hey days. Eaton was smart to sell out while the selling was good. He knew what the end game was and played his hand much better than I have done with my 401k. I don’t fault him for that. Nor do I fault lower level Chrysler engineers/designers. Truly the changes Chrysler needed to make needed to happen in the 1980’s or before. I think the 90’s were the dead cat bounce from the first bailout. This time the end is Ch 7. Good bye and good night.
200k-min,
Apparently you make the mistake of confusing market share with profitability. I can understand that if you been a GM fan. They were on top of their game when they had more market share than most auto companies combined. Therefore mkt share = profitability, except that it doesn’t. (By the way Chrysler’s mkt share GREW during the 90’s).
What you don’t understand is that the thing that really drove Chrysler’s profitability thru the roof and gave them the cash cushion that Dumbler so eagerly eyed was the manufacturing effiencies they gained. Chrysler was not only the most profitable automaker in the mid to late 90’s but the lowest cost producer as well. The two go together. Toyota had more efficient factories but they spent more money developing the platform. So Chrysler was making more $ per car it sold.
Case in point, both Ford and Chrysler developed a new compact/midsize platform in the 90’s. For Ford it was the Contour/Mystique/Mondeo (Europe). For Chrysler it was the Stratus/Cirrus/Breeze (“cloud cars”). Ford’s cost: about 6 billion according to Automotive News. Chrysler: 1.6 billion. Now, to be fair Ford’s included a new engine and transmission, and the Mondeo’s engineering might have been different for Eouropean requirements (I don’t know if it was), but that doesn’t account for the total difference. Fact is that Ford’s costs were way out of wack, but they didn’t care too much because they were swollen on SUV profits. Chrysler could not afford to waste money like that. Ford may not have made a profit on those cars. I remember reading how Ford canceled an all new Taurus. Although they didn’t say why it was because they didn’t have the money anymore. Instead we got the Taurus that they recently stopped building, a sad shadow of what the car used to be.
Everyone looks at the externals of Chrysler in 90’s: the eye catching designs, the new market niches (like PT Cruiser), but they don’t look at the changes that were made behind the scenes, the developement methodology (borrowed and modified from Honda), the supplier relations (also borrowed from the Japanese), and the pushing of responsibility and authority to the lowest levels possible.
Everyone looks at the externals of Chrysler in 90’s: the eye catching designs, the new market niches (like PT Cruiser), but they don’t look at the changes that were made behind the scenes
This is actually an important point. Native Chryslers designed in this period were actually, well, pretty decent in terms of reliability. You could, reasonably safely, have bought a PT or Neon and expected reasonble, if not Toyota/Honda-level, ownership experiences. They’d done real work on warranty performance, too.
They weren’t great, but they woke up just before Ford (~2003) and GM (who still hasn’t clued in). And then Mercedes came in and overturned the whole applecart.
psarhjinian,
Good point. All automakers have been making reliability improvements since the 90’s. Today Toyota is still ranked high but the gap has narrowed considerably. The difference between Toyota and any domestic make is something like 1.5 problems per car. If you live in fear of a trip to the dealer then I guess this is important.
derm81 :
April 4th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
If those salad-tossers were so great at what they did, they would have won the war.
————————————————
I agree. Adolf Hitler was not an anomaly. He was actually representing what was wrong with Germany.
Isn’t it ironic that the person who discovered relativity was a Jew? Had the Germans not been so arrogant, would they invent the atomic bomb first?
This is actually an important point. Native Chryslers designed in this period were actually, well, pretty decent in terms of reliability. You could, reasonably safely, have bought a PT or Neon and expected reasonble, if not Toyota/Honda-level, ownership experiences. They’d done real work on warranty performance, too.
I tell this very point to other people (specifically if they’re looking at older used cars) and they don’t believe me. The designs coming out of Chrysler at that time were very competitive, but they shot themselves in the foot when it came to costcutting and quality control.
Case in point, the headgasket issues on the “Neon” I4’s. How did they fix them? They switched multilayer steel headgaskets… Something they could have done to begin with, but didn’t.
Commander,
As you know it was Eaton who, like a true GM executive that he once was, had the head gaskets and the “donut” exhaust fastener changed on the Neon, against the wishes of the engineers – all to save $2 a car. The result was predictable. And yet they still made money with that car.
Wsn,
The bigger issue for Hitler and his command was that he counted on a short war. His scientists (Germany did have some very good technical people who weren’t Jewish) told him all about the atomic bomb. But he did not want to expend the resources needed because the war would be over before they could use it. Read The Virus House for the full story on Germany’s atomic weapons program.
psarhjinian :
“They weren’t great, but they woke up just before Ford (~2003) and GM (who still hasn’t clued in). And then Mercedes came in and overturned the whole applecart.”
My mom owned a 2003 Sable that was a piece of shit that was plagued with electrical gremlins of all sorts, and was slapped together with all the care of a Yugo. (The trunk sat half an inch lower than the rear quarter panel). So I would put Ford getting their shit together quality wise around mid-2004.
Quality takes sustained capital investment and focus. Ford, GM and Chrysler haven’t had the profits/cash flow required to maintain quality for decades.
Some of the stars aligned on some of the vehicles for certain years, but you had to pick carefully through the ruble for a gem.
I own 3 GM vehicles, all have been rock solid, but then again I’m not a typical car buyer.
Here’s what I don’t understand: with their engineering expertise, why did Daimler make Chrysler develop its small and medium size cars with Mitsubishi?
I just don’t understand the whole merger…was their intention to just gut Chrysler and then discard it?
FreedMike:
Yes.
“This is actually an important point. Native Chryslers designed in this period were actually, well, pretty decent in terms of reliability. You could, reasonably safely, have bought a PT or Neon and expected reasonble, if not Toyota/Honda-level, ownership experiences. They’d done real work on warranty performance, too.”
I’m not sure which bizarro universe those “decent” or “reasonable” Neons were sold in. I bought a brand-new ’95 Neon Sport Coupe as my first car after college, mainly because I had foolishly decided a new Neon was just as good as a used Honda Civic (at roughly the same price).
The Neon was loud, uncomfortable, harsh, and plasticky. At 8000 miles the fuel pump burned out in the parking lot at work. I finally sold it after just 3 yrs and 34000 miles, for less than half what I paid for it. The subsequent owner had to replace the fuel injectors (out-of-warranty), and in order to appease him I had to split the cost. (Never sell or buy a car with someone at work.)
I replaced the Neon with a ’96 Honda Accord, which already had over 2 yrs and 60000 miles on the clock. It was already better than the Neon, and I kept it for another 5 yrs and 90000 miles.
raj –
In fairness, you don’t hear stories like that much anymore about American cars, even Chryslers. The Neon was a piece of junk, but so were most other small cars of that vintage.
Nor are Hondas and Toyotas uniformally reliable; witness my friend’s 2002 Toyota Sienna (another Consumer Reports wet dream car), which has had something like six A/C compressors and two motors for the power side door.
My current daily driver is a 2005 Focus. I’ve had it for three and half years and 50,000 miles, and have driven the piss out of it, and the only maintenance I’ve needed to do was regularly scheduled stops, plus new tires and brake pads. The original radio went out, and the handbrake needed to be adjusted, but that’s it for unscheduled repairs, and both were handled under warranty.
Where the Focus falls short of the other cars I considered (Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Mazda 3) is in resale value, but considering that all its competitors stickered for around $21,000, but I got my Focus for a tick under $15,000 with the sport package and all the toys, the residual value is reasonable.
Where current American small cars fall short vis a vis the competition is interior material quality and intangibles like “feel.” In terms of build quality and reliability, though, they’re on a par with the competition.
Prediction: Ford’s upcoming Euro-sourced Fiesta and Focus will give Japan Inc. a run for its money.
rajagainstthemachine- You had a first year Neon.
Most were decent, some were poor. I knew a guy who had one that went to 135K or so then he traded it in on a Sebring.
“Case in point, the headgasket issues on the “Neon” I4’s. How did they fix them? They switched multilayer steel headgaskets… Something they could have done to begin with, but didn’t.”
Stuff like that happens a lot. In all industries.
Something must have been wrong with Honda transmissions circa 2001-2005 because a lot of them have failed.
Davey –
You mean, Hondas have had…GASP…reliability issues?
Couldn’t be…we know the Japanese build nothing but perfect cars.
Second stupid Question (see my LI-on stupid question #1): Chrysler is, hands down, the worst made, worst reliable car manufacturer on America’s highways today (doubt me? Anyone up for a 500 mile road trip in a Sebring?!!!). FIAT (Fix it Again Tomorrow) was chased out of America in 1988 because of its poor build quality (Fiat Stradda, Anyone?!!!).
Before we all pass the White Lightning Jug on this Shotgun Wedding of Chrysler-Fiat, has anyone considered what the kids will look like? I mean Worst made American Car (Bride) verses Formerly Worst made Car in America (Groom).
Chrysler is unsaveable with or without FIAT, hence C-7. Problem is…what happens WHEN Chrysler finally does go tits up? 1. ALL American Parts manufactures will be impacted—even BMW, Honda, Toyota. Take Windshields, for example—they’re North American MFG’d. No chrysler orders, no glass plants=Shortages for everyone 2. A Mortibund Chrysler will push GM over the edge–not just C-11; C-7 3. GM in bankruptcy/liquidation will drag Ford under (Remember—the reason Ford is not wooching money like GM/Chrysler has nothing to do with superior vision or products. Ford simply started cutting costs and hording capital and were plush when Black September 2008 hit. They will need a loan cum JUL/AUG. Like it or not, America has become a Service Economy and not a MFG Economy. The thing about Service Economies—a service can always be done better and cheaper elsewhere (Think of your girlfriend going to JiffyLube to change her oil vrs you doing it for a six pack and a roll in the hey). There will always be a need for superior products and countries which maintain their mfg base will always dominate service economy countries