You’d think with an owner by the name of Fiat, Chrysler would be knee-deep in small cars. Just the opposite is true. The Freep complains:
“Chrysler, for all of its recent improvements, is missing out on one of the biggest opportunities of the year: a chance to grab a larger slice of the small-car segment while Japanese automakers try to rebuild their car supplies after the March earthquake and tsunami that disrupted operations.”
Chrysler’s long-in-the-tooth small Caliber is losing sales. It is missing out on a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” (Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.com), presented by a confluence of rising gas prices and a disrupted supply of Japanese cars.
A new Caliber, based of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, is due in 2012. By that time, the Japanese will long have recovered. The Japanese makers are not waiting for the supply to catch up anyway. Says Anwyl at Edmunds:
“Japanese manufacturers have gotten more aggressive in terms adding to incentives; allowing incentivized vehicles to be ordered with delivery to be taken later; and pressure on dealers for margins — either with pre-discounted lease incentives or simply “talking down” higher prices.”
To pass the time while waiting for the new small Caliber, here a bergmannesque preview:
Until the Italian firepower arrives, the small Caliber has no other choice than dodgeing bullets.
Even though the Caliber has incredibly low sales numbers, I am still depressed that even that many people are deciding to buy them. (I realize there are probably quite a few fleet sales included) Do people cross shop cars or go on test drives anymore?
All those Civic and Corolla sales appear to indicate that no, no they don’t.
If you are looking for a compact car to keep for the next 10 years, you could hardly go wrong with a Civic. The only fair criticism you could level against it is that it’s more expensive than the Koreans, which hardly makes it a bad car. The Caliber on the other hand is a depressing little shitbox that can hardly get out of its own way and feels like it’s going to fall apart at any time.
I disagree. The Civic is slow, boring to drive, saddled with an old engine and transmission, a high price, and a demented and cheap feeling interior. Plus I find it strikingly ugly.
The Civic may be all of those things, yet the Caliber is worse still.
Maybe the cross-shopping is price-sensitive, as in:
Customer: I’ll take the cheapest car that anybody makes!
Dodge: Challenge accepted.
The caliber is actually about the right size and shape for my personal needs, and towing a small utility trailer with it won’t void the warranty. I also like CVTs, so that goes in its favor, and the roofrack options look decent as well.
One of my friends has a Caliber that I rode in the other night, and it seems to drive fine. Nothing special, but it perfectly competent. I wasn’t a fan of the tunnel vision, but I suppose it’s not too different from the Prius’ pillars, which don’t bother me.
But, the thing is &%*(&*(#$ ugly. Style isn’t enough to make me buy a car, but it is enough to make me hate a care enough not to buy it. I’m looking for a capable little family car that isn’t too big that I can hold on to for a decade or so — not some sort of temporary Snap-Tite/Transformers fashion-statement. I really really want to like the Caliber, but it’s just not happening. Hopefully the Alfa-based version will be more palatable.
As for cross-shopping the Caliber, cars of similar size/capability are the Toyota Matrix, and the now-deceased Pontiac Vibe. Also, the Subaru Forester and Impreza 5-door, though they’re a bit different. If it has a modest tow rating, maybe the C-Max will compete with this crowd, too? And, with less gawd-awful styling and more European handling, the Caliber will be truly competitive as well? I sure hope so, because I want to like the Caliber…
Many of the same people who complain that the Caliber is underpowered are the same people who think the Matrix had a great drivetrain. I drove both, and the Caliber was both funner to drive, and more powerful.
Amazing what brand perception can do to people’s opinions.
@Geo:
Actually, it was three weeks in that horrid little sled that formed my impression…brand perception had little to do with it.
@Luke42: Like you, I find the size, shape and mission of the Caliber to match my needs pretty well. I’m 6’1″ and about 270 lbs., and I fit in the Caliber comfortably, which is something I can’t really say about other cars in it’s class. The other contenders are the PT Cruiser, Chevy HHR, and the Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix cousins. I really don’t feel comfortable in the others, but they all make me claustrophobic, to be honest.
It’s been several years, but I drove a R/T and it was a fine little ride. Of course, this didn’t have the rental grade equipment. It sported the 2.4L (World Motor) 4cylinder and an automatic. I thought it quite competent. I know that sounds like damning with faint praise, but I’m going to drive the thing to work, not in the 24 Hours of LeMans…
What amuses me is that for all of the bad press the Caliber gets, in my neck of the woods (SWMI), they seem to be pricey for a used car. So much so, that it almost makes more sense to buy the car new.
But I’m too cheap for that…
How about the Patriot?
Similar to the Caliber, but better looking and offers more utility. Seeing as you are looking at Subarus, you can get AWD with the Jeep too.
I’m not sure I get the argument here. Essentially people are assuming that this new Fiat based compact won’t be be better or on par with the competition, just like the Caliber, so they are missing out on this key time in automotive history to obliterate the competition, just because they don’t have cars to sell?
I mean, sure, its easy to see that Chevy and Ford are getting conquest sales, but I think its safe to say that they are actually decent rides.
I am sure I’m not the only one that thinks that Honda didn’t try hard enough with the 2012 Civic, and thinks Toyota is nuts to think the “refresh” on the Corolla was a good enough idea.
If its any indication, using an overseas arem (as is the case with both domestic automakers) to design their small cars, they will make a competitive one, I see no reason why Fiat will squander this oppertunity to give Dodge a competitive small car.
Fiat isn’t good in making small cars but in making tiny cars which don’t sell in America.
ps. American small as in medium size European
Part of the reason that tiny cars don’t sell is because we haven’t had a chance to buy the good ones. As near as I could tell, the big-3 small car strategy was to make small cars that would “encourage” you to upgrade to their more expensive products….
Exhibit 1: Chevy Aveo (American brand, nevermind where it’s designed and made)
Exhibit 2: Mini Cooper (European brand, nevermind where it’s made)
The mini cooper is a nice small car.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but there’s a reason this is true: THE CAR SUCKS. It really does. I got stuck renting one last year (it was the one with all the “revisions” like the “upgraded” interior, natch) and it was atrocious. Dead steering? Check. Lousy seats? Check. Whiny engine? Yep. Bizarro-world CVT? You bet. The only good thing I could say about it is that it had a satellite radio. That’s it.
I guess the good news for the Pentastar boys is that there’s no place to go but up from here.
I’m a huge Chrysler fan and even I think the Caliber sucks! It’s probably the singel worst car Chrysler has EVER produced and I can say that with confidence.
I equate it to a sick and old dog that you have so much time, money, and emotion invested in it. You know it’s time to put him down, but you just can’t. That’s the Caliber… It’s cheap (feeling), ugly, too large (to be a true small car), the CVT is complete garbage, the sterring is numb, etc…
Chrysler seriously can not work fast enough to get its replacement to market.
Like I’ve said here before, ten or fifteen years from now people will look at those few Calibers that are left and those few Neons that are left, and won’t believe you when you tell them that the Caliber replaced the Neon instead of the other way around.
I had a Caliber rental a year or so ago, and I can honestly say, it’s the only time in my life I wished I was driving a Cobalt instead.
If Fiat wasn’t running the show, would Chrysler be selling a rebadged Mitsubishi Lancer? Mitsubishi doesn’t have much to lose and Chrysler doesn’t have a small car to sell.
The Caliber is a Mistsubishi Lancer.
Where’s my Caliber EVO?
@SVX Perlie:
No Evo, but they did make a Caliber SRT-4. Not exactly a success…I sampled one a few years back. The only good thing about it were the seats (SRT models have terrific sport seats). The massive HP and no AWD made for lots of torque-steer fun.
Then again, maybe they were just trying to channel the dearly departed Omni GLH Turbo, which (along with mid-’70s 911 Turbos) served splendidly as a reminder of how fragile human life can be.
This is news? We knew this when the 5 year plan was presented. Since no company, not even Toyota, can snap their fingers and produce an all new small car, Chrysler may miss out on the beginning of the small car boom. It has been no mystery that this left over Mitsubishi platform has got to go. Even though it’s not as bad as the pundits say, it’s too tarnished to resurrect. Even the name has to go.
Oh, it’s every bit as bad as the pundits say…
That is your opinion. Mine is that I rented one expecting it to be horrible, and it wasn’t. And this was before the interior upgrade so I knew the interior was not going to be up to par. A year later I rented a Nissan Sentra, and although the interior was much better, I can’t say that the ride and handling was any better. Maybe that was because both cars have the same transmission. Visibility was better in the Nissan but not as much as I thought it would be given that it was a sedan and not a SUV wannabe hatchback thingy like the Caliber.
If you want to see what Daimler-Benz did to Chrysler, just look at the Caliber. The Neon had been a decent and competitive product that could have been made better with further development. But Daimler (with ZERO experience in small cars) blew up Chrysler’s existing processes and caused the horrible Caliber to be born. This car has been wildly uncompetitive from the day it was introduced. Although the larger vehicles developed under the Daimler systems had some good things going for them, the smaller vehicles (Caliber and Sebring in particular) were just disasters.
The Fiat deal did not happen until- what- mid to late 09? There was only so much they could do in this short time, and I cannot second-guess Sergio for making the upper-end vehicles a higher priority. Besides, the others were farther along in planning, and Caliber was going to require a completely new platform. I think that Chrysler is moving as fast as it can here. I am hopeful that the company’s other new offerings are predictive of what we will see with the Caliber replacement.
Actually, the Caliber was a lousy car, but not a sales disaster at first…they sold over 100,000 of them in 2007. The thing wasn’t bereft of consumer appeal (it is a pretty versatile package, even if it drives like complete crap).
I think consumers at this end of the market are probably more sensitive than most to the fortunes of the brand – if you don’t have a whole lot of money to spend on a car, things like warranty (i.e., no unexpected repair costs) become very important, and a company that’s sinking isn’t perceived as being able to honor a warranty. That, I think, has a lot to do with how Toyota manages to sell the utterly mediocre Corolla as well as it does.
As Prius-driver, I agree with the thrust of your comment, even if I don’t have the same baggage you seem to.
Toyota’s service is very very good, and I happen to know one of the service managers at my local Toyota dealership through school. They drink a lot of customer-service kool-aid.
Many of Toyota’s cars are competent, reliable, and efficient .
I wouldn’t say they’re mediocre, but I would say that most of their models appeal to people who don’t want to spend any time thinking about their car. This is the “transportation appliance” crowd, who only owns a car because it’s a necessity in our society, not because they like cars.
Those are the kind of people who are buying Corollas and Yaris’ and who keep buying Toyotas because the people who service Toyotas do a great job supporting that (for a fee) over the long haul. It’s not for everyone, but if you want a car that you don’t have to think about, my friend will sell you one, and take care of it for you.
I’m gathering from your reaction that you’re not one of those people. I go back and forth, personally, which is why my wife drives the Prius (mostly) and I have a beat up old Ford pickup truck with almost 200k miles on it (and a bicycle, and a good pair of shoes, and a bus pass, and a winter coat).
@JP: I wouldn’t say Daimler has ZERO experience with small cars, far from it. They won’t sell their small cars in the US, something about keeping that ‘Mercedes mystique’ alive. I won’t disagree for a moment about how poorly Daimler treated Chrysler, however. They cheap-sh*t the development of US Chrysler vehicles and sucked the money out to keep the mother ship going, not caring for a moment about the Mopar operations. Morons.
And I have to take issue with folks giving Marchionne so much credit for the recent improvements in Chrysler products; the timeline isn’t there. These improvements were taking place in the late Cerebus period, probably when they realized they had few options with the company they bought and thought they could flip. Morons x 2.
I’m excited to see some more European cars coming over, even if they are rebadges. It’s long been time for a new regime to establish itself in the world of small cars. Since our indigenous companies were reluctant to bring over their European operations’ cars, Marchionne and company may ride to the rescue.
To it’s credit, Ford has been bringing over new product from Europe, and it seems to be selling well. I wish that the Astra hadn’t been so star crossed (pun intentional), but it looks like we’ll see some version of Astra as a Buick before long…
TTAC used to run a series about automakers’ deadly sins. While the Sebring gets a lot of attention, I think the failure to update the Neon (which had a solid core of very satisfied buyers) and then replace it with the Caliber while simultaneously developing two different Jeeps (Compass and Patriot) from the same platform was one of the worst mistakes DaimlerChrysler made.
Just image if the money spent on developing the Caliber and Compass was instead spent on a new Neon and on making the Patriot (the best of Trevor Creed’s triplets) a better product.
Heck, if they were to update the Omni Horizon, that’d be good.
Especially in a Shelby or GLH version.
Once again, just as they did during the C4C plan, the Arab oil embargo, the 2008 $4 gas bubble Chrysler is caught with their pants down, nothing to sell, the one small model they had, Caliber, is not even that good on gas to begin with and trails the competition in just about every aspect.
The Neon was rubbish and was a joke outside the US small gutless and gas hungry So the Caliber builds on that using crap Misubishi platforms no surprise its not much of a car the mitsi base was no good either
The neon wasn’t great but “small, gutless and gas hungry” are words that really don’t describe it. It’s 132-hp SOHC 2.0 wasn’t much fun at lower speeds, at least with the stock 3 speed automatic, but once you got that thing to 70 mph, it was eager and returned 40 mpg. Thanks to its “cab-forward” design the interior was roomier than many larger cars.
I know this has been said before but it bears repeating: Why can’t Fiat bring up the Linea from Brazil and rebadge it as a neon? The Linea is almost exactly the same width, same weight and a few inches taller and longer than the neon. With the 1.4t it should break 40 mpg. If Fiatsler did this, would it be the first time a Dodge was based on a GM chassis?
Linea probably fails to meet crash standards.
Heck, just bring over the Giulietta!