Chrysler Suicide Watch 37: No Lease on Life

I think somebody is getting the G6 confused with the G8. The G6 is a
similar to last year's Chevy Malibu, which is derived from a platform
first used by Saab. Like the Malibu (not the current "new" Malibu),
with the Vortec 3.5L pushrod V-6 it can get some great fuel economy on
the highway (low to middle 30s, from my own experiences).

The G8 is the updated rwd platform which sired the Holden Monaro coupe
and Pontiac GTO and is also used in the GM Middle East orientation as
"Chevrolet Caprice". It comes in two trim equipment levels . . . the
"base" with the GM DOHC 3.6L V-6 and the "GT" with the 6.0L pushrod V-8.
I suspect that when Camaro production begins, the G8 production will
shift to the USA, plus resulting in a Chevy rwd version of that
platform.

For about 10 years now, there have been "experts" dickering back and
forth about which GM division will be next to be deleted.
Unfortunately, this same mindset is somewhat ignorant and not
marketing-based per se.

Key point not admitted to or seemingly understood: You CAN'T sell what
you don't have to sell. If you decrease what you can sell, you make
less money and have less market penetration to build a future customer
base with. In other words, it starts a downward spiral of sales and
related corporate profits. Still, there's something about that which
reminds me of the old saying about 17 year olds . . . "What part of 'NO'
don't you understand?" or "Quick! Leave home while you still know
everything!"

After GM deleted Oldsmobile, the next year's sales were down
siginificantly. Same when DC eliminated the few Plymouth models they
had left. Less product, less sales, less profits. Rocket science?

If you take the production and sales numbers of either Oldsmobile or
Plymouth individually, and then compare them to many import brands, it
becomes pretty evident that these name-brand import brands have less
volume and still manage to stay in business with a reasonably broad
product mix AND similar products via their companion luxury brands.
Audi might have some unique products from VW, but they also share an SUV
platform (Cayenne/Touareg). Nissan and Infinity are similar, with
product differentiation and styling differences.

Toyota has a product for every purse, but many don't admit to it that
way. When you mention General Motors in that orientation, you hear all
kinds of "That's a mistake. That doesn't work any more" dialogue. Few
people seem to understand that Nissan and Toyota both have SUV models
similar in size to the Chevy Tahoe or Dodge Durango (typically with less
fuel economy, but more horsepower).

There's also the situation of a plant having to have a certain amount of
production volume to make it pay for itself. Fewer models = less
production = less plants needed = layoffs. This is what makes the
Chrysler Aspen and Dodge Durango viable, just like the Sebring and
Avenger, plus the various Jeep and Dodge models on the same platform.

So many alleged marketing geniuses seem to believe that if you have,
say, $25K to spend, you look at price rather than what sort of
orientation that $25K will buy you in a vehicle--and they perceive you
only need ONE choice. One buyer might take that $25K and want the
luxury image of a Chrysler, another might want the sportier image of a
Dodge, and another might want an off-road/go anywhere image of a Jeep.
NOT the same customer by any means, but these alleged marketing geniuses
don't understand that. They look ONLY at the price point and not at
what that price point buys.

There have always been price overlaps between the various carlines of
Ford, GM, and Chrysler. This is NOT a bad thing! It gives MORE
customers MORE choices. It also allows one carline division to be a
guinea pig of sorts in trying some new option or engineering before it
goes corporate-wide. Olds and Buick did that for GM, in times past.
Dodge and Plymouth did it for Chrysler, while Chrysler and Imperial
quietly might have had similar things, but not trumpeted them. In other
words, the manufacturer gave the customer COMPELLING REASONS to purchase
a particular brand of vehicle rather than something else. No rocket
science, just good business sense!

In the 1980s, a main "compelling reason" for the GM brands was their
bells and whistles that were unique to GM vehicles. Things which might
have positioned GM as a technology leader as they seemed to ignore
refinement of the machinery.

In the realm of car companies, when a new "leader" comes online to "turn
things around", there usually is some cutting and whacking of things.
Kind of like a butcher as they slice and dice and cut a meat carcass to
prepare it for a meal. They all want to trim the fat, or most of it, to
make a better end product. But a good trim job followed by a poor
"cooking" job is a waste of good resources. What's to blame, the cook
or the meat?

When Cerberus bought controlling interest of Chrysler, it seemed to be a
good mix as they were already in the automotive vendor area. I could
see where, with the next generation of Chrysler vehicles, more of the
Cerberus entities could be the preferred suppliers which would build
business synergies, hopefully beneficially.

Then they brought in all of the high level Lexus and Toyota operatives.
All, from print accounts, wanting to "Rebuild an American Icon" (and
increase the value of their future worth, I suspect). Unfortunately,
Toyota and Lexus aren't really known for innovative and motivational
advertising or product. They do build nice automotive appliances, but
that's about all. Their appliances to have value and status, but that's
about all they say to me . . . other than "boring to drive". Their
appliances might never break, but they do require maintenance. IF they
break, few people complain about it, by observation.

Then Cerberus made a big deal of getting some of the last two Chrysler
generations of "dream team" advisors in the mix, which also sounded
good, but also seemed to indicate that the new imported operatives might
need some help in their future directions. All of this sounded good,
but then gas went up and other things went down.

Much of what GM and Chrysler have been doing is more about trimming
operating costs rather than building volume and sales with compelling
products. But then when GM got some great products out, other factors
resulted in these new highly-acclaimed products not generating the
increasing stock prices as the continue string of new products in the
1990s did for Chrysler. Each time a new product came out, Chrysler's
stock doubled. First with the "rounded" Ram, then with the LH cars the
next year, and so on until it had started at $8.00/share and ended at
close to $50.00/share in just a few years. Profits were great, too, as
they had shorter development times and better production pricing levels
while still selling the vehicles at decent price points.

The one mistake back then was that "Eagle" should have been "Plymouth"
with a nice line of smaller (Neon platform), midsize, and LH cars, plus
the requisite minivans.

Cerberus seems to have dusted off an earlier combination strategy of an
earlier Chrysler Corporation. That the plan is probably 20 years old
might seem to give it credibility, but that still doesn't mean it's
good. Nor was the way GM did "brand management"!

So, rather than continue the mindless speculation (and related alleged
justification!) of which carline might need to be eliminated from whose
product mix, judging solely on sales performance in an expanding
marketplace, it might be much more beneficial to look back and see what
went wrong and NOT do it again!

Saving money via corporate overhead cuts might help pay the bills
initially, but then you have go take those savings and reinvest them
BACK into new product or improving the existing products.

As possible credibility to the Toyota/Lexus marketing "imports" at
Cerberus/Chrysler, they have seemed to determine that the way the
imports have done their option group contents might not really work for
a USA brand vehicle. Via printed media, it was reported that they are
going to allow luxury package options to not be dependent upon engine
choices. For example, in the Sebring, they are trying to finalize that
you can get leather without the V-6, but with a 4 cylinder. Plus moving
more of the luxury options in to lower level cars and eliminating the
higher trim levels at the same time. This sort of product mix
simplification does make sense and also can improve the value to the
customer. I wonder when a 3rd interior color combination might be
added?

So much of modern vehicle design seems to be driven by taking production
costs out of the vehicles. No chrome trim? Limited interior color
choices? Options in a package only? Kind of like only having carpeted
floor mats in the higher level models (with a different trim code) and
not offering them in the same trim code as a less expensive model.
There are many things that can be done with little or no increase in
vehicle costs by letting some luxury options be available on the lesser
models. They come down the same assembly line anyway!

Most of the financial ills of the USA car companies might have been
there for quite some time, just that decreasing sales made them worse.
No body worried about retiree health insurance costs until sales
decreased a while back. Having more sales would have made that
$1500/vehicle cost be spread out over more vehicles and more related
profits.

If the USA vehicle manufacturers are building too many different
vehicles now, according to the "experts" again, how do they explain the
vast proliferation of import vehicles in the marketplace and their
successes? How do they explain the expansion of Toyota dealerships "in
the hinterlands" as they claim that USA brands should decrease their
number of dealerships? They seem to advocate that the USA brands should
scale things back (allegedly to make more profits!) for a smaller dealer
network as they don't tell Toyota or Suzuki or Kia or Hyundai to not
expand into these vacated markets?

So many unexplained or "spun out of control" double standards!

Regards,

C-BODY

As things have evolved, or at least we've become more aware of how the
car companies procure their parts, more work is done with suppliers than
with in-house entities. In the case of GM, many of their in-house
production of certain items was sold off and then these same new vendors
still supply the same parts to GM (i.e., American Axle). This has
seemed to be a trend in American manufacturing for several decades now.
I know it's happened in the aerospace situation, too. For some reason,
the new company can have lower operating costs and sell the parts
cheaper than they could make them in-house. Kind of like a reverse
economy of scale situation.

If Chrysler goes away as we know it, the EXISTING stock of parts in the
warehouse chains (sourced from vendors but packaged and sold as OEM
replacement parts for Chrysler vehicles), including crash parts, would
probably be sold to an entity that would continue producing them (under
license, most probably unless they bought those rights too) as long as
they had enough sales volume to justify it.

Honda might use two platforms to generate the Honda and Acura volume
vehicles, but is this as readily known to the general public as it was
that the Chrysler K-cars generated the many variations that they did?
Or that if you try to trace the lineage of an import platform (i.e.,
Nissan/Infinity cars), things can tend to get somewhat blurry as to
what's new and when it was "new" the first time.

There were many changes/improvements in the K-cars during their
production live. Many were under-the-skin and others were more obvious.

GM-Holden is very good at milking a particular platform into many
variations. Kind of like Chrysler having a basic C-body rwd platform
with three different wheelbase versions and a multitude of body styles.
Same with the A and B body platforms, too.

The Chrysler 3.5L is still a decent running motor, but it doesn't "feel"
as happy in the current LX cars as it did in the LH cars. In the first
300 Touring I rented, if you punched the throttle from a dead stop, it
kind of responded with "Are you SURE????" . . . at least until you
punched the traction control "OFF" and then it'd lay a little rubber.
Whereas, even with the traction control "ON", the LH cars would lay a
little rubber and not make any bones about leaving in a hurry. Same
horsepower, different feel and how to get there. Different orientations
in how the Germans wanted their traction controls to work rather than
how the Americans want it done.

In the 2005 Charger R/T I rented, it acted like I expected it to act.
Different traction control orientations which allowed for light
wheelspin for a good "feel" and sound experience. But then it seems
that the supplied Continental tires were not as grippy as some others
might have been.

Also, in the Magnums, they have 3.90 gears in them. Previously, the LH
cars had 3.64 final drive ratios (not the overall ratio in OD), similar
to what I believe the LX cars have with the 3.5L V-6.

In the 1960s, if you bought a Chevy BelAir or Biscayne with a 283 V-8,
it had 3.08 gears in it. If you bought a similar Impala, it had 3.36
gears in it. One orientation was that the "better" Impala had to run
better too. But if you consider that the Impalas usually had a little
better insulation and trim package, plus more optional extras, they
weighed more as a result. The 3.36 rear axle compensated for that extra
weight, too. Any loss in ultimate fuel economy kind of went with the
territory of having a fancier car.

In 2004, I spent several days in a Honda Accord 4 cylinder sedan. That
was the first time I'd done that, so I found it somewhat interesting to
find things none of the car magazines had mentioned. Like the distinct
lack of torque below 3000 rpm, which was covered with deeper ratios in
the transaxle, for example. It was a nice car, fitting a certain
demographic of customer that wanted a durable car. It had 25K miles of
rental service and still looked like it had less than that.

One reason for Chrysler's fleet business (typically law enforcement and
car rental companies) has to do with their reliability and durability
when compared to GM vehicles. Plymouth and Dodge got their start in the
police and taxi fleet business with their reliability and durability
attributes, plus performance and fuel economy in those uses. In those
times, when you saw a Chevy as a police car, you knew they didn't have
much crime in that area or had to do many high speed pursuits . . . by
observation.

When I flew in to Indy for the Mopar Nationals in the middle 1990s, on
the shuttle to the Thrifty car rental terminal, the station manager was
telling another station manager that they'd finally got rid of their
last GM car. They'd rented it to a family headed "out of town", he
mentioned. It got to the next state and the Turbo440 trans had crapped
out on it. They were glad to get back into a full Chrysler Corp fleet
(at that time, Thrifty and Dollar were units of Chrysler and had to
maintain a certain percentage of their fleet as Chrysler products).

In observing returning renters at the DFW Dollar car rental facility,
they ALL smiled when they were asked if the car was satisfactory. I
heard NO one say "No" or complain about them. At that time, there were
conflicts between the dealer body that wanted cars and the car rental
entities were getting them instead. What the dealers didn't understand
that was that the more people that rented Chrysler products and were
pleased with them meant THEY had more potential customers they could
sell Chrysler products too. The "demo drive" was already done, so the
selling should have been easier.

When one of the GM divisions says they are not going to sell as many
cars to the rental companies, the rental companies still have to have
vehicles to rent. If they say they aren't going to sell as many Pontiacs
to rental fleets, then the rental fleets buy Chevies or Buicks instead.
If they say they aren't going to sell as many Buicks, the rental fleets
get Pontiacs and Chevies to keep their product levels the same.

The other thing about car rental fleets is that those cars (like for the
major rental chains at the airports) are contracted at a certain cost
and then they go back through the dealer auctions as "program cars" and
end up on the dealers' used car lots. If the cars are popular on the
used car lots, the factories make a little more money that way. The
dealers get a vehicle that is popular so they make money, too.

We've all heard of how car rental vehicles are mistreated, but if a car
is used in car rental service, if it does NOT hold up, they will
probably not get any more of them. So, if a car's in the car rental
fleets, it's there because it makes them money with little downtime or
need for repairs. Just like a law enforcement vehicle being ready to go
rather than in the shop for mechanical repairs.

So, you can look at the (allegedly evil) fleet sales in different
orientations. The first transaction might not generate the same profit
that a sale to a franchised dealer might, but it generates profits in
other areas (for the manufacturer and dealer) later on. Where the
profits probably are NOT is in the law enforcement realm of things, but
if you consider the added visual exposure the cars get in that service,
it's more of an adverising sort of thing.

Chrylser did not do LH police cars as they didn't need the additional
sales volume. They were producing all they could and were selling ALL
of them. Some police agencies used them anyway. The real police
Intrepids didn't appear until later on. When they got the police
Chargers, many people were glad to see them, especially the officers
that knew of the Mopar reputation from earlier times--performance and
ruggedness and durability.

As for Honda, I do believe they manage their product lines better than
Toyota might. I'm not sure that their individual models are the huge
sales successes some might suspect. If they are, then their inventory
turnover at the dealerships must be phenominal as those dealerships
typically aren't that large or their inventories as large as similar USA
brand dealerships. Or perhaps it's their smaller waiting rooms for
service work that make 30 people sitting in there look like a full room?
I doubt they'll all getting oil changes . . .

Honda, as a vehicle manufacturer, might sell more vehicles overall than
Chrysler might, but I don't suspect their individual models hit quite
the same volume . . . just my gut suspicion without looking at the
numbers, from what I've seen, with all due respect. Honda's strength
seems to be in the smaller Civic and Accord models rather than the Acura
TLs and such.

In comparing the Accord sedan I rented to a similar Camry, the Honda
felt "crafted" rather than "assembled". It got about 33mpg average, in
mainly highway use, with a little city freeway driving, which I thought
was pretty decent.

As far as performance, though, I'd take the Camry 4 cylinder. Good
performance and decent fuel economy PLUS easy to work on under the
hood--just like a '66 Chrysler compared to a '66 Pontiac.

Enjoy!


C-BODY

Lloyd wrote:

> Chrysler buys most parts instead of making them, so there'd still be
> parts available.

But at what quality level?

A company in dire straits will put tremendous pressure for low cost on
their suppliers - an MBA sees low purchase price as a direct effect on
profit margin without understanding (or pretending not to understand due
to the short-sighted nature of modern business) one iota about
unintended consequences of making low purchase cost job 1.

When too much pressure is put on for low cost, the quality will suffer
regardless of how much b.s. faux quality programs you put in place to
"ensure quality". I worked for a supplier to Visteon and Delphi for 6
years in the 90's and early oughts, and saw the toll on quality that
Ford's mandating 5% each year out of the price to them took. Ultimately
when there's no more fat to take out of the supplier's overhead and
processes along with the requirement for more and more warm bodies on
the payroll to run and document the b.s. quality programs, the quality
"documentation" starts getting faked (witness Explorer/Firestone) as
well as the good faith between "team partners" being totally destroyed
(same can be said for GM/Delphi's Lopez-invented PICOS program).

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

wrote:

> ...Also, in the Magnums, they have 3.90 gears in them. Previously, the LH
> cars had 3.64 final drive ratios (not the overall ratio in OD), similar
> to what I believe the LX cars have with the 3.5L V-6.

My LH car FSM says 3.66 (minor point). There was the 3.89 (6.3%
diffence) variation on the 300M Special (offered in '02 and up) with the
HO 3.5L engine and *all* LH cars with the 2.7L engine (some Intrepids
and Concordes, all European M's) - '98 thru '04. The higher ratio
transfer sprockets swap was/is one of the most popular mods with owners
of the other LH cars.

> In the 1960s, if you bought a Chevy BelAir or Biscayne with a 283 V-8,
> it had 3.08 gears in it. If you bought a similar Impala, it had 3.36
> gears in it. One orientation was that the "better" Impala had to run
> better too. But if you consider that the Impalas usually had a little
> better insulation and trim package, plus more optional extras, they
> weighed more as a result. The 3.36 rear axle compensated for that extra
> weight, too. Any loss in ultimate fuel economy kind of went with the
> territory of having a fancier car...

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

We had a 94 LHS and 99 300M. Both great cars. Unfortunately there is not
a single Chrysler made right now that we would consider buying.

My wife drives a Camry Hybrid and gets at least 35 mpg in city and
highway.... better than EPA figures.

I drive an Odyssey which beats the former king of minivans in price, quality
and mileage.

On Jul 31, 1:36 am, wrote:
> As things have evolved, or at least we've become more aware of how the
> car companies procure their parts, more work is done with suppliers than
> with in-house entities. In the case of GM, many of their in-house
> production of certain items was sold off and then these same new vendors
> still supply the same parts to GM (i.e., American Axle). This has
> seemed to be a trend in American manufacturing for several decades now.
> I know it's happened in the aerospace situation, too. For some reason,
> the new company can have lower operating costs and sell the parts
> cheaper than they could make them in-house. Kind of like a reverse
> economy of scale situation.
>
> If Chrysler goes away as we know it, the EXISTING stock of parts in the
> warehouse chains (sourced from vendors but packaged and sold as OEM
> replacement parts for Chrysler vehicles), including crash parts, would
> probably be sold to an entity that would continue producing them (under
> license, most probably unless they bought those rights too) as long as
> they had enough sales volume to justify it.
>
> Honda might use two platforms to generate the Honda and Acura volume
> vehicles, but is this as readily known to the general public as it was
> that the Chrysler K-cars generated the many variations that they did?
> Or that if you try to trace the lineage of an import platform (i.e.,
> Nissan/Infinity cars), things can tend to get somewhat blurry as to
> what's new and when it was "new" the first time.
>
> There were many changes/improvements in the K-cars during their
> production live. Many were under-the-skin and others were more obvious.
>
> GM-Holden is very good at milking a particular platform into many
> variations. Kind of like Chrysler having a basic C-body rwd platform
> with three different wheelbase versions and a multitude of body styles.
> Same with the A and B body platforms, too.
>
> The Chrysler 3.5L is still a decent running motor, but it doesn't "feel"
> as happy in the current LX cars as it did in the LH cars. In the first
> 300 Touring I rented, if you punched the throttle from a dead stop, it
> kind of responded with "Are you SURE????" . . . at least until you
> punched the traction control "OFF" and then it'd lay a little rubber.
> Whereas, even with the traction control "ON", the LH cars would lay a
> little rubber and not make any bones about leaving in a hurry. Same
> horsepower, different feel and how to get there. Different orientations
> in how the Germans wanted their traction controls to work rather than
> how the Americans want it done.
>
> In the 2005 Charger R/T I rented, it acted like I expected it to act.
> Different traction control orientations which allowed for light
> wheelspin for a good "feel" and sound experience. But then it seems
> that the supplied Continental tires were not as grippy as some others
> might have been.
>
> Also, in the Magnums, they have 3.90 gears in them. Previously, the LH
> cars had 3.64 final drive ratios (not the overall ratio in OD), similar
> to what I believe the LX cars have with the 3.5L V-6.
>
> In the 1960s, if you bought a Chevy BelAir or Biscayne with a 283 V-8,
> it had 3.08 gears in it. If you bought a similar Impala, it had 3.36
> gears in it. One orientation was that the "better" Impala had to run
> better too. But if you consider that the Impalas usually had a little
> better insulation and trim package, plus more optional extras, they
> weighed more as a result. The 3.36 rear axle compensated for that extra
> weight, too. Any loss in ultimate fuel economy kind of went with the
> territory of having a fancier car.
>
> In 2004, I spent several days in a Honda Accord 4 cylinder sedan. That
> was the first time I'd done that, so I found it somewhat interesting to
> find things none of the car magazines had mentioned. Like the distinct
> lack of torque below 3000 rpm, which was covered with deeper ratios in
> the transaxle, for example. It was a nice car, fitting a certain
> demographic of customer that wanted a durable car. It had 25K miles of
> rental service and still looked like it had less than that.
>
> One reason for Chrysler's fleet business (typically law enforcement and
> car rental companies) has to do with their reliability and durability
> when compared to GM vehicles. Plymouth and Dodge got their start in the
> police and taxi fleet business with their reliability and durability
> attributes, plus performance and fuel economy in those uses. In those
> times, when you saw a Chevy as a police car, you knew they didn't have
> much crime in that area or had to do many high speed pursuits . . . by
> observation.
>
> When I flew in to Indy for the Mopar Nationals in the middle 1990s, on
> the shuttle to the Thrifty car rental terminal, the station manager was
> telling another station manager that they'd finally got rid of their
> last GM car. They'd rented it to a family headed "out of town", he
> mentioned. It got to the next state and the Turbo440 trans had crapped
> out on it. They were glad to get back into a full Chrysler Corp fleet
> (at that time, Thrifty and Dollar were units of Chrysler and had to
> maintain a certain percentage of their fleet as Chrysler products).
>
> In observing returning renters at the DFW Dollar car rental facility,
> they ALL smiled when they were asked if the car was satisfactory. I
> heard NO one say "No" or complain about them. At that time, there were
> conflicts between the dealer body that wanted cars and the car rental
> entities were getting them instead. What the dealers didn't understand
> that was that the more people that rented Chrysler products and were
> pleased with them meant THEY had more potential customers they could
> sell Chrysler products too. The "demo drive" was already done, so the
> selling should have been easier.
>
> When one of the GM divisions says they are not going to sell as many
> cars to the rental companies, the rental companies still have to have
> vehicles to rent. If they say they aren't going to sell as many Pontiacs
> to rental fleets, then the rental fleets buy Chevies or Buicks instead.
> If they say they aren't going to sell as many Buicks, the rental fleets
> get Pontiacs and Chevies to keep their product levels the same.
>
> The other thing about car rental fleets is that those cars (like for the
> major rental chains at the airports) are contracted at a certain cost
> and then they go back through the dealer auctions as "program cars" and
> end up on the dealers' used car lots. If the cars are popular on the
> used car lots, the factories make a little more money that way. The
> dealers get a vehicle that is popular so they make money, too.
>
> We've all heard of how car rental vehicles are mistreated, but if a car
> is used in car rental service, if it does NOT hold up, they will
> probably not get any more of them. So, if a car's in the car rental
> fleets, it's there because it makes them money with little downtime or
> need for repairs. Just like a law enforcement vehicle being ready to go
> rather than in the shop for mechanical repairs.
>
> So, you can look at the (allegedly evil) fleet sales in different
> orientations. The first transaction might not generate the same profit
> that a sale to a franchised dealer might, but it generates profits in
> other areas (for the manufacturer and dealer) later on. Where the
> profits probably are NOT is in the law enforcement realm of things, but
> if you consider the added visual exposure the cars get in that service,
> it's more of an adverising sort of thing.
>
> Chrylser did not do LH police cars as they didn't need the additional
> sales volume. They were producing all they could and were selling ALL
> of them. Some police agencies used them anyway. The real police
> Intrepids didn't appear until later on. When they got the police
> Chargers, many people were glad to see them, especially the officers
> that knew of the Mopar reputation from earlier times--performance and
> ruggedness and durability.
>
> As for Honda, I do believe they manage their product lines better than
> Toyota might. I'm not sure that their individual models are the huge
> sales successes some might suspect. If they are, then their inventory
> turnover at the dealerships must be phenominal as those dealerships
> typically aren't that large or their inventories as large as similar USA
> brand dealerships. Or perhaps it's their smaller waiting rooms for
> service work that make 30 people sitting in there look like a full room?
> I doubt they'll all getting oil changes . . .
>
> Honda, as a vehicle manufacturer, might sell more vehicles overall than
> Chrysler might, but I don't suspect their individual models hit quite
> the same volume . . . just my gut suspicion without looking at the
> numbers, from what I've seen, with all due respect. Honda's strength
> seems to be in the smaller Civic and Accord models rather than the Acura
> TLs and such.
>
> In comparing the Accord sedan I rented to a similar Camry, the Honda
> felt "crafted" rather than "assembled". It got about 33mpg average, in
> mainly highway use, with a little city freeway driving, which I thought
> was pretty decent.
>
> As far as performance, though, I'd take the Camry 4 cylinder. Good
> performance and decent fuel economy PLUS easy to work on under the
> hood--just like a '66 Chrysler compared to a '66 Pontiac.
>
> Enjoy!
>
> C-BODY

1. By "fleet sales" I meant mostly auto rental companies, where
Chrysler (and others) make almost no profit.

2. Infinity shares little with Nissan -- big QX56/Armada SUV is it.
Almost all Nissan cars are fwd (save the 350Z)l; every Infinity is
rwd.

3. I think people do realize the shared Honda platforms, and realize,
"Hey, the Accord is a good car, high quality and reliable, so the
Odyssey and Pilot probably are too."

4. One of the big problems, which Chrysler has admitted, is its
interiors. They're crappy. They look cheap, they feel cheap. One of
CR's test vehicles had wires hanging down under the dash. The seats
are uncomfortable (C/D wrote the Journey's leather seats felt like
they were stuffed with concrete). There are large panel gaps, flash
molding, exposed screws, flimsy feeling moving pieces... This is one
area where Honda (and VW) excel -- when you're sitting in a car you've
paid $20k for, you feel like you got something really worth it. And
the interior is where you spend most of your time, what you look at
most. The PT Cruiser has a nice interior -- what happened since? The
Avenger, Sebing, Caliber, Compass, Patriot, new minvans ... all panned
for their interiors.

5. Chrysler has to give buyers a reason to buy a car over a Honda or
Toyota. What reason would anyone have to buy a Caliber over a Corolla
or Civic? The Corolla and Civic get better mileage, ride better, have
better quality and reliability, have better-looking and higher-quality
interiors, proven resale value, etc. Why would anyone buy a Sebing
over a Camry or Accord? A Journey over a Highlander or Pilot?

>
>What happens if an automobile manufacturer sinks? Are existing owners
>left with no way to buy replacement parts that are not available on
>the aftermarket?
>
>-KM

Not to worry.
Every time an auto maker has gone belly up or was no longer imported,
someone has stepped in to supply the spare parts. Why? Because the
parts business is profitable.

When Studebaker stopped making cars in 1966, ALL parts were available
until the 1980's. Even today, Newman and Altman and others sell
Studebaker parts.

Parts are still available, with a few exceptions of mainly body parts,
for the AMC models made BEFORE the Chrysler buyout of AMC in 1988.

Yugo enthusiasts (yeah, I know that's hard to believe), can still get
parts for their cars through specialty suppliers.

And if one digs deep enough, Daewoo parts ARE available.

It just gets a little harder and one might have to resort to mail
order, once there no longer is a new car dealer left around for a
Marque.

I can easily get all the parts I need for my 1929 Ford Model A.

Doug

In article >,
Doug > wrote:

> Not to worry.
> Every time an auto maker has gone belly up or was no longer imported,
> someone has stepped in to supply the spare parts. Why? Because the
> parts business is profitable.
It the vehicle was made in reasonable volume to justify making new parts.
Low volume special models can be a problem, if the parts are unique.
>
> Yugo enthusiasts (yeah, I know that's hard to believe), can still get
> parts for their cars through specialty suppliers.
Most of the Yugos were scrapped before their parts were used up.

FWIW my understanding is that spares are not a big problem for Rover cars (a
British company that sank a while ago).

DAS

To send an e-mail directly replace "spam" with "schmetterling"
---
> wrote in message
...
> IF Chrysler "sinks", then the spare parts already in the warehouse chain
> would probably be sold (liquidated) to some vendor group who would then
> sell them to others. At various times over the years, Chrysler's MoPar
> brand was sold through auto parts jobbers just as AC-Delco and
> Motorcraft were, outside of the normal dealer supply chain. This could
> well be how things transpire if Chrysler/Cerberus close.
[...]

Art wrote:
>
> My wife drives a Camry Hybrid and gets at least 35 mpg in city and
> highway.... better than EPA figures.
>

I'm not impressed with the hybrids at all. I have a '94 Eclipse 2.0L
turbo that is putting out 240HP and gets me an average of 33 MPG per
tank. I'm an older guy so I tend to drive more reasonable, but I do like
to punch it alot. The best I have gotten so far on one tank is 35.2 MPG.
Pretty darm close to your Camry hybrid and it cost far less.

Honda had a Civic CVCC DX in the late 70s that got nearly 50 MPG on the
highway. So what happened? Are the car makers are milking us? Ever
wonder why hybrids cannot be recharged using electric power, but only
through the engine? Hmmm.

--
Gyz

If a man is speaking in the middle of the forest and there is no woman
around to hear him, is he still wrong?