Whither Goes Chrysler?

[petek]

It isn't that Mercedes doesn't build cheaper cars, it's that they don't sell them in the US in order to maintain the "luxury" car mystique. When I say "cheaper" I mean less expensive versions of their current lineup minus the leather seats, smaller engines, less options etc. The C class and the E Class were available in Europe with a wide array of engine choices, interiors that weren't/are not available in Canada and the US. They did and possibly still do sell a lower cost version in Canada and not the US, called the Classic, cloth seats, no alarm system, no power seats etc but pretty much everything else for thousands less and not available in the US.

 

[exploder3211]

Thanks for the info on the 2.7, did not know it was related to the 3.0 V6, which i always though was a better engine (a friend of mines parents have 3 caravans, all with a 3.0 V6 and all are fairly sturdy engines).. I do know that they replaced the valve guide seals at 140K or so... Hmmm...I knew that the 2.0 was similar to a mitsu engine as well, never relized the 2.4 was as well. I wonder where the 3.2 V6 comes in???

My family has always had Gm/Ford and had great luck with them. (My sister has a company 2005 Malibu with 118K and no issues at all) My Aunt and Mom had a Volvo and i am the true rebal having owned a Nissan and Toyota.

The main Chrsyler i will drive is a Dodge Caravan with the 3.3 V6. Thats it. Or maybe an older intrepid with 3.3 V6 in it, or an inline 6 Jeep Cherokee or Wrangler. Otherwise forget it.

 

[hydralique]

The Mercedes A-Class . . .

is the cheapest car they make under their own name. It was intended to compete with the higher-end VW Golfs, and now of course with the 1-series BMW. The A-Class and 1-Series aren't sold in the US. The A-Class looks to be a permenant part of the Mercedes lineup, but it is not a big seller because it is expensive for a small car and Mercedes doesn't appear to be interested in expanding the range beyond one four-door body style and a choice of four cylinder gas or diesel engines. I don't think a six is offered, although I could be wrong. Compare this with VWs enormous lineup of Golf platform cars from VW, Seat, and Skoda. There four, five, and six cylinder engines, two and four door sedans, convertibles, wagons, etc., and below this level VW has smaller cars like the Polo. So does Ford, Renault, Fiat, Honda, Toyota, etc. Mercedes has never been a player in this market, which is where Chrysler could be strong, assuming that they could manage to build a decent small car.

It's nice some people have had good experiences with Chrysler, but company is so hit-or-miss that I just wouldn't chance it with my money. That's why the resale value on their products tends to be so low, as who knows if a shiny out of warranty Chrysler is a great car or an unmaintainable money pit? I have had two friends with Dodge trucks in the last decade. One regularly pulls a large horse trailer all over the southwest loaded with show horses. It also tows old race and collectible cars frequently, and gets used for commuting too. It is dead reliable, better than the Ford it replaced. The other truck never tows anything, just does regular duty, and the transmission didn't last 70,000 miles, plus many, many smaller issues. Both are extremely well maintained per Dodge's recommendations at the dealer.

For what it's worth, my family's experience with trying to get parts for the Eagle included two Jeep/Eagle dealerships in Dallas, two in Los Angeles, and one Dodge dealer in Los Angeles. Some of the parts guys were quite nice, but they would tell you pretty much upfront that you couldn't expect them to have parts available in a timely manner. At least once a back-ordered warranty part turned out to be the wrong part in the right box, causing the tech to have the car for a whole day only to have to reinstall the defective part since noboy knew when the right part would actually arrive!

 

[sudsmaster]

The problem with Chrysler carrying the "great small car" segment for Daimler-Chrysler is that it has the international equation a bit backwards. Small cars sell well, and for a premium, in Europe. A $30,000 small car is not unusual there. Here, it would have to sell for $15,000 or less. Small cars just don't have the profit margin of larger cars, vans, and trucks. The underlying reason is the relatively cheap price of gas in the USA. Currently it's about $3 or less per gallon. In Europe is $6 or more. The distances, roads, parking spaces, and garages in Europe lend themselves to small cars, as well.

Incidentally, the original Neon has almost exactly the same foot print - wheelbase and track - as the Mercedes 190. While it is far less sophisticated, it still handles well enough to become a standard class in SCCA racing. I don't think it's coincidental that Chrysler looked to Europe for inspiration the basic dimensions of its smallest car. Unfortunately, while the Neon sold well enought, Chyrsler cut far too many corners in key areas for it to be the great car it could have been.

 

[hydralique]

Chrysler cutting corners?

LOL, when I was dealing with keeping the Eagle on the road I did a fair amount of research, and found that unlike most cars which gradually get more reliable each year as the manufacturer finds and fixes issues, it actually peaked in the middle of its' production span and then became much less reliable toward the end. Early cars had Bosch ABS which was reliable, late ones got Bendix which was a disaster. Early cars had no noticeable windshield wiper trouble, later ones had lots of problems there. I found out why at a salvage yard where I discovered that the early wiper motors had a cheap little plastic shield over the motor which protected them from rainwater falling through the cowl vents, while later ones didn't and as a result if the motor ends aren't sealed perfectly (and they aren't!)then the motor fills with water. The whole assembly is different so there is no installing the shield on a later car. Both the ABS issues and wiper problems were severe enough to merit being listed on the NHTSA website. Chrysler took a good solid design they inherited from AMC and proceeded to cut every corner they could until the result was an unmaintainable car.

It is true that in Europe there is a big market for well appointed and pricey small cars that doesn't exist here, but that is where the Mercedes A-Class lives. There is still a big market though for popularly priced small and medium sized cars. Things are changing here too because most Americans think $3.00 gas is outrageous even though it is really, really cheap by international standards. My daily driver is diesel so I don't watch gas prices carefully but I have been noticing it well over $3.00 recently. I really think we are about to see a replay of the '80s when many Americans did significantly reduce the size of their cars. Chrysler was saved then by the K-car, which was the right car at the right time, but now they've abandoned all small cars and bet their future on big trucks and medium to large sedans. They also did well in the '60s with the Valiant and Dart, even in an era of cheap fuel.

I certainly don't expect that Chrysler would become a manufacturer exclusively of small cars, but if they stick to only large models their viability as a global manufacturer is really compromised. They don't have the reputation for quality needed to build expensive large cars, and the market for cheap large cars is limited and will shrink greatly with rising fuel prices. That is just what is happening right now, and D-C should have seen it coming before they abandoned the Neon.

 

[agiflow]

Not to digress from this thread,...but i think when it came to small cars, GM was trying to do the same with Saturn. These cars have proven to be overall reliable...which something GM desperately needed, but were never the darlings of the likes of CU.

Before the Saturn i bought, i was considering the PT cruiser which was supposed to be a pretty reliable car also,...the looks of that car either turn your head or turn you off.

A car should look good from the outside and have a nice interior to match,...The big three are finally starting to see this after years of shitty interiors for the most part and the Cheap ass plastic interior of my saturn is a joke,...though it has had no major repairs other than fluid checks, brakes and a new battery in the nearly 6 years i have owned it.

I see so many newer chrysler vehicles all over the road lately,
at least their styling seems to be there,.. especially now that Ford has come back with the classic mustang and GM is going to resurrect the camaro. Chryler is also coming back with it's old muscle car the charger.

But i guess these are limited to appeal certain segments of the population who would want these cars and not getting down to a good family passenger car that the imports dominate and have made their bread and butter.

NA is catching up, but once again it is probably too little too late.

 

[sudsmaster]

Chrysler was actually planning on releasing a true luxury car at the end of the 20th century, but the "merger" with Benz put the kibosh on that. Anything that might detract from Mercedes sales was discouraged. If Chrysler is taken private, it's quite possible we could see a true luxury car with the Chrysler nameplate on it again, one that even might be competitive with Cadillac, Lincoln, and maybe even Mercedes and the rest of the Euro crowd.

As far as large trucks, it's interesting that Chrysler has never had a huge SUV along the lines of the Ford Expedition or Chevy Suburban, or the Hummer H2. The Durango was based on the mid-size Dakota truck platform - for better or worse. The Cherokee has never been a behemoth. This was a bit of a hit in terms of profit from big SUV sales, but these days with the huge SUV's languishing in car lots, it may just save Chrysler some bucks it so clearly needs.

The small car revolution in the USA took place in the 70's, after the long gas lines of the '73 Arab oil embargo. People gravitated towards existing American econoboxes - such as the Pinto and the Chevette - as well as already fuel efficient Japanese and European models. It's a bit ironic that many fuel-thirsty muscle cars from the late 60's and early 70's plummeted in value when gas got scarce. Now the some of the same cars are selling for millions in classic car auctions.

 

[hydralique]

LOL, a buddy of mine told me the story of his Shelby GT500KR convertible. He got it cheap in '74 as a student at the University of Pennsylvania because it was a rare, gas-guzzling convertible and nobody wanted it. He ran it for awhile, spent a lot of money on it, and finally decided it was just too expensive to run. An added incentive was applying for a much-needed student loan and being spotted driving the red Shelby by the loan officer!

After selling it he took the money and bought a nearly new '73 Fiat 850 Spider. That Fiat took him through grad school at Stanford, then was his daily driver for awhile in Detroit where he was an engineer at Chrysler. Eventually he tired of Detroit and relocated to LA, still with the 850. It hasn't been a daily driver in years, what with close to 200,000 miles on the clock, but is still used frequently on nice days. The Shelby would now be worth a lot of money, while the Fiat is worth nearly nothing, but my friend said he would never, ever want to go back to the Shelby.

I still remember Texas briefly having gas rationing in about '75 or '76 when I was in high school. It was based on even and odd license plate numbers. It didn't bother me much as I would just swap plates between my car and one of my parent's cars. Not exactly legal but they were all Citroen D-Series sedans and I was pretty sure if the cops stopped me they would be unable to tell my '69 from my dad's '67.

There was a lot of resistance to smaller cars in the '70s, just like you hear from the SUV crowd today. I even recall one '76 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham which wandered through north Dallas with custom plates (rare in Texas at the time) which proudly said "Big 'Un". The next year Cadillac downsized for the first time, and in '80 even Lincoln did. I've often wondered if the owner of that Fleetwood bought a '79 Lincoln when he saw the '80 models roll in! About the same time came the GM "X" cars, Chrysler K cars, and Ford's "Fox" platform. Chrysler even shrunk the Imperial, first with the Imperial coupe in '80 and then eventually with a stretched K car platform (even I admit that was tacky for an Imperial).

Regardless of the grumbles from the big-car crowd, these models pretty much killed off the classic big V-8 rear drive sedan as the standard American car, and changed it into a niche market item. It wasn't until the big SUVs of the '90s that Americans once again started to buy large numbers of 4000-5000 pound, eight cylinder vehicles for everyday use. I just think the pendulum is moving again, and with gas prices unlikely to ever go down significantly the big SUVs will be relegated to becoming niche vehicles as well. Can't be too soon for me, as I'm tired of parking in clearly labeled compact spaces and returning to find a Suburban on one side and a Navigator on the other.

 

[danemodsandy]

I Heard THAT!

"I'm tired of parking in clearly labeled compact spaces and returning to find a Suburban on one side and a Navigator on the other."

Yep, isn't it FUN trying to back out of a space that's completely walled in on both sides, into oncoming traffic that you cannot possibly see?

Bastards.

 

[hydralique]

Tight parking . . .

Oh, I've had worse than just trouble getting the car out of a parking space. Try getting into the car in the first place! Several years I had business with the City of Beverly Hills, and so parked my much loved '87 Fiat (Bertone) X1/9 in their parking garage. If you remember the X1/9, it is a very small car indeed, only 62 inches wide and 157 inches long, so it fits with room to spare in a compact space.

After concluding my business, I came back out to the garage only to find a Navigator on the left and a Range Rover on the right. I have no idea how the driver of the Range Rover exited; either it was a very, very small woman or someone who got out the right-hand door. I'm average size (6' and 185 lbs. at the time), and I couldn't get either door of the Fiat opened far enough to get inside. Part of the problem was that on either side of the Navgator and Range Rover were two more big cars, making it obvious that the drivers of the SUVs had picked spaces next to the Fiat because it was small enough to allow them to park over the white line. All of the spaces were clearly marked as compact spaces.

I might add this is a five story parking garage, and serves the entire City Hall complex, including the library and police, and the lower floors are most always full. I had business appointments and couldn't afford to sit and wait possibly for hours for the inconsiderate jerks to come back to their SUVs. After some thought I was able to get into my car by opening the passenger's door, holding onto the roof with my left hand, and reaching in with my right arm to put the key in the ignition so I could lower the right window. Then, by leaning on the right window sill, I entered feet first and gradually lowered myself into the passenger's seat. I don't think the door could open more than about six inches, just enough for my legs, and the way the window angles in toward the top made it essetial for it to be out of the way for the rest of me to enter. Then I had to crawl over the console and shifter, not easy in a 46 inch high car, but doable. Once that was done I backed out and then collected all my plans and paperwork which I had left on top of another car. I was late for my next appointment, and oh was I pissed off!

Now when I go to that garage I just immediately drive all the way up to the rooftop to avoid that kind of rudeness!

 

[petek]

I had something similar years ago. I had parked my Volvo at Safeway at the far far end of the parking lot where no cars were intentionally because it was new and I come back out and some arsehole had parked his Cadillac so close it took me forever to try and get in my car from the passenger side. I had an extremely bad back at the time and it was near impossible for me to get in the passenger side and wiggle my way over the console and shifter. Knowing I had good bumpers on that Volvo when I backed out I purposely scraped my bumper right down the side of his car that's how pissed off I was. And no I"m not sorry to this day because I have no idea why he chose to park within inches of mine when there was a 3/4 empty parking lot

 

[hydralique]

Penalty for bad parking!

I can't condone vandalism, but that story reminds me of how a friend punished someone for damaging his parked car. Happily for the sake of this thread, it involves a Chrysler as a main player.

Dean and I dated for awhile in college, and were both motorheads. His car was a fairly early Karmann Ghia, kind of ratty but of huge value to him. Nobody in his family was the least bit mechanical but he meddled around when he could with his mother's Squareback. At 16 he found the Ghia, barely running, for $100. With no supervision and little budget he gradually rebuilt the engine and did what he could on the body and paint. When he moved back to Houston in '81 he had a company car, but he wasn't supposed to use that for "recreational use", i.e. bar hopping. That seems funny to worry about now but he was 20, and so of course this was a problem! The Ghia was out of the question, as he wouldn't parallel park it due to the legendary fragility of the nose if tapped.

The solution was a '72 Chrysler New Yorker four-door hardtop. It needed a new carburetor and some window switches, but was a really clean one owner car for only $250. The huge four-barrel 440 cu. in. engine (7.2 liters) made it a real gas hog and thus worthless by '81. One Saturday night Dean came back from an evening out, and cruised through the parking lot of his apartment complex. Parking was tight at the complex, and he kept the Ghia in a reserved space. It was gone, however, and in its place was a '76 Oldsmobile Cutlass which Dean had never seen in the parking lot. In a panic he stopped the Chrysler and got out, only to see the Ghia on the lawn behind the Cutlass with a HUGE dent in the tail. It was evident what had happened, and it proved to be a very unwise move on the part of the Cutlass' owner.

Dean thought about calling the cops, but was too mad. So he started the Ghia and moved it off the lawn and parked it on the street. He then took the Chrysler and used it to push the Cutlass onto the lawn. Remember this was a nearly 4000 pound car! Then, as he told me "I was still so mad I turned that damned Cutlass sideways." I asked him how he did this since the Cutlass was locked and he couldn't turn the steering wheel to help manouver it. As he put it "Oh, I just put the nose of the Chrysler up against the door of the Cutlass and kept pushing the accelerator. At first the door of the Cutlass just caved in a little, but eventually the whole car moved sideways." Then he parked the Chrysler around the corner and went to sleep for a few hours, careful to set his alarm. In the morning he woke up, looked out the window, and the Cutlass was still there, so he called the apartment manager and reported that some obviously drunk person had parked a beat-up old car on the lawn. The manager had it towed . . .

Regardless of all Chrysler's foibles, nobody could ever claim that a 440 backed up with a 727 Torqueflite wasn't a strong combination!

 

[sudsmaster]

One of my motorcycling buddies had a parking story to relate.

He had parked, legally, on the street in Berkeley one evening. When he got done with dinner, he came back to find a car parked with its front bumper about an inch from the high side of the motorcycle. This mean he had to drag the 500 lb bike away from the car so he could right it, start it, and ride it away.

His revenge? He took a small pebble off the road, and then placed it inside the tire air valve stem cap. Then he screwed it back on the valve stem, until he heard a faint "hiss". After that he rode away, satisfied that somewhere down the road, an inconsiderate driver would be enjoying a flat tire...