janelane wrote:

Mike the Usurper wrote:

Chrysler LLC announced late Wednesday that it is stopping all vehicle production in the United States for at least a month.

All 30 of the carmaker's plants will close after the last shift on Friday, and employees will not be asked to return to work before Jan. 19.

wow...

Note that this only adds 2 weeks to their normal shutdown for the holidays.

Unsurprisingly, Chrysler blames the credit crunch for the slowdown, not the waning demand for crummy American cars. Given the amount of debt spending in the recent years, is it appropriate to assume that most of the people who can't get credit shouldn't get it anyway? Maybe "20-25%" of lost business is the new business-as-usual.

-janelane

Jesus Fucking Christ. How many times do we have to go through this? They don't make crummy cars! For 2008, JD Power ranked Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge 2 out of 5 stars for OVERALL INITIAL QUALITY (that's quality off of the line, not durability or resale value). You know who else ranked the same? Saab (GM), Mini (BMW), and Scion (Toyota). Hardly "crummy" brands. You know who ranked higher by one? BMW, Mercury (dead), Hummer (dead), Jaguar (dead), and Volkswagon, the marque that every "kill Detroit!" mofo likes to cite as the type of cars we should build in the US. The only brand to get 5/5 was Porsche. The next closest were all luxury brands like MB, Lexus, and even Acura didn't make 4/5.

If they built "crummy" cars, then no one would buy them. Jeep is the absolute strongest brand of automobile EVER. And it's not just Chrysler and the Detroit brands that are being affected. Toyota and Honda and Nissan are gasping for air too. Their sales are down 28% for the quarter! They just happen to have more cash on their balance sheets and a government who has already demonstrated over 30 years that they will gladly print up more money to give to them when times get tough.

Chrysler is dead. They cannot recover. Period. End of story. Even if the "bailout" happens. Why? Because they are not a global player any more. All their global capability left when Daimler divorced them. That was the whole point of the marriage to begin with. Export Chrysler styling and marketing poise with MB's engineering and global presence. Didn't work. And Chrysler got left holding the bag, along with Cerberus.

It is NOT because Detroit makes "crummy" cars.

RE: Chrysler shuts down all production - Dec. 17, 2008