Up in the Air
I was just watching MSNBC’s coverage of the 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and heard some disturbing words from an auto industry analyst. The segment was looking at the health of the Big 3, and while the analysts were very optimistic about General Motors, and hopeful about Ford (most notably the new F-150), they were downright dreary about Chrysler.
Dodge is showing off the new Ram at the Detroit show, and while the truck looks every bit as good as the F-150, one of the industry analysts said that it offered “worst-in-class” interior fit-and-finish and materials quality (and it must be remembered that this truck was developed under Daimler’s guidance). These same analysts went on to predicted that Chrysler would be up for sale sometime in 2008, and that perhaps we might see a Ford-Chrysler corporation.
Now, anytime a talking head on the news starts predicting doom and gloom, I take it with a grain of salt. It’s hard to to believe that Cerberus Group would unload Chrysler so quickly, but then perhaps the market is shifting more quickly than anyone could have expected. If you have plans to add new Dodge Rams to your fleet, you might want to buy them sooner than later.
January 21st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
We introduced a new era for Dodge. We rolled off the first ambulances built on Dodge chassis and approved by KKK 1822 E Federal Government standards committee. The last ambulance was built in 1945.
We are getting twice the fuel mileage as chevy and ford and have more room under the hood. The 5.7 was mated with the euro 6 automatic trans and was equipped with a jake brake for our mountains and assisting with sudden stopping requirements.
The ford 6.0 was costing my fleet 3 to 5K per month in emission and hard parts per vehicle. After 18 years of ford my fleet has a new look. We will be phasing out the ford over the next year. Why did they get rid of their 7.3? I was averaging 280k per engine. The 6.0 I was lucky to get 130k per engine. I averaged one major repair per vehicle per month. Our fleet does over million miles each year.