Analysts: Chrysler won't survive, even with Gov't bailout.

Isn't Ford one of the biggest sellers over in Europe? Likewise Opel/Vauxhall?
 
Spectre said:
Actually... there is a growing pile of evidence that Mercedes bought Chrysler (which was an undervalued stock) to raid the big cash supply and milk the company for all they could get. They actually made the company *less* flexible and forced all decisions to be approved "after appropriate study" by the German HQ. They threw away the unique and strange partnership the UAW workers there actually had with Chrysler. Unlike any other Mercedes division, when Chrysler wanted to use a Mercedes part in a car, they had to pay full price for it to Mercedes, yet the reverse was not true. And so on and so forth.

Mercedes is probably responsible for 80% of the mess that Chrysler is in right now.
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I must admit I'm not really familiar with all the facts but somehow I have always mistrusted "conspiracy theories" and refuse to believe that a sane automaker like Mercedes would go into a merger with that kind of intention. After all, Mercedes, too, went out damaged of that. The stocks have been down ever since and there are talks about Daimler being a possible takeover candidate...

Spectre said:
Isn't Ford one of the biggest sellers over in Europe? Likewise Opel/Vauxhall?
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Anyone correct me if I'm wrong but overall Ford is No. 2 in Europe after Volkswagen AG, while Opel/Vauxhall is No. 3. It varies from country to country of course, since France (Renault, PSA) and Italy (Fiat) have strong local car makers who dominate the home markets but are not so strong abroad.
 
Spectre said:
Isn't Ford one of the biggest sellers over in Europe? Likewise Opel/Vauxhall?
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Dunno.. all the Ford in SA looks NOTHING like the american Ford.

But yeah, Ford is quite big in SA, they get decent amount of sales.


I'm not so sure on Opel, not so many Astras on the road, mainly those UTE bakkies.
 
I think in the UK it's Ford first, then Vauxhall, then VAG. In Europe as a whole I believe it's VAG first, then Ford, then Opel.

Edit: official UK market share as of November 2008 (year to date).

Ford: 15.04%
Vauxhall: 13.83%
VW: 8.34%
VAG*: 16.22%

(*VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat)
 
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MacGuffin said:
I must admit I'm not really familiar with all the facts but somehow I have always mistrusted "conspiracy theories" and refuse to believe that a sane automaker like Mercedes would go into a merger with that kind of intention. After all, Mercedes, too, went out damaged of that. The stocks have been down ever since and there are talks about Daimler being a possible takeover candidate...
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I'm pretty sure that taking the cash was a secondary but still important objective. Remember, this was the same management team that announced in 1993 that with the end of the W201 Mercedes would no longer be overengineering their cars and instead would go for volume sales instead. Remember Mercedes saying that they wanted to become the #1 seller of cars in the world?

This, as we all know, was a bad idea and is primarily what has brought down the company, not the foray with Chrysler. Chrysler was bought to get shorter development times and higher sales volumes, only like almost everything that management team did, ended up becoming mismanaged and something else entirely.

The sharply reduced quality of Mercedes (which was visible long before the Chrysler takeover in 2000) is what's screwed them. After the disappointing W202 and abysmal W203, plus the frighteningly unreliable (for a Mercedes) W163 M-class (the car was placed last out of 142 cars in the Top Gear Motoring Survey 2004) among other bad product builds and bad product decisions, they have been forced to run pleading, apologetic ads in the US - "Please, come back, we're overengineering our cars again, we know we screwed up, we promised you a Mercedes and now we're delivering!"

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I think that Chrysler was just a sideshow. The demolition of Mercedes was started long before the acquisition - by the people running the place.
 
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Chrysler used to have a very quick trip from drawing board to production vehicle, but I think the crew that was mostly responsible for that were laid off after the "merrger of equals". The Viper and Prowler took about 2 years on a special line designed for flexible production.
 
GRtak said:
Chrysler used to have a very quick trip from drawing board to production vehicle, but I think the crew that was mostly responsible for that were laid off after the "merrger of equals". The Viper and Prowler took about 2 years on a special line designed for flexible production.
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You are correct; they had actually gotten the time from "clean sheet" to "first car rolling off production line" down to *18* months right before that so-called merger.

They also had a partnership with the UAW workers... Chrysler UAW workers post-first-bailout were always different than the rest of the crowd of UAW slackazoids - they had made very real very drastic cuts, had seen the HQ guys sitting there on the lines with them frantically trying to get good product out, and they'd been at least peripherally involved with the design and production decisions. Around the time of the Neon, Chrysler was actually starting to directly involve factory workers in the design process, which produced some interesting benefits. They had a very real sense of ownership and that management wasn't actually their adversary. It's kind of hard to see the HQ guys as adversaries when on the day that half your line crew is out with a severe flu, a flood of people come down from the management offices to take their places assembling the K-cars that were so critical to the continued existence of the company. It's even harder to sit across the table from an exec and demand extortionary wages and concessions when you can remember him just as dirty and greasy as you, with his jacket tossed aside and shirtsleeves rolled up, helping you install steering columns in K-cars. (Conversely it's also hard for the exec to want to screw you, for much the same reasons.)

In addition, post-bailout pre-merger Chrysler had fewer labor incidents (because the Chrysler UAW guys would actually do some of their own policing and would sit on their hotheads and kick their meatheads into working), those few they had were far more amiable and their durations were short. In fact, I can't remember offhand any direct Chrysler strikes betweel 1980 and 2000. I also can't remember hearing of any deliberate sabotage attempts on Chrysler vehicles - but I have a stack of them for Ford and GM.

And of course, this more informal relationship that had grown over the course of two decades was tossed away when Mercedes started throwing their weight around in 2002 and demanded that they go back to the more formal prior structure, as Mercedes had no idea what to do with what they had.
 
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Spectre said:
The sharply reduced quality of Mercedes (which was visible long before the Chrysler takeover in 2000) is what's screwed them. After the disappointing W202 and abysmal W203, plus the frighteningly unreliable (for a Mercedes) W163 M-class (the car was placed last out of 142 cars in the Top Gear Motoring Survey 2004) among other bad product builds and bad product decisions, they have been forced to run pleading, apologetic ads in the US - "Please, come back, we're overengineering our cars again, we know we screwed up, we promised you a Mercedes and now we're delivering!"
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Astonishingly, the sales figures here in Germany never really dropped. And they say Germany is the most demanding market in the world. Maybe it has something to do with the way they dealt with the problem.

I have a bit of a Mercedes history in my family. We had two of the old middle class ones (W123 200 and 280 E), two S-Classes (W126 500SE & W140 500SE), two of the current E-Classes (W211 E320 CDI & E350) and now for a couple of months a new C-Class, a C350 (my stepdad is 75 years old now and doesn't want to have big cars anymore, which is bad for me).

Haven't had the possibility to drive the new C-Class yet but I think the W211 ones were brilliant. Of the two we had, only the first one, the E320 CDI, had problems with the electrical systems and was repeatedly at the garage. When my stepdad finally had enough of it, the dealer made him an offer to get the E350 instead with a LOT of discount and taking the Diesel one back as part of the payment. It was almost a +/- 0 deal and the E350 did not have any problems anymore, because it was built after Mercedes got a grip on itself and imrproved quality again. The only problem I know of, was a broken headlamp.

But thankfully Mercedes is not the issue here :) At least not yet.
 
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Um... The C-class was never a W211. And the E-class never got as bad as the C-class was.

C-Class is W202, 203, 204.

The 203s were so bad, some people here were wondering if Mercedes had fobbed off production to Paraguay or some place. Combined with the first-gen ML's massive problems, Mercedes' prestige has dropped considerably here.
 
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Mercedes rep was damaged here too. Always seen as a premium product the change to mass market was very badly handled here. They then, at the same time, mucked up a fine dealer network.
 
Yes. Because my stepdad had two W211 E-Classes, before he bought the new C-Class.

Would somebody please read carefully what I wrote?
 
If, for example, GM goes bankrupt, what would happen to the company in other countries?
They sell LOTS of cars in Brazil, some media sources even go as far as stating that if it wasn't for Latin America they would be much worse. Would it have a huge effect on us?
 
Aaand, the drama unfolds in Washington the same as it does on Main Street. Several months ago, the Chevy/Cadillac/Toyota/Scion dealer here in town started constructing a whole new building to house a huge showroom and now they face the very serious danger of being sent to the chopping block. This midwest blue-collar bible-thumping shit-hole of 55,000 (and shrinking) has already seen two other dealers close, so I can't imagine what on Earth made the thought of blowing all this money on a new showroom a good idea. What better way to flush a few million dollars down the toilet? I swear to god the putz running this dealership is as clueless as the automakers.
 
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Rokovak said:
Aaand, the drama unfolds in Washington the same as it does on Main Street. Several months ago, the Chevy/Cadillac/Toyota/Scion dealer here in town started constructing a whole new building to house a huge showroom and now they face the very serious danger of being sent to the chopping block. This midwest blue-collar bible-thumping shit-hole of 55,000 (and shrinking) has already seen two other dealers close, so I can't imagine what on Earth made the thought of blowing all this money on a new showroom a good idea. What better way to flush a few million dollars down the toilet? I swear to god the putz running this dealership is as clueless as the automakers.
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Clueless dealers are part of the Big Three's problems.
 
When I go in to a Honda or Toyota dealer here there are loads of certificates on the walls of the service department showing all the company courses that the mechanics and engineers have been on - the result is usually that I get my car back fixed properly. This is a bit more expensive than taking it to the nearest independent but I expect that - peace of mind.
 
Big Three dealers here often have the same things.... but they sometimes aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

And the front office/sales department/customer relations departments are the *real* problems.
 
I trust those marques. You can easily screw up, but getting a good rep takes some time, it can be years to regain.

Classic in the UK was MG who were really loved and did things right before Morris was taken over, and they were sucked in to the juggernaught that was BMC then BL.
 
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