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Dodge Has Its Own Inventory Problems
by
Derek Kreindler
(IC: employee)
Published: December 5th, 2012
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While the GM inventory woes have been a fixture of TTAC for months, excess inventory isn’t the sole domain of GM’s pickups. Chrysler is having its own issues, with the Dodge Dart suffering from a glut of inventory.
Ward’s Auto reports that there is a 112 day supply of Darts, roughly double the industry’s preferred supply level. While Chrysler’s Illinois plant is cited as a factor in the oversupply of these cars, the launch of the Dart didn’t go as smoothly as planned. Initial sales were poor, hampered by an oversupply of manual transmission cars (yes, heresy, I know).
Derek Kreindler
More by Derek Kreindler
Published December 5th, 2012 10:12 AM
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Neon was so uncompetitive it was one of the best showroom stock racing cars ever and many are still running around. I see several Neons all the time with over 200k miles. Apparently the Chinese version of the Dart is getting a big push from GAC, one of the major partners of Japanese carmakers. autonews.gasgoo.com/china-news/guangqi-fiat-plans-to-manufacture-up-to-500000-veh-121203.shtml
Anybody alive in the 1970's knows to avoid anything made by Fiat. Apparently that opinion was handed down to our children.
A mediocre car in a crowded segment with a poison manual transmission no one wants. We can debate the merits of this car all we want, but for the money there are so many better cars and buyers in this segment don't give a crap about european handling, style, or a manual tranny. They want cheap, boring, reliable, and an automatic. So far FIAT's bailout of Chrysler has been a mess of fuzzy math accomplished by liquidating pre-Sergio stock of Sebrings, truck sales, and fleet sales of cop cars.
At current sales figures they will sell 60,000 a year so there is a market for this car as it is, thats more sales than the entire Scion lineup. Dart 2.0 is weeks away with a industry leading 2.4L engine and a industry leading 9 speed automatic comes after that.