September Sales Mixed Bag So Far

I get the GM comment but if the other one that you are referring to is Ford, I would disagree with you and say that they were the first ones to the party and have now been there for a few years.

@cdakost Ford is slipping, big time. The Escape launch has been a disaster, Lincoln couldn't be more broken, the Focus has had issues (and Europe doesn't like it), the NEW Fusion just placed 3rd in a recent comparo (they cited poor fuel economy, terrible interior, and poor leg room in back). The Fiesta sales are dropping like a rock, the refreshed Lincoln Taurus and Flex have terrible sales, the Mustang has terrible sales, etc. Ford is slipping big time in Europe as well. One Ford is being rejected worldwide. Which makes sense because it's an extremely shortsighted plan.

@cdakost Silvy, is that you?

I just wanted to chime in here about 86SN2001's comment. My wife and I looked at several Grand Cherokees at different dealers recently and walked away from all of them. Heard a lot of good things about Grand Cherokees and wanted to check them out for ourselves. The vehicles were fine, in fact probably the best Jeeps we've ever taken for test drive. Good ride, tight handling, quiet interiors, better-than-most materials in both cloth and leather trims. The problem was pricing, dealer price padding, and the attitude of the sales staff, no matter which Chrysler dealer we went to. We looked at the plain old Laredo V6 4x4, the Limited 5.7 4x4, a couple of Overland 4x4s and even a lone SRT8. The Laredo 4x4 sold for a reasonable $32K-$33K, nicely equipped with the E package, BEFORE the dealers added the crap that no one wants or needs, which drove the price up to $36K-$38K. For a 4x4 Laredo with a V6, that's pretty steep! The Limiteds, Overlands and the V8s were just off the scale. And we're talking the 2012 models here, not the 2013 models that will officially go on sale this month. I know these are in-demand vehicles and I wasn't looking for cut-rate deals and a massive discount, but I also am not willing to pay a premium for last year's model. Their attitude was that these were the best vehicles they had ever built in that class and they were selling them for whatever the market would bear. It's OK to have pride in what you sell, but not everyone would agree that overpaying for a Grand Cherokee is a desirable thing. There are other options in the market place, among them the new Explorer, Pilot, Highlander, Traverse and even the Durango, not to mention the German brands. So the Grand Cherokee is out of the running for us, only because the dealerships determined that the level of profit they need to make is much higher than I am willing to pay. This coming weekend we have a show-and-tell appointment with a Mercedes-Benz dealer in another city and will spend some time in an ML. My wife gets to choose the color. They have several. Money is not the issue here. But if the ML proves to be too expensive to buy, we'll lease one for my wife and make her 2009 Pilot our third vehicle, in addition to my truck. I think Fiat and Chrysler are playing a dangerous game here allowing the dealers to set their own retail price and markup. I would be interested in reading comments from others who were forced to walk away from the deal because of hyper-pricing of the best-selling Chrysler products. You can only carry a good thing so far before you drive off a potential customer.

And yet, aside from the Jeep Grand Cherokee versus the Ford Explorer, I have yet to see any Chrysler products consistently beat any comparable Ford products in reviews (and, no, reviews on allpar.com do not count). Really...the 200 and Avenger compared to the Fusion? Chrysler could probably resurrect the old AMC Concord D/L and not score any worse that it already does in a comparison test.

@geeber The 300 is better than the Lincoln Taurus rebadge. The Charger is better than the fat Taurus. The JGC is better than the Edge The Durango is better than the Taurus Wagon (I mean, Explorer) And on top of that, Chryslers are not starting on fire.

@geeber For the rest of the story: The Fiesta is better than the Fiat 500. The Focus is better than the Dart. The Fusion is better than the Avenger/200. The Escape is better than the Dodge Journey or Jeep Liberty. The F-series is better than the Ram. The Jeep Grand Cherokee competes with the Explorer, not the Edge (and I admitted that it was better than the Explorer), so that particular example of yours doesn't count. And, let's see - they caught the Escape defect, issued a quick recall, and I have not heard of one vehicle having this problem since that time.

@cdakost Escape launch hasn't been great but people still seem to like it. No one buys American luxury cars anymore. Cadillac and Buick aren't doing that great either. Europe does like the Focus. They just aren't buying anything right now. Every comparison that I've seen the NEW Fusion has been first. No one is buying cars as small as the Fiesta. Sonic, Yaris, Versa none of those are that popular. Mustang sale are way better than Challenger sales and basically the same as Camaro sales so I don't see the problem there. Everything's slipping in Europe right now because it's Europe.

@geeber The Dodge Durango started on fire when it came out. While leading a parade no less. I happen to own a new Explorer. It is a great vehicle. It's great on road and does pretty well off road. It hasn't had any issues with my Minnesota winters. It is extremely comfortable as well. Drove it from Minnesota to Connecticut towing a 6X12 foot enclosed U-Haul trailer with my sister's stuff in it. Didn't have any problems maintaining 65 mph the whole way. It corners really flat for a vehicle of its size and class and is pretty quick as well.

@cdakost "No one buys American luxury cars anymore" Detroit doesn't really build 'American' luxury cars anymore, the closest they have come recently was maybe the Chrysler 300. Lincolns are Ford clones, the last exclusive Lincoln was LS. Buicks aren't true luxury they are a mid tier brand of GM foreign designs du jour. Cadillac is faux BMW, just a fancy badge to toss on whatever crap you want to call top of the line, quite far from the standard of the luxury world. See that's the trouble, these marques have in some cases a hundred years of history, but they have literally devolved into mere emblems for cheaper mass produced models of their parent corporations. Buick used to be... a Buick with its own design, styling, and in some cases its own engine, same with Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet and Lincoln. The irony of course is the Japanese don't really have much to offer in the way of real luxury cars either... Acuras are for the most part badge engineered Hondas, Lexus more and more is Toyota spelled with an "L", only Infiniti stands out with some unique models and even they are 'near luxury'. Luxury brands for the most part are all smoke and mirrors right now.

@cdakost That's why I break up the luxury category into American, Japanese and German. They all claim to be the same thing but they aren't. I only put Buick in because GM seems to think that it's a "luxury" brand. I would agree with you that it isn't.

@geeber The 300 crushes Lincoln, the new 2013 Ram beats the F150, the Dart is is very competitive with the Focus and when the RT version comes out Dodge will win there, the Charger outsells the Taurus and certainly has a far more loyal following, Chrysler minivans vs the Flex, no competition there.......I'd say Chrysler is on the verge of passing Ford.

@geeber The F-150 is still superior to the Ram, and the new Focus ST will easily handle the Dart R/T. Chrysler has to sell over 400,000 more vehicles just to match Ford. The latter is not in danger of losing second place anytime soon, unless Avis, Hertz and Alamo order 400,000 more 200s, Avengers, base Chargers and 300s.

@geeber Also note that Chrysler has to get past Toyota before it can think of displacing Ford.

@geeber Ford has phoned in their car offerings in the past few years but I think in truck-land Dodge has been faxing theirs since the late 80s, there just isn't a comparison IMO. Chrysler has had the extreme good luck to have a free small car model be delivered from Alfa instead of spending billions developing their own, turn around a turd Sebring into a successful selling 200 with a minor refresh, and continue to coast on their aging LX platform which dates from what, late 2004? JGC is about the only new thing I believe they developed themselves, and even that was when it was a Daimler shop. Ford on the other hand took Volvo designs and created at least three models (Edge, Explorer, Taurus) plus three Lincoln clones I can think of from it. Sure I think the styling on two of those is craptastic (Edge I kinda liked), and the Taurus felt smooth, but numb when I drove it, didn't really impress me. Was this the right move for them? From my point of view probably not as its not very innovative, but it seems they were trying to keep things as generic under the hood as possible... which pisses off car guys but I'm sure keeps the bean counters happy. I'll give credit where credit is due, just don't give Chrysler too much credit just yet. Although they certainly earned some coming back from the dead for the third time, wait until they can pull off a whole new model line from the ground up... then be impressed.

@ Billfrombuckhead The 150 beats the Silverado/GMC every year; it's close, I can't remember the exact numbers. I also think it's a silly marketing campaign. Ram always finishes a distant third. Count the trucks on job sites when you're stuck in traffic.

@Bill Steege But I like to pay two thousand dollars for dealer installed vinyl pinstripes ;)

@el scotto I bet there is hardly a single review of 2013's that rate Ford F150 higher than Ram. I will give Ford credit, even with a supposedly botched launch, the Escape blasted past the CRV and the rest of JapanInc's small crossovers in sales. Ford better not celebrate too much, a baby 9 speed Pentastar Cherokee is on the way.

@geeber "Ford on the other hand took Volvo designs and created at least three models (Edge, Explorer, Taurus) plus three Lincoln clones I can think of from it. " Wrong. Edge and the Lincoln rebadge are on CD3, which is basically a Fusion on stilts. The recycled and massivly failed D3 platform from Volvo has spawned: Five Hundred Montego Freestyle Taurus II Sable II Taurus X Lincoln Taurus rebadge Taurus III Flex Lincoln Flex rebadge, and Explorer

@geeber Woah woah, back the Alfa up. Focus is better than the Dart? Go and try each of them with a few options (ex. Uconnect vs MFT) and say that again. I don't care for small cars, but the Dart I could live with. The Focus? Not so much. The Focus is better than the rest of the competition but the Dart is the new benchmark.

They all do break it down by model, you just need to find the corporate website where they post the monthly sales press releases. Example: pressroom.toyota.com/

Ed Niedermeyer used to do a great job every month comparing the sales volume of individual models within each class. It got me hooked on TTAC!

Fresh and Vibrant? Not exactly. Work with me on this analogy. Imagine Chrysler was a failing restaurant and the US Government took it over. The government gave the restaurant to a new owner. The new owner came in and started putting fresh flowers on the tables and got better suppliers. A nicer ambiance and better food resulted. Someone still owes for the bills from the failing restaurant and its Alpo quality food.

@el scotto "Someone still owes for the bills from the failing restaurant and its Alpo quality food." Love it, +1. Consumers on average have a short memory and a low IQ, that's why we're on Iphone #566, Windows as a product is still sold, and Chrysler as a brand is still alive after endless recalls, longtime low reliability/resale ranking, numerous Jeep V8 issues, LH transmission issues, the engine sludge fiasco, and poorly conceived model line after model line (Prowler, Crossfire, Caliber, Nitro, Aspen). This company has cheated death numerous times, its impressive.