The Reason Chrysler is in Trouble

Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors are all having trouble selling cars here, but I think Chrysler is doing the worst. GM has started making better cars and makes very good cars in Europe and Australia. Ford is improving here and for a long time has made very good cars in Europe and Australia. Chrysler isn't doing nearly enough to improve their cars and in Europe and Australia has the same cars as here. Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge are all the same company, but they make too many of the same cars. They don't make any cars that stand out in their classes as very good. Their biggest problem is quality. All the plastics in their cars seem cheap and flimsy. The small cars, the Chrysler PT Cruiser and Dodge Caliber are both very far behind the best cars in their class. The PT Cruiser is an old design that was never very good and the Caliber has bad engines (the 2.4L is okay), a terrible chassis, and poor quality. The midsize cars are almost as bad, the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger are the same car, but neither one is good. They share a chassis with the Mitsubishi Lancer, Outlander, the Dodge Caliber and Jeep Compass/Patriot, but the Mitsubishi's are better. The Sebring/Avengers are let down by bad handling, they are bad to drive, have poor quality, and the 2.7L V6 is bad, but the 3.5L V6 is good. The Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger are good cars, but the Pontiac G8 is much better and they aren't good enough for Europe and Australia, but their biggest problems are bad quality and an old chassis from the old Mercedes E-Class. The Chrysler Crossfire is based off an old Mercedes SLK that was never a good car and the Dodge Viper has huge 8.3L v8 that only has 510hp (2008 models are larger and have 600hp) and has no luxuries or sensibility in it at all. The Dodge Durango/Chrysler Aspen are some of Chrysler's biggest problems, because they have rigid axle, a very bad chassis, wasteful engines, and questionable safety. The Dodge Dakota that the Durango is based off is even worse, because it has bad safety and isn't as useful as the Nissan and Toyota pickups. The Dodge Ram is improved, but is still an old design that can't keep up with the Nissan Titan, Chevy Silverado/GMC Sierra, and the class leader, the Toyota Tundra. The Jeep Grand Cherokee, Commander, Liberty, and Dodge Nitro all have the same problem, the worst one being their lack of side torso airbags that meant the best they could get in the IIHS side crash test was Marginal, a failing rating if you ask me. They also drive like trucks because of their ancient rigid axles, but the worst of these SUV's is by far the Jeep Liberty, but the Nitro isn't far off. The Jeep Compass/Patriot suffer from the same quality problems as the Dodge Caliber. The Jeep Wrangler is one of their only cars that is good, because it is very good at what it was designed for, off-road driving, but with the availability of 4 doors, a proper roof, and tons of space it is okay as an on road vehicle. The Wrangler is even safe enough that I would buy one, because it can have side torso airbags (it got marginal without side airbags, but can have front head and torso combination airbags). The Dodge Journey is the first really good car they have made in a long time (the 300C was very good before the Pontiac G8 came). It has a great 235hp 3.5L V6, a practical design that has lots of ideas borrowed from European MPV's and it looks pretty good. The new Dodge Grand Caravan and the new Chrysler Town & Country are quite good, the still don't drive very well, but only the Honda Odyssey does. The two minivans still can have the wonderful Stow'n'Go seats or the rather silly Swivel'n'Go system. The 425hp Challenger SRT-8 is much better than the 500hp Shelby GT500, because of a modern suspension instead of the GT500's ancient rigid axle that is only acceptable in trucks now. Chrysler will have a harder time improving now that they separated from Mercedes, but with good management and smart people running it they could do well. Right now the reason Chrysler is in trouble is their cars aren't very competitive and their quality is poor.