Don, I respect that your position with FCA requires that you be careful on social media. I'm cool with that, we all have to eat.
You ask what part is holding up customers but it is not just one part. I am talking about YOUR(FCA) supply chain management, not ours. Let's take the new Grand Cherokee for example. First the brake booster is rusting out internally so they recall that. Oh wait a minute, it's a pretty significant safety issue right? Not to FCA, they monitor warranty claims paid before sending more. We had a 50 unit backlog before they finally opened the floodgates and let us order them as we needed. Then guess what, here comes the sunshade harness catching on fire recall. There are over 13,000 units in our facing depot alone, yet I get them at FCA's whim 1-3 at a time. So we have this pile of brake booster band aids that nobody will come in for because they are waiting for the 65 cent clips, more on that later. Their clip comes in, oh darn, now a fuel pump relay harness recall. Oddly we can get all of those we want, but they won't come in because your stupid 65 cent clip is still on restriction. Does this end it? Hell no, now you recall the same vehicles for an alternator you can't provide. And you talk about a dealers supply chain management? Mind you, all this recalls are on the same cars.No wonder FCA lives at the bottom of the CSI rankings.
Now let's get to the dealer investment side of this. This isn't just FCA now, but more on that later. Our overhead didn't go down when you recalled all these cars. Our staff needs to be paid, our owners expect a profit, our inventory management protocols need to be maintained, and yet we are in this poopstorm of FCA's making. Don't go blaming your vendors, that's a cop out. Where is your quality control protocols? Must not be any. I guess you didn't see Barra in front of Congress, or were you clowns all high fiving it at the time. Your day is here now my friend.
Did you strike a nerve, oh yes you did. Now let's talk about how you cheat the dealers out of our profits on recalls. What FCA does when a recall hits is change the part number on an existing parts to a prefix of "C" so that it designates a campaign part. Then you slash the price down to nothing so that the 40% over cost you pay is is next to nothing. We still have to order, track, receipt, and bill the part like any other part but now we are doing it for free. One good example is the brake fiasco on minivans of a few years ago. Brakes were shot sometimes at less than 15K miles. So you took the front rotors you already had, made some new boxes with a different number on them, and put 2 in a pack while slashing the price to less than half of what one cost earlier. When we opened the box there was the original number stamped right in the part. Getting back to that sunshade clip that is on that restriction, dealer cost is 65 cents. Whoopee, the dealer gets to go thru all this for 26 cents profit. How about the Caravan/T&C rear 1/4 window switch that can catch on fire, would be $25-$40 probably. Not anymore Don, now $3.65. Damn, we're in the money now. FCA has been doing this for years. The labor side is just like it, so the techs are getting screwed right along with the rest of the store. Thanks FCA.
If I missed anything I'm sorry but I'll surely post it if I think of it.
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