Comments on: Chryslertakeover

By: EWTech

EWTech — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 00:56:34 +0000

I’m not sure I understand the motive the Benz dudes have for bringing Chrysler down. Their operation looks an awful lot like the Westinghouse Corporation I once worked for: Buy valuable companies, strip them of cash, sell to the highest bidder after they tank in the marketplace. They were late on a good thing and early to dump the acquisitions. Kind of hard to make money that way in the long term. The problem I see is that this seems to be the rulebook that the AMERICAN companies normally follow. The EU companies have always had an eye on the long term historically. Is this some sort of odd corporate cross-pollination behavior of the corporate culture or what?
Chrysler products I can afford to buy on what I make. I could say the same about Ford or GM. If Chrysler dies I will likely live. What I do not understand here is how Daimler wins if Chrysler flops. They proved their incompetence with the 4 cylinder tiny Benz cars. At least people are BUYING Calibers.

By: 87_Caravan

87_Caravan — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 14:14:43 +0000

Pardon my intrusion. I registered at Allpar Forums a couple of days ago in order to seek some help on my Caravan. After activating the account, I cannot post, reply, search, nor can I private messsage any admins I see online. In short, I cannot communicate any way whatsoever. I have sent two emails to allpar forum staff with no reply. While the topic of selling Chrysler versus dismantling is quite interesting, I’d really like to join the community and seek the advice of those who know what the heck their talking about. Along with the Caravan, I also drive a Jeep Cherokee, so these forums would be doubly valuable to me. Will someone within reading distance of this post -please- contact an allpar admin and have them activate my account with the proper permissions? Thank you… and again… sorry for intruding on the blog.

- Keith

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:00:18 +0000

Well, like I said, I haven’t taken that off the table, but if that’s still the underlying motive they’re playing one heck of a game of corporate chicken. And the contingent of the BOD that wants Chrysler gone isn’t a figment of DCX’s imagination. Those folks are real, and they aren’t going anywhere.

By: Jackratchett

Jackratchett — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:18:41 +0000

Is Chrysler really for sale? Is Daimler pulling a page from the GM/Delphi book? I’m surprised no ones looking into their creative accounting as with Freightliner, or are they? Can someone come from a failing company, use their experience from that company and do anything with Chrysler but make it fail? Is a 1.5 billion loss in a year of record vehicle launches really that bad? Do they deserve the same pity as Ford and GM who have lost billions and billions? If their troubles were from overbuilding then why do they still run extra production overtime shifts at affected plants between layoffs? If Chrysler was in the trouble they make out to be shouldn’t Dr.Zzzzz and Mr. Lasorda lead by example like Mr.Ghosn and Mr. Iacocca did with their cut salaries?

I don’t believe Chrysler is for sale although the ploy failing could result in a sale. I’d have to agree with the above “a ruse to soften up the UAW” and add the suppliers. Speaking of suppliers, Magna couldn’t possibly take over all of Chrysler, too much debt, too many suppler conflicts. Here’s another angle, last year at the NAIAS Dr. Z said something interesting, he said that eventually Chrysler would like to get out of the car building business and have someone else build them for Chrysler. Here’s where Magna comes in, already running operations in Toledo and building Grand Cherokee’s, Minivans, and 300C’s at there assembly plant in Austria, this would be the perfect opportunity for Dr. Z to get his wish. Magna could easily buy some if not all the assembly plants, the Toledo operations and the two Canadian plants where they are major suppliers for sure. The UAW would already be softened for the change.