It’s time to address the dealer cuts

It’s time for Chrysler to address the dealer cuts.

General Motors has already done so. They watched Chrysler’s high-handed, arrogant dismissal of 789 dealerships, then told the world what criteria they were using, gave their dealers lots of time to wind down operations, and had an appeals process.

Chrysler had no appeals process.

Chrysler did not make their criteria public until days after they announced the cuts.

Chrysler has made some individual decisions that appear to be indefensible, and has not defended them.

Many examples have been aired, but I’ll point to VerHage Chrysler. The Holland, MI-based family began selling Chryslers four generations ago in Hudsonville, Michigan – in 1925. Their market has 86,000 people, who will no longer have a dealership. That’s not a huge issue, perhaps, in Michigan, but one must still ask how this dealership got onto the list. We’re told they have a good reputation for sales and service; and certainly they help Chrysler by sponsoring the Annual All Mopar Show & Shine (in its 15th year).

So what’s the deal, Chrysler?

At this point, I firmly believe two things need to happen. First, Chrysler must be willing to provide real data to those who question particular dealership closings. Explain why one or the other had to go. If there’s no good explanation, the dealer should be given a new franchise. By “a good explanation” I’m excluding the reason I suspect many were dropped – because at some point the owner got into an argument with one of the dealer relations people.

I know many dealerships were bad and needed to be jettisoned. Some bad dealerships are still around poisoning the well, but many are gone. Many of the dealerships that went deserved to go. But with some, it’s hard to believe.

The second move Chrysler needs to make is an appeals process, and it needs to happen post-haste. Let the dealers who feel they were dropped wrongly appeal to a higher authority. Let them make their case. I suspect some would quickly be reinstated.

If Chrysler doesn’t move, and move quickly, it will not only solidify the arguments for the wing-nut conspiracy theorists, but it will feed fuel to the flame in Congress to reinstate ALL 789 dealers. That would be a disaster for Chrysler, not to mention General Motors, which would be forced to take back its bad dealers, too.

The time to move was last month, but since Chrysler was busy showing an unwarranted arrogance, the time to move is now.

Measure twice, cut once

A few weeks ago, my PT Cruiser GT started shimmying like mad on the highway. I pulled over, then made it to the next exit and limped home. It didn’t stop shimmying, the steering wheel pulling an inch over one way and then back the other.

I took it down to the tire shop, assuming that it might be a tire-unrelated issue but that, since they had recently rotated and balanced the tires, it might be a weight falling off (which has happened to me). They pronounced the wheel bent, but rebalanced it.

That lasted until the next highway drive. I returned it and asked them to look at the suspension and such for other problems, but they insisted it was the wheel.  Until now, I hadn’t paid a penny for the rework.

The next time I took it down to the shop three blocks away. They came back with the same diagnosis and I paid $30 to have the tires rebalanced.

It didn’t work.

The next stop was to Teterboro Chrysler, my last stop before sending the much-accused wheel to a straightener in Fairfield. My request was simple: put the car onto a lift and check things out. I asked for “no road test.”

It took the mechanic almost a minute to find the problem, including putting the car onto the left. The first thing he did was to spin the wheels to visually observe them. One of the front wheels had a bad caliper which, when heated, caused a bad chatter, which has roughly the same symptoms as shimmy.

The cost for replacing the caliper is less than rebending the wheel, though to be fair, I’ll probably need a new disc, too.

The moral of the story is in the title. An extra minute of diagnosis can save an hour of repair.

Now, why didn’t the two other mechanics (three, really, since I had different people on each trip) take two seconds to spin the wheel? (Which, incidentally, Teterboro’s mechanic found to be just fine.) There was a lucrative brake job in front of them – and they gave it up for free work.