Fiat and quality: the good news

Allpar forums member jorisr wrote the following, which seemed worth reproducing (with his permission):

To offer a little assurance.

In Europe Fiat group vehicles have for a long time had a well deserved reputation for being less than perfectly reliable. During the 1990s and early 2000s they were much improved but still lagged most of their competitors (Peugeot/Citroën and Renault were still worse, Opel and Ford had a bad decade), but their engines have generally been exceptionally good.

If you look at what happened at Fiat since Marchionne took over and World Class Manufacturing (WCM) was introduced, it is rather impressive.

For instance the reliability numbers on the Fiat Panda. This model was introduced in 2003 and was built in Tychy, Poland. There is a huge improvement since the implementation of WCM in the reliability stats from, for instance, the German ADAC.
The Panda went from poor (which would be reasonable as it was a completely new model) to best in class.

At the moment it is widely considered the most reliable car in its class and even overall it is in the top three.

Every car built in this plant at this moment has a stellar reputation in reliability and building quality. (Fiat Panda, Fiat 500 and Ford Ka)

The same improvement can be seen in the Fiat Punto that was introduced in 2004. The numbers for this car improved dramatically in the last couple of years as did numbers for the previous Punto that was still being sold alongside the new model in significant numbers untill 2009. (ADAC rated the Punto third in its class behind the Fiat Panda and a Toyota).

Another example of the improving quality are the test results in the German 100,000 km tests, where they test the car for 100,000 km and afterwards they completely dismantle the car and they have an expert examaning every detail of every part of the car. The older Fiat products would score average at best.

The Germans love to put down the French and Italian competition where they can. They certainly favor their homegrown stuff. Recently however they couldn’t look away when several Volkswagens where absolutely dismal, and the bottom ranks are all filled with VWs and a couple of Peugeots and Citröens.

The most recent Fiats, however, are among the best on the list. The 1.3 JTDm diesel engine was recently called by the DEKRA expert “one of the best engines he ever had under his measuring device.” This even after the German testers decided to try out if the Italian diesel would have problems if they filled it up with gasoline. (The tolerances measured after 100,000 km were like new on this little engine)

You can definately see a correlation in the WCM rating a plant has and the quality of the vehicles they make.

The highest rated plants deliver vehicles that rate among the best in the marketplace, be it Japanese, Korean or German/American.

It’s easy to see the plant with the worst results (still not bad but middle of the road) is the plant that only recently was converted to WCM (Pomigliano d’Arco- Alfa Romeo 159 and 147).

So if even Fiat can get to Best in Class reliability within 5 years, Chrysler’s plants will be able to do at least the same.

Marchionne knows that this is the absolute base condition for success for a company known for unreliability (as Fiat was, and until people catch up, still is).

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Why not just set up a new engine line?

That was my thought when I first heard that Pentastar production was not where it needs to be yet.

A retired factory worker wrote back, explaining why not — mainly, it would take at least two years.

Taking any tooling from Kenosha, Mack, or Old Trenton would take almost as long, he wrote. The problem with the old tooling is that it has been, as he wrote, “in the duct tape and chicken wire repair mode for at least two years. Then factor in the bankruptcy, Daimler’s and Cerberus’ treatment of the equipment, I’m sure it’s not pretty. I’ve been in ‘Drive it to the Junk Yard’ mode many, many times at the old plant — if you were driving a car to the junkyard, would you put in a new motor to get it there?”

One possibility would be to convert the 4-liter crankshaft line in the old plant over; it has a large number of brand new crank grinders, put in when the 4.0 was installed not long ago, but even that would take at least six months to do, and it’s only the finish end – half the machines involved in making the crank. (That line was converted from the old 3.5 to the new 4.0, which only recently finished its production run).

So that’s why Chrysler is still sticking with the existing Pentastar plants, and any contingency plans are likely free-Hemi and discounted-four-cylinder promotions while they wait for problems to be resolved and production to shoot up. On the lighter side, in this non-Dauch era, quality will not be sacrificed for numbers, and if they lose a few sales now, they will at least gain sales in later years, when their reputation for quality has healed.