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Buildup of Stellantis inventories

6074 Views 84 Replies 25 Participants Last post by  plymouth1, 
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Anyone notice that RAM, Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler have the largest inventories of vehicles.
The consensus is they have priced themselves out of the market. Any thoughts?
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aldo90731
My Fiat Spider turned 4 years old yesterday. This is the longest I have held onto a car since I graduated college.

But I am in no rush to buy anything. Between insane prices, crummy dealers, high interest rates, and low miles on both my vehicles due to Work From Home, I can sit and wait....
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77 Monaco Brougham said:
My, how time flew by while FCA was busy making the balance sheet look pretty while groveling all around the industry looking for someone to rescue them.
OY!

P.S. Please forgive the extra sarcasm. I haven't had any coffee yet!:coffee::coffee::coffee:
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The underlying issue with Wrangler, which I’ve been saying since JL came out, is that FCA focused too much on the things that gave it widespread appeal and not enough on the things that made Wrangler unique. And to some extent the same can be said of Jeep at large.

Everything that was new with JL had to do with improving daily comfort, convenience and efficiency, but hardly anything was done to keep Wrangler the master of the trails.

This helped FCA jack up prices and line its pockets, but has had two fateful long-term consequences:
  1. It attracted a new, more affluent buyer in exchange for the traditional Jeep buyer. This meant higher upfront sales and transaction prices, but a less loyal customer base.
  2. It left Wrangler vulnerable to competitive assaults. After a decade dithering on-and-off, Ford finally decided to launch Bronco when Wrangler looked most vulnerable. If you look at Bronco’s positioning, it seeks to keep luring Jeep farther down the path of daily comfort and convenience, less so chase it down the off-road trails.
And Jeep has apparently bit the bait. The problem is that this leads down to a crowded field, just when Jeep buyers are less loyal and have more options than ever.

After FCA spent an entire decade putting all its eggs in Jeep, I wonder what Stellantis’s Plan B is going to be.
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aldo90731
PS - we don’t know exactly what Jeep’s mix in those 120 days supply is.

We are assuming it is Compasses and Renegades because they were showing their age the last time FCA reported sales, three months ago already. But my hunch is that we are going to see a lot of brand-spanking new, grossly overpriced Grand Cherokees and Wagoneers and yes, aging Gladiators as well.

It takes a lot of models to bring up the brand average past 120 days.

We will know more when Stellantis reports Q1 sales in another two weeks.
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HotCarNut said:
I agree the JL focused more on comfort upgrades. However, the bigger issue is the cost engineering throughout and the prevalent steering issues in addition to maintenance on the axles as has been outlined in other threads. Regardless, the Wrangler is still the king off-road. One only has to do a minimal search to find horror stories of Broncos breaking down off-road due to the limited travel of the IFS, boots ripping, etc. The Bronco can best be described as a soft-roader meant for gravel roads or running on the beach. Clearance, angles, and durability ALL still favor Wrangler off-road.
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I agree. But keeping Wrangler the king of the trails, while the steering keeps it the ogre of the roads is a tough pill to swallow with a new, more affluent and less-loyal customer base, less interested in going off-roading and more interested in taking Junior to karate classes.
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aldo90731
I am afraid that would be the home stretch of Norm’s famous Jeep going a slippery slope.

What Jeep ought to do, like Porsche did with 911’s rear engine, is stick to its guns, and take the development of the front solid axle to higher levels of refinement and capability.
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Adventurer55 said:
How much more can be done? Dana has made axles for them since the beginning.
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That’s for the engineers to figure out.

If Jeep wants to keep raking in the fat profits, it has to prove that it is committed to remaining the alpha dog on the trails
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Zagnut27 said:
Jeep does need to remain committed to improving off-road performance, as Bronco is very close in capability (remember who designed it after all). Most buyers will never use all of the capability of a Wrangler, or a Bronco for that matter. To the extent that they will be used by most, it doesn't matter.

However, for myself, it's not a difference in capability that has me looking at other brands, its the crappy dealer experience and the nagging issues that they have not addressed, not to mention the astronomical pricing. I love Jeeps (the vehicles), I just don't know if I want to deal with their (the corporation) BS anymore.

For those who say that IFS won't work, my Liberty held up just fine in 18 years (despite the crappy IFS parts), with varied use including mild to moderate off-roading, and I recall Norm's wife or daughter had a Liberty as well, and it did well for them also from what he told me (with a Franken Lift!).
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Jeep’s response to Bronco ought to be the reintroduction of a Liberty/Cherokee with IFS, solid roof, traditional 4WD and QuadraCoil suspension.

There’s a lot of room in the Jeep lineup for something to bridge the gap between Grand Cherokee and Wrangler. It could share a frame with Ram Dakota. I’d seriously consider it as a replacement for my JL.

Unfortunately, I don’t see this happening in the current atmosphere fixated on electrification.
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Erik Latranyi said:
It is called the Recon.
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Ugh, right. The starting price of $60,000 threw me off then.
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Adventurer55 said:
If they only make the Recon a BEV only, they are making a huge mistake.
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There’s no indication that Recon will have an ICE version.
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aldo90731
Speaking of Jeep, there are unofficial reports floating around that Wrangler’s long-awaited mid-cycle redesign opened for ordering three days ago as a 2024 model year.

Dealers were invited to an online internal presentation outlining all the changes to JL, but there has been no public announcement, no press release, no published photos, no reveal for youtubers, no official list of changes, nothing. Dealers are having to describe prospective buyers what this mythical redesigned 2024 Wrangler looks like using their hands.

After years of Wrangler customers waiting for a redesign, dealers are now in the strange position of waiting for customers to come in to place their orders...and waiting, and waiting...

The whole thing is just so bizarre.
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aldo90731
Dave Z said:
Why wouldn't it be possible to make an electric or PHEV version?
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I guess they are. It’s called Recon. With a starting price of $60,000...
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