[World14]

Correction it is a thread about fit and finish on Wagoneers. You know, a vehicle that costs as much as a house. For that price it should be near perfect.

Live a little and come up to New York State, like the Central New York area. Up here, any house around $100,000 is old and in disrepair. It's not limited to just one area either: it's the case for nearly every home, in every county, in the state.
This is a new vehicle. Still expecting things to be perfect the first time around when you still say the company is terrible is laughable at best.
If it was bad last year, you think less than a year later it's magically got better because of a merger? Things take time.

 

[World14]

I've lived all over the country, but you need to understand the world doesn't revolve around New York. There are large areas of the country where $100k will buy you a decent house.

I don't care who makes a vehicle. If they charge $100k for a vehicle I expect it to be built well. If they can't do that than they should charge a price commensurate with the build quality.

I know there's decent houses for any price across the world. It's called being open minded and realizing what else there is and being wise to different markets, with different companies, run by different people.
Not being close-minded thinking, everything is done the exact same by everyone else just because of some "notion" that "I expect things at this price point to all be the same."
Different standards, different metrics. The companies are different, you can't hold the same one to the same standard to the others offering a similar but different item.

 

[page2171]

I know there's decent houses for any price across the world. It's called being open minded and realizing what else there is and being wise to different markets, with different companies, run by different people.
Not being close-minded thinking, everything is done the exact same by everyone else just because of some "notion" that "I expect things at this price point to all be the same."
Different standards, different metrics. The companies are different, you can't hold the same one to the same standard to the others offering a similar but different item.

I never said that I expect things at the same price point to be the same. So, stop putting words in my mouth. You may be willing to accept inferior quality because of the brand regardless of price, but I'm not. If you continue to accept inferior quality, you will continue to get inferior quality.

 

[d150le]

This is a new vehicle. Still expecting things to be perfect the first time around when you still say the company is terrible is laughable at best.
If it was bad last year, you think less than a year later it's magically got better because of a merger? Things take time.

If things take time to get right you take the time to get it right before you start the line. Saying its new we can't expect it to be good is a deplorable copout.

 

[valiant67]

I know there's decent houses for any price across the world. It's called being open minded and realizing what else there is and being wise to different markets, with different companies, run by different people.
Not being close-minded thinking, everything is done the exact same by everyone else just because of some "notion" that "I expect things at this price point to all be the same."
Different standards, different metrics. The companies are different, you can't hold the same one to the same standard to the others offering a similar but different item.

None of that matters. Jeep wants a premium product. You miss the small stuff, you don’t get the big prices. Thinking “It’s only a bolt” or “it’s just a piece of trim” and people will excuse that undermines Jeep’s whole up market push.

 

[World14]

If things take time to get right you take the time to get it right before you start the line. Saying its new we can't expect it to be good is a deplorable copout.

Except there's millions of Americans that still won't buy new vehicles from any automaker in the first year because they know there's kinks in them, including the fit & finish. And that's for every automaker sans the status symbols like Ferrari & Lamborghini. There are people who want the car #1 to be perfect, and there's people that want car #37,845 to be better than car #1.

None of that matters. Jeep wants a premium product. You miss the small stuff, you don’t get the big prices. Thinking “It’s only a bolt” or “it’s just a piece of trim” and people will excuse that undermines Jeep’s whole up market push.

Miss the small stuff? In this world, people have been arguing if "Grand Cherokee" is offensive top put onto a car and it still being sold or not. Even Land Rover pulls some of the best B.S. that they didn't think about, like the trailer hitch for the new Defender & the accompanying picture you can find in the owner's manual of a hand grasping it. It's crude and premium buyers aren't trying to buy something childish, yet it still sells.

 

[d150le]

Except there's millions of Americans that still won't buy new vehicles from any automaker in the first year because they know there's kinks in them, including the fit & finish. And that's for every automaker sans the status symbols like Ferrari & Lamborghini. There are people who want the car #1 to be perfect, and there's people that want car #37,845 to be better than car #1.

What's your point? People are unrealistic for wanting an expensive product to be built right? We're already ignoring 10 year old drive trains for $100,000 I really don't think it's unreasonable to expect the body panels and trim pieces to fit right. Really couldn't care less what Ferrari and Lambo can fleece pull over their customers. Not sure what relevance that has with a Jeep. I'm also one of the people who won't buy first or second model years, I know they're rushing out the cars and letting early customers be the true RnD testers. I wait for forums to blow up with complaints, if they don't, I also usually will ask people that own the vehicles what their 1,2 and 3 year experince is. With how overpriced and under built new cars are, it's my belief you're crazy to buy early model years.

Everything we build where I work is checked over so many times its almost wasteful. We refuse to send out a defective product and last time they told us any numbers the company did almost $800M in sales and paid an 8% profit share to all employees. So you can still make money making things right.

 

[Erik Latranyi]

There is ZERO excuse.

Every auto manufacturer ramps up production slowly to work out problems exactly like this so they can put checks and processes in place to prevent them from leaving the plant.

Some companies do better at this than others. It all depends on top management setting the priorities.

 

[serpens]

Except there's millions of Americans that still won't buy new vehicles from any automaker in the first year because they know there's kinks in them, including the fit & finish. And that's for every automaker sans the status symbols like Ferrari & Lamborghini. There are people who want the car #1 to be perfect, and there's people that want car #37,845 to be better than car #1.

Miss the small stuff? In this world, people have been arguing if "Grand Cherokee" is offensive top put onto a car and it still being sold or not. Even Land Rover pulls some of the best B.S. that they didn't think about, like the trailer hitch for the new Defender & the accompanying picture you can find in the owner's manual of a hand grasping it. It's crude and premium buyers aren't trying to buy something childish, yet it still sells.

Your excuses for Jeep on this matter are getting weaker and weaker. As others have said, if Jeep wants to play in this $100k+ arena they should be prepared to do so with higher scrutiny from customers. I think everyone in this thread hopes Jeep gets better at this but there’s no need to make excuses for them in the meantime.

 

[World14]

Your excuses for Jeep on this matter are getting weaker and weaker. As others have said, if Jeep wants to play in this $100k+ arena they should be prepared to do so with higher scrutiny from customers. I think everyone in this thread hopes Jeep gets better at this but there’s no need to make excuses for them in the meantime.

It's making an excuse to fully believe this FCA by-product wasn't going to be much? The same people giving me this push-back are the same one's complaining about how Jeep is still ran like FCA was.... which is the exact "excuse" I'm gunning for! People have spent these past few years harshly critiquing FCA as a whole. I make this so called "excuse" as hey, it's modern Jeep from FCA, they don't build cars like the others, and that's why they aren't built to the same standards, so there's going to be problems that people have already come to expect from Jeep, so why are people even surprised about this?

 

[World14]

What's your point? People are unrealistic for wanting an expensive product to be built right? We're already ignoring 10 year old drive trains for $100,000 I really don't think it's unreasonable to expect the body panels and trim pieces to fit right. Really couldn't care less what Ferrari and Lambo can fleece pull over their customers. Not sure what relevance that has with a Jeep. I'm also one of the people who won't buy first or second model years, I know they're rushing out the cars and letting early customers be the true RnD testers. I wait for forums to blow up with complaints, if they don't, I also usually will ask people that own the vehicles what their 1,2 and 3 year experince is. With how overpriced and under built new cars are, it's my belief you're crazy to buy early model years.

See post #150.
It's a literal Jeep thing people expected to be done right.
By FCA.
The same company they've spent years critiquing. They took away the badge, they didn't take away the fact it's still a Jeep, and it's what people should've already expected.
Also, "sans" in that case meant the exception. Everyone expects every automaker, except the 'status symbols', to have kinks in them. No one cares about the 6 figure status symbols anymore; they didn't even care when they were burning to the ground. The comment was to point reference to everyone else, like Toyota and Jeep.

 

[valiant67]

You somehow seem to be taking personal offense because FCA promised it was moving Jeep upscale but didn’t take care of the small stuff. This didn’t have to wait for new ownership.
Perhaps you don’t understand this simple fact: Many people criticized FCA (and for those around longer DCX and even independent Chrysler) because they want the best for the brands. Not excuses. Not buying just for “discounts”. Quality products that can offset the “Chrysler (or Jeep) is junk” image are necessary.

 

[Erik Latranyi]

Just like the plant emissions, Stellantis will be cleaning up many messes left by FCA.

 

[DustDevl340]

See post #150.
It's a literal Jeep thing people expected to be done right.
By FCA.
The same company they've spent years critiquing. They took away the badge, they didn't take away the fact it's still a Jeep, and it's what people should've already expected.
Also, "sans" in that case meant the exception. Everyone expects every automaker, except the 'status symbols', to have kinks in them. No one cares about the 6 figure status symbols anymore; they didn't even care when they were burning to the ground. The comment was to point reference to everyone else, like Toyota and Jeep.

The status symbols DO have kinks in them. Nothing is perfect. I recall a friend of a friend had an AMG Mercedes that ate a transmission AND an AC compressor in the first 6 months. My neighbor's Audi has disappeared from her driveway several times in the year she's owned it for a couple of weeks at a time with a different vehicle taking it's place for that period.

Price point doesn't matter. If am spending $20K or $100K on a car, I expect it to be well made and reliable.

 

[Dave Z]

I do know enough people who bought Mercedes and BMW and Audi cars to know they are not exactly perfect... but Jeep has to do better because it doesn't have decades of cumulative snottery.

 

[DustDevl340]

I do know enough people who bought Mercedes and BMW and Audi cars to know they are not exactly perfect... but Jeep has to do better because it doesn't have decades of cumulative snottery.

"cumulative snottery". I was literally LOL. I am so stealing that.

 

[LouJC]

In the pic it almost looks as if the hatch is too high on the pass side, as if its not square in the opening....
I hope they fix this, quality problems with Jeeps go way back to AMC/Jeep days, I will say that each one we have bought shows improvement from the '98, to the '07 to the '17, but at those price/market levels people are not tolerant of things like that.

 

[freshforged]

Yes, if you build a $100k Wagoneer in the same plant as a Ram pickup, the changes should raise the quality level of all the products in that plant.

In fact, every time a plant receives upgrades, the products should see an improvement as a result.

The problem with FCA is that while they invested in plant upgrades (one of their most positive actions) they kept squeezing suppliers and reduced testing, resulting in many quality and reliability issues.

Until this Wagoneer issue, we did not see many assembly problems under FCA (other than wrong axles due to botched line sequencing). Brampton still has body panel alignment issues, even after the 2015 refresh. How much is due to part design vs plant infrastructure is hard to tell.

But some anecdotal reports say the Wagoneers may have the alignment under control now. We will see as many reviews will be taking place.

Hope it’s not too late, and sorry for my previously pessimistic (extremely) take.

 

[Erik Latranyi]

Hope it’s not too late, and sorry for my previously pessimistic (extremely) take.

I think actions have been taken to correct this.

If anyone sees a Wagoneer with misaligned body parts, get a picture and location and send it to me.

 

[falconma]

I don’t see that textured piece on which the “Merica” is located in any pics of Grand Wagoneer online. It looks like something that somebody put on there themselves (or Photoshop). If anyone has actual pics of this that aren’t just a closeup view of the “Merica“, then please post.

it’s real, here is a pic of my obsidian