Foreign cars

Joe, sorry to hear about your Mopar woes. Sounds like you have had more dealer issues than product issues. As a former Mopar dealership tech I can tell you that most Mopar dealerships, from a customer's standpoint are very poorly run. The service dept. is a profit center which is geared to... you guessed it, generate profits! Customers come second. Add to this a poor technician training program and a system that's designed to part the customer from his/her money and you have a deeply engrained problem in (I believe) most American car dealerships that's very tough to change. The customer very rarely does business directly with the manufacturer. They do business with the manufacturer's representative, the dealer, who is a franchisee and a separate and independent business that doesn't always have the manufacturer's best interests at heart. Most dealers lose around 75% of their service customers to the aftermarket. Very unfortunate.

That being said, my family have ALWAYS bought Mopars. Everything from Darts, Monacos, Gran Furys, cheap little Omnis and K-cars etc., to $40k Grand Cherokees and 300s. My 3 sisters don't maintain their cars worth a damn, to the point of being abusive. My dad at least has his oil changed, but not much else. For every Mopar you've had a bad experience with, I can name at least three in my family that have gone well past 100k miles with little or no problems. Yes, we've had door handles break and other stupid stuff go bad, but don't make it sound like foreign cars have no problems. As a former employee of foreign brand dealerships, I can tell you EVERY manufacturer, bar none, has issues with their cars. The difference is how the problems get handled by the dealers, which in turn drives customer perception of quality and value.

like i said i can only speak on my and my family experiences. and yes most of the problems were dealership issues. but guess what that dealer represents the manufacturer. it has their name plastered all over the building and they are supposed to know what they are doing. yo know how much of my time was wasted by having to take those damn vehicles back and forth to the dealer just about once a month? its freaking crazy. the problem the american manufacturers do not hold their dealers to any kind of standard. even when you call chrysler, which i did about the dealer giving us the run around on our magnum. they are like there isn't anything we can do.. i told them they should let me take it to my own place to fix and they should pay for it since the dealer didn't want to fix their mistake. chrysler said well we can't force them to do anything because we have nothing to do with them and they are privately owned. i said yea but its your name all over the signs out front and they are a direct representation of you. they did call the dealership and it did get fixed but again it had to go right back because it wasn't right and i ended up waiting 8 ours there for it to be done.. total bullshit....

chrysler and the the other so called american car companies can build the best cars in the world but if they don't revamp the dealer network they will continue to crumble. you have to treat your customers like you want their business, treat them with respect. its common sense customer relations. i can not believe these asshole don't understand that yet. the surveys that a jap company gives you to fill out get taken very seriously. its such a simple idea why can't the so called american car companies do that and actually have the dealer get a certain grade or whatever or risk losing their dealership?

and yes i agree all makes will have their problems. but bad front end parts,fuel pumps, shifters, warped rotors at under 30,000 miles? hell my 01 youta had 180,000 miles on all the original front end parts and even its original brake rotors. that baby was as tight as the day i bought it when i sold it, my current yota has all its original front end parts on it at almost 80k . that that bull **** with my dodges is just unacceptable to me.. not to mention i know something was up in the trans or converter but ofcourse they couldn't find anything. so glad we got rid of that **** box. hell i have a good friend with a 2010 srt chally... he paid like 45k for that car. 3000 miles and it had a broken valve spring, dealer didn't want to cover it under warranty. they finially fixed it only to totally miss with the valve cover gasket. that ****** was leaking so much oil on the header,exhause manifold that it looked like he was spraying for mosquitoes, has like 20k on it now and the rear hums so damn lous when its cold its annoying as hell, hums pretty good when warm too, freaking plastic trim cracking all over the car, trans already feels loose as hell (6 speed). this is on a $45k car. that is nuts. and common problems if you look at challenger talk.

and like i said my personal experience only. my three dodges were in the dealers more in one year ( for non-routine maintenance) then any of my toyotas have been in all the years i have owned them. to me thats just not right. it shouldn't be like that.. every time i have to goto the dealer is time out of my schedule. i understand **** happens and i can live with **** breaking here and there but my three new dodges were over the top. i am done with that garbage company. i'll play with my 70's-down mopars.

i'm a very loyal person. you treat me right and i will come back and spend money with you. even if at times its a little more money the somewhere else i can go. i held out going foreign for a long time but i gotta tell ya. toyota has treated me very well over the years and i will continue to buy toyota until they make my experience bad liek chrysler did. this is exactly why the OP article is the way it is. look at the garbage the big three was putting out there in the 70, and 80's. honda and toyota came in and gave the american public what they wanted, treated them right and gained loyal customers. those loyal customers had kids and passed those jap cars down to them. wow guess what those kids bought when it was time for a new car... yup another jap car because they had a good experience. it just keeps going and going like that. the big three lost generations of families because of their poor business practices. seriously, why are you going to go away from a company that has been a good experience for you over the years when you are spending $15,000 and up.