Automotive Forums

I wonder if the real reason Daimler merged with Chrysler wasn't just to get rid of a competitor.

  The Quality of Chrysler has diminished greatly in my opinion. My family and I have owned many Chysler Products over the years, To list a few:
1968 Fury- No problems, 1970 Fury II - no Problems, 1977 Plymouth Volarie- no problems, 1987 Jeep- 279,000 hard miles and runs great) 1991 Sundance-Great car-wrecked, 1992 Shadow-Great car (currently has 285,000 and still running) 1996 Neon- 306,000 miles before it was wrecked.  
  I took a hiatous from buying new cars for a while as I had plenty of transportation options. I recently purchased a 2007 Caliber. My Opinion?
JUNK I am so disapointed. I dented the frt. fender with my pinky finger. The car makes has more road noise than My Jeep. The entire design is obviously Daimler and Junk  

I agree.

I've been a true MoPar fan for a long, long time. I own a '96 Cummins powered Ram 2500, a '71 Dodge Charger/super bee, a '79 Dodge 24' Class C motorhome (440), and a '07 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited 4 dr. 4X4. quite honestly, I love all of them. but, I have noticed since the Daimler take-over (not merger), the quality has been turning for the worse.

I am glad to see that Cerberus has taken the riegns of Chrysler (hopefully for the better.) at least it's out of the hands of Daimler now.  

The notion that Daimler purchased Chrysler to eliminate a competitor is utterly preposterous on so many levels, as is the notion that Chrysler's quality decreased AS A RESULT of Daimler's influence.  I don't even know where to begin, but let's start somewhere.  

First of all, Daimler purchased (it was called a merger, but we all know that wasn't really the case) Chrysler for something like 34 billion in 1998, and then sold it to Cerberus for 7 billion. Even if Chrysler were a valid competitor to Daimler-Benz prior to the buyout, which it wasn't, why would Daimler pay 27 billion to eliminate a competitor?  Whatever you may think of Mercedes-Benz cars, there's no doubting that they're a serious force to be reckoned with in the automotive industry, and they're not run by idiots.  $27 billion buys a lot of research and development, and if Daimler felt somehow threatened by Chrysler, that money would have bought R&D that would have put Mercedes lightyears ahead of anything else on the road.

Secondly, Chrysler has never been, and never will be a competitor to Daimler Benz, at least not on the passenger car front.  Do you suppose, in the 1990's, that anyone cross-shopped Dodge intrepids with Mercedes E-class's?  Do you suppose that anyone cross-shopped Grand Cherokees with Mercedes ML's?  Of course not.  

Thirdly, prior to the merger, Mercedes was still building ridiculously over-engineered cars that still had a unique Mercedes character, excellent reliability, and outstanding longevity.  Regardless of their price and status, Mercedes didn't need to destroy freakin Chrysler to protect their  already legendary reputation, earned or not.  

Fourthly, the only truly successful chryslers (from a critical as well as sales standpoint) since the merger have been based on Mercedes Chassis.  The Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger, and Dodge Magnum are all based on a Mercedes E-class.  During the merger years, Chrysler may have sold plenty of neons, caravans, and Intrepids, but none captured the imagination of the car-buying public, as well as the automotive press, like the Mercedes-based sedans. And prior to the 300/Charger/Magnum, the Chrysler side of the company was loosing money.  

The latest Chryslers, such as the Dodge Caliber and Jeep Compass have nothing to do with Daimler engineering.  No major (or minor, for that matter) mechanical parts are shared with any Mercedes cars; thus, the responsibility for declining quality in recent Chrysler products lies squarely with its own engineering division.  

There's no doubt that the Daimler-Chrysler merger was poorly executed, mismanaged, and ultimately harmful to Chrysler.  But the idea that Daimler-Benz set out to destroy Chrysler, and is responsible for poor engineering is just plain silly.

I fully blame Daimler-Benz for screwing up Chrysler, but not because they infused poor quality into Chrysler products.  Rather, Daimler should have fully shared its technology and engineering with Chrysler.  Imagine a Neon and Stratus build on the rock-solid chassis and sophisticated suspension of a Mercedes C-Class.  The results would have been similar to the E-class-based Chrysler 300.  Infusing Chryslers with Mercedes engineering would have been a bit more expensive, but it would have propelled Chrysler far beyond the still-languishing GM and Ford staple products, and created critical respect and consumer demand for an American car company for the first time in 40 years.