Detroit, Japan, and Car Quality

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Er, or is that 'pass mustard'... mexed mitiphors!

They *really* pissed me off when they obsoleted the (real) Cherokee... anyone notice how the new hemi Grand harks back to the real thing? First one I saw, I had to double-take... __ Steve .

Since Chrysler got taken over by Daimler, it's been downhill for the Jeep brand. The Grand Cherokee once ruled soccer mom driveways, but now it's nowhere near the success it once was. The capable Cherokee was replaced by the sissy-fied Liberty, the beloved 4.0 liter I6 is being fazed out by the less powerful 3.7 liter V6, and rumors are the next Wrangler will have IFS just like the Liberty. This is progress?

No, I think they understand the off road crowd wants a straight axle, right or wrong. And I think they're wrong to get rid of the inline

As far as the Liberty-it's a girlie-car and it does that well. Females love it. For men, there are Wranglers.

MBZ has had some QC problems-but they have acknowledged them and they are making progress. And they are the leaders in CAN electronics, which is as close as we are going to get in cars to ARINC 429, and it's the right way to go-the price will get right when the rest of the industry follows suit. Since it haas heavy use in capital manufacturing and materials handling equipment, real test tools, supplied by real vendors like Agilent, are available-far better than Mickey Mouse Snap-on automotive stuff.

First rate engines? Have you seen MB's reliability lately? Also, I'd rather have a pushrod engine in an application that requires torque, such as the Wrangler. Overhead cam engines don't provide enough grunt down low.

That leaves a void for those looking for something the size and capacity of the Cherokee that actually want to off road it. DC is aware of the outcry.

Making progress? They went from being considered the best built vehicle on earth (something I'm not sure they deserved in the first place) to having horrible reliability problems.

I'm out of my league on this one. Explain to me why this is important.

Rightly or wrongly, Detroit has never really gotten past the damage that they did in the 1980s by cranking out what were seen as over-priced, badly engineered, shoddy cars that wouldn't run right and fell apart the day after the warantee ran out.

For examples of how they perpetuate that idea, keyword search this group for "secret warantee" or "peeling paint" or "cracked exhaust".

While looking up info on Jeep FCs I found a link to a supplier for parts for the 1960-ish FC's Continental engine. The supplier deals in fork lift engine supplies.

That's pretty much what Brock Yates was saying in 1983 in _The Decline And Fall Of The American Automobile Industry_. Note that Detroit is whining that they can't sell as many SUVs -- now that gas prices are (perceived to be) high -- as they did a couple years ago. SUV sales is where they put all their profit eggs and made the most money. It isn't much different from 1980, whining that they can't sell as many bloated Buicks and Pontiacs with expensive "option packages" as they used to.

Yates was of the opinion that Detroit was an closed society, cut off from the market that fed them. Then, their idea of going out to the countryside and listing to what the common folk thought about their cars was to fly to LA and be driven to a trade show. That they today were unprepared for the side effects of oil going to $55/bbl suggests that the sons of the men who were blind 25 years ago are in charge.

How is GM fixing the situation now? Their Grand Plan consists of slapping a GM label on everything that they make. I predict that Saturn sales are going to start dropping faster the day after GM badges appear on those cars.

I haven't really been paying attention to current Jeepoid products but I do know that there was a corporate decision about a decade back to go after upper middle class buyers. It had something to do with a study that found that if there was a Cherokee in a two car garage, the other car was a luxury car. Ah! thought the hivemind, we should be building /luxury/ Cherokees -- completely missing the reason that the Cherokee was the _other_ car in the garage.

Current jeeps, on the same hand, just look like very tall boxy cars to me, but I'm not part of the herd that buys. Power windows, plush interiors, bah! I say. Its just a matter of time before they come out with a front-wheel drive "Wrangler" with a nice pillow-soft ride.

I'm really worried about what is going to happen to Jeep now that the shots are being called by Daimler. I just feel this has a negative impact on what I and many other Wrangler owners, in particular, want in a Jeep.

I say this because my Wrangler is now getting old. I wish I had the setup and skills to completely overhaul it, but I don't. Instead, I may have to get a new Wrangler. I don't want it to be some IFS, 3.7 V6 powered Liberty look-alike that I've seen in the rumours and the show cars Jeep has given us like the Hurricane. I want a Wrangler, in the traditional sense: Live axles front and back, 424/458 inline pushrod 6, removable doors, and everything you associate with a CJ/Wrangler.

BTW, gas would have to get a lot more expensive to steer me away from wanting to drive a Wrangler.

Too bad Daimler-Chrysler doesn't let their suspension engineers compete with the VW and Rover folks. They got rid of the G-Wagen and replaced it with a Walmart runner. There were rumors that they might create a ML and Grand Cherokee set of vehicles with the ride height control of a Rover or VW, but all they did was lower the GC and give it an IRS... it handles OK but not really that much better than the older solid axle and will get its rear end kicked on by the new Rovers on poor paved surfaces.

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com proclaimed:

A 458 I6 Wrangler, now that would be something. Each piston would be 1.2 litres !

Indeed, hard to believe, a 6-71 is only 426 cid.

But it's physically as big as the 855 cid Cummins, because it's a two cycle with a large plenum area around the bottom of the cylinders, a very tall deck, and a large volume crankcase area. It's also vastly overweight.

International had 400 cid gas inline sixes that were not much bigger than the standard pickup engine. Occasionally a bored farmer would stuff one in his 'Binder' pickup.

Oops! Retarded fingers... I meant 258 and 242 I6's, of course... I sometimes type too fast for my brain... :o)