Poor Jeep Wrangler Sales

I was just looking at the June sales figures for the Jeep Wrangler. Down

39% from the previous year. Yet Chrysler is offering no rebates except $500 to armed forces personnel and $400 in marketing support to dealers.

So I chatted with a good friend of mine who is a sales manager at a family owned dealership in our area. His explanation is that Chrysler is just about making money and could care less about marketshare now.

Huh? - was kind of my response to him. You cannot make money unless you sell vehicles. There are fixed costs associated with production and you have to keep production and thus sales to a certain level to cover your costs. Marketshare does not matter? If you don't keep customers in your product lines, they venture elsewhere and usually never come back.

In other words, you cannot make money unless you sell vehicles and you cannot keep your customer base if you let customers go to other manufacturers - right?

As long as Jeep Wrangler, and other Jeeps for that matter, remain fuel inefficient, I don't understand why Chrysler is not offering incentives other than the $2.99 gas deal (big deal) - hey Chrysler, from looking at the dismal sales figures, it does not look like that idea worked. Try some incentives to bring the cost of the vehicles down for the buyers.

GM's 0% interest deal for up to 72 months really helped them and they reported better than expected sales in June.

Any dealers out there have any comments on Chrysler's direction with incentives? Any thing coming in 2009 product line to increase fuel efficiency to get people to buy Jeeps?

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Usenet User
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The $2.99 gas deal doesn't even apply to Wranglers.

GM's better then expected sales were still pretty sad. They expected a 25% decline, but are celebrating an 18% decline.

Reply to
RetiredFF

them and they

It's a matter of perspective. :/ Just had one of my cowerkers talking about replacing his old hauler with a shiny loaded out diesel. Right now he can get a 72 month 0% APR loan.

Another just bought a replacement truck with the 2.99/gal gas deal and sold his old beater honda accord for a bit more than 1k.

Guess if you have money and need a new truck, this is the time to jump. I sure would be thinking hard if they offered something like that on the new WJ. :)

Reply to
DougW

Rocky Mountain News, July 2, Denver, CO, Business Briefing:

«Fuel Economy Standards. A lobbying group for 10 major automakers said Tuesday the government is underestimating the cost of increasing fuel economy standards and wants those standards to go into effect too quickly. In a 71-page report to a request for comments on the government's proposed new rules, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's goal of increasing fuel economy by 4.5 percent per year between 2011 and 2015 "goes beyond what is technologically feasible and economically practicable."»

I have a Honda Civic HX I bought new in 1999, that gets 45 mpg driving the mountain passes between Montrose, Silverton and Durango. I have a 1995 Jeep Wrangler I bought new and made some minor mods to, that gets 25. These guys are blowing smoke. They could buy the plans from Honda for their passenger cars, and they could go back to building Jeeps like they did fourteen years ago. I drove from Durango to Montrose in the Honda, and the tank wouldn't even take two gallons. The Jeep would take four for the same trip.

I'm seeing those ads too. One claims that the price difference for fuel between a small passenger car, like my Honda, and a pimped out Tahoe is only $800 a year. They're offering huge cash discounts and rebates on the Tahoe, but it's still over $30,000 to buy it.

Saludos,

Earle

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Reply to
Earle Horton

yEAH but if you own the tahoe for ten years it's 8,000.00 bucks! minimum based on gas staying the same price it is today. Which we all know will not happen.

Reply to
ufatbastehd

i dont believe this has anything to do with fuel mileage. you can put dang near anything on wheels and call it a new model and it will sell like hot cakes for the first year just because its new and different. its only after the new wears off that you can tell if a design is a success and i believe this is what we're seeing now. at the risk of alienating JK owners (hey, we dont all have to like the same things) i believe the lagging sales are because the JK strays to far from what a jeep is. the jeep JoKe is a very capable SUV but it isnt a SWB jeep. its just to big and practical to appeal to those who typically buy SWB jeeps and thats why the design isnt selling.

Reply to
Nathan W. Collier

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