What Will It Take To Turn Chrysler Into Another Toyota?

What Will It Take To Turn Chrysler Into Another Toyota? Toyota.

It will take quality, durability, reliability and huge economies of scale.

EnnNorak

Like I said Toyota

Great marketing, slightly better designs, slightly better quality.

I hope that by "great marketing" you are not promoting the old-school marketing that no longer works on today's smart consumer. Consumers today want full disclosure, honest products, and reliable technology instead of intangible and questionable benefits promoted by marketing hype.

I am not promoting any type of marketing. Toyota has a great marketing team. It is your choice to drink the Kool-Aid they are selling.

toyota's marketing is great, true.

great mainly because it is BUILT ON a SOLID PRODUCT, with PROVEN industry leading reliability.

a solid product that includes WORLD CLASS ENGINES, always state-of-the-art and tested over hundreds of millions of miles in satisfied customers' cars over the years.

a solid product with near perfect quality of ASSEMBLY, among when not THE industry leader in defects per 100. again, over decades of production.

with such products, marketing is a snap.

(and even bland styling can't slow sales of such products. with good styling, the sales simple increase even more, as in recent years.)

Let me find a book about magic and I'll let you know.

not mutch

that is a crazy question, Toyota an impressive organization by any standards, not just auto industry. If it were as simple as a few suggestions Toyota wouldnt be Toyota.

oh that's simple, a miracle.

They need to be very Boring and aim at the Senior Citizen group. But a miracle wouldnt be bad either.

Hire Guigiaro as chief designer of all new Chrysler models. And use IKEA inspired interiors with decent quality.

Add this to effective marketing which give the cars an aura of sporty yet upscale sophistication at the common man's reach.

If measures like these are implemented, they can succeed and thrive in the auto industry. Chrysler has more history and heritage than Toyota and has always been on the upscale side from say a Chevy, Ford or Dodge and approaches towards Lincoln territory (historically)

Ikea inspired?
Can you imagine the panel gaps if you had to put it together yourself?
They'd be even worse! And the glovebox wouldn't stay closed...and there would be missing bits. Like "Where's the shift lever?"

Both Chrysler and Ford have new bosses and a new Direction. It will be interesting to see who improves the most. I like the crew Chrysler has put together. Ford still has a few let's say incompetents hanging around(Fields, Mays and of course Ford, jr).

Upgrade. Everything. The exterior designers can stay though.

bring back MBZ , lol

There is nothing that Chrysler has that Toyota needs. A better solution (and a long shot) would be for Ford and Chrysler to merge. They can flip a coin as to who would run it but I would put my money on the airplane guy.

All this BS about Toyota being better than American products is crap. They have had better markting but thats going to change.All of our co. cars are Ford products,and we sell them at 200,000 miles. The trucks we keep on running. I personally know of one van with 237000, and still running. We have diesels with over 300000 and still working. All you people that buy off shore owned automotive products had better take a look at your country. I have to sleep at night,I can't buy toyota or any other one.I have to buy to many China products ,and there cars are next. The euro is worth more than the dollar gosh I wonder why

Well obviously Press is trying to do what he did with Toyota. Brand name recognition is important as Toyota did that with the Camry and Corolla.Perhaps models specific to Chrysler and Specific to Dodge and Specific to Jeep is a good way to start out. Better styling,better interior quality on ALL models,and better driving characteristics,especially on FWD and AWD models would help a lot. Chrysler has to create a lust for their FWD main stream vehicles like they did for the Dodge Challenger. Maybe they need to bring back the "Cordova" with corintian leather. Who knows. Toyota can get away with boring cars but Chrysler as well as no American car maker can. There can be no such thing a the default choice.Every vehicle Chrysler makes has to create some sort of gotta have response to the consumer.All it's vehicles have to have a uniqueness or coolness to them. A very tall order.

1. drop the jeep patriot, commander and compass.
2. update the 300. kill the aspen.
3. update durango, dakota and ram.
4. make the magnum only a v8. (no cheap variant.)
5. don't expect to sell 30,000 challengers.
6. kill the entire design staff and overpay for good ones.

Chrysler's problem that it makes cars that sell good in the first 6 months like the pt cruiser, caliber, the 300, the charger. the hype dwindles very quickly. at one point the caliber was so hot that dealers were getting a couple of grand over sticker. they were even being exported to russia by the truck load.

LET JEEP BE JEEP!

Agent 009,

You dare ask this question when you know "joshlexus4ever" will respond!?

Remove the toyota nameplate and replace it with theirs. Hire asian actors, japanese, to drive them.

I hope they don't "become another Toyota" when it comes to boring cars that are sold by the crap load. Rather, I hope Jim Press will bring quality and respect to a company that has a proud heritage for product and engineering innovation. I'd rather see Chrysler be more like a BMW that sells a unique, exciting, quality product, but offers it at a reasonable price.

TRacer ..
You must be joking, BMW sells more 3 series than the Ford Mondeo in UK, does that make it exclusive anymore..? yet somehow BMW controls the resale value so that apart from being common as muck, they rip you off in the process. Despite that British people still fall for it again and again..

BMW the ultimate driving machine yet most people get theirs in Automatic... how ironic..

"yet somehow BMW controls the resale value so that apart from being common as muck, they rip you off in the process. Despite that British people still fall for it again and again.."

That's because, in the words of the Brits, it's effing brilliant.

BMW don't control resale value - the market does.

the market does indeed control resale values.

and might there be a REASON used toyotas and lexi always command PREMIUM prices? quality will always out.

Chrysler trucks were always better than anything toyota has to offer!

The exterior designs must continue to be creative. The interiors need to follow some sort of benchmark from a European luxury automaker though. The engineers definitely have to "unlearn" what they're currently doing first, then start to re-design interiors in functionaly creative ways.

Chrysler's brands must decide if they want to be rugged, near-luxury, family oriented, sporty-youth oriented, etc. It's hard to hit all of the target markets with one brand, but it's equally as hard to convince everyone that you have "something for everyone" under one roof.

The Chrysler brand must have a flagship sedan and SUV (or CUV) with strong offerings on the midsized categories too. It may not be about have all these models but to have mutiple variations for each model offered (ie, wagon, coupe, AWD, sporty, luxury). GM seems to be effectively do that with the CTS. Why can't they do it with the STS and BLS? Don't know.

Is Jeep just a rugged vehicle brand or can they have a softer variations (options) of a rugged model. They started a bit with the different 4WD versions. The Grand Cherokee can cover multiple markets (soft-roader, off-roader, speed and sporty, luxury on-pavement only) if they only just make their options list more robust.

A new FWD/AWD PT Cruiser can sit on the same platform as a Neon sedan replacement. The Patriot can also use the same platform but have multiple variations that include the different 4WD systems (Freedom Drive?).

There's a lot Chrysler can do. They just have to really commit and market.

I don't think that can be accomplished.

"It won't happen overnight either. I wouldn't want them to become the successful yawner Toyota is..."


LOL! yeah, chrysler along with ford and gm had yawned and fell asleep for only 30 years, while toyota snuck up out of nowhere and passed them ALL by to become No. One on the planet in 2007.

i 'spose all those tens of MILLIONS of toyota buyers were asleep when they bought all those cars too?


"All they need is Toyota quality and TPS and nothing more."

yeah, and this is gonna happen overnite too?

toyota itself took 20 years to develop and perfect the TPS. since detroit is nowhere as smart as the japanese, maybe chrysler will get the TPS down by 2068. LOL!

oh, and how far along is MB on emulating TPS? or are their problems STILL all the fault of ONLY crappy suppliers? (even detroit is further along.)

A Miracle

and i'm convinced you are just a mercedes apologist. not only is mercedes the most boring among the german brands, their quality is so crappy CR recommends all of ZERO, NADA, ZIP mercedes models.

yes i like toyotas, but for GOOD REASON. all the toyotas i've had so LOW OPERATING COSTS, they have all practically PAID FOR THEMSELVES. considering all the car payments i have NOT made over the years, never ever being FORCED to replace an unrealiable high maintenance car, i'd say no other brand helps it's loyal owners BECOME MORE PROSPEROUS.

now if you want to help benz dealers, salesmen, mechanics, and stockholders become more prosperous instead, at YOUR expense, be my guest!

i've had, had so LOW OPERATING COSTS...

and: more than one has PAID FOR ITSELF SEVERAL TIMES over.