History of the Chrysler / Mercedes Merger 

Ufugginwotm8 ye

Seriously, there are awesome,

Same, its amazing to see what was once considered new and fancy...oil filters and air filters...whodathunkit?

I look forward to these every time they get released...they're awesome.

I enjoy them quite a bit, too, especially since I had been working on a similar idea (shorter, more vocal flair) for a while before The Tale of the Dale was released.

Had 6 Chryslers.. all great cars.... slant six and 318 V8's ... AND A 1960 Royal... Tough

Frack 6pm in Perth Australia

Now everyone knows you are on the west coast....

Frack was just about to write this

10:16 AM over here.

2am here with quiz early morning, still worth it!

It’s reliable because of the Mercedes power train lol

@@diablocls55 the Chrysler power train was known to be as good, if not better due to it’s simplicity.

OM647…..diesel??

@@stinkmeaner3016 yes

​@@ryanthompson2893source?

Because Chrysler is not known for reliability either. Lagging manufacturers banding together.

don't know bout Mitsubishi. BUT Every Fiat owner(i'm not one) will tell you that next car will be Fiat. I was pretty judgmental until i talked to handful of owners and drove in Fiat Bravo and Punto. Merc was little iffy(rust as mf) form mid 90s to mid 00s(until redesign), before and after that they are solid cars with nice mpg, reliability, latest technology and great design. At the end of the day, every new car is a great car(at least ones that are sold in EU),it's just matter of regular car maintenance.

Don't forget their buyout of AMC.

+GodricThe The Fiat 500 Americans have was widened for our market and it is built in Mexico. So I could see how it would have issues. Too many links down the chain you know?

misantroop But could the partners be to blame for that reputation?

I had always heard that the end of Daimler/Chrysler was in a board meeting where the German Union representatives on the board voted down any further investment to Chrysler because they could not see the benefit in it for their members. They wanted the money to go where their union members worked, not UAW guys!

7 years later Fiat is ded in America.

That is sad

Depends how bad the future is

Then you bought a DaimlerChrysler product. This was back when Mercedes bought Chrysler

@@didncozosksma4466 He never said he didn't.

​@@didncozosksma4466the only time it was worth owning a Chrysler and ONLY that model. 😂

I did. It's real noticeable when a commercial kicks on.

Not THE BRICKLAND! Actually Malcom Brickland and the cars he brought to the US market, the Subaru 600, Yugo, etc. might be fun.

+KingMacintosh Fiat didn't kill Chrysler because of reliability. They were already unreliable to begin with. The 2.7 EER engine is case and point. That engine was created in 1998 and was suppressed to be their fuel efficient engine. However the engine had a problem with engine sludge build up because of venting problems and could kill the engine at 50-70 thousand miles. However they put that engine in every damn thing in the 2000s. Just look at this list: www.oilsludge.com/vehicles/ .They never really fixed the problem. I had a 2007 Dodge with the engine and I could start to smell oil burning at less than 50k miles. People forget about this engine oftentimes, but this is really where Chrysler reliability issues started in recent times.

LoneRedSgt the 300 are swag so they need to stay and not disappear like Plymouth.

KingMacintosh Mr Regular actually covered that aspect in the PT Cruiser review; they were originally bought by baby boomers who could afford the maintenance of these cars, but have now trickled down to gen Xers and Millenials who can't afford the maintenance costs, which is why good condition PTs are getting harder to find nowadays.

+KingMacintosh Yes some failures are due to the owner, but you can't say that for every gremlin.I accept Chrysler sometimes unreasonable amount of maintenance because I like working on my Jeep TJ. For the most part because it is very simple to maintain and learn on. I understand Chrysler can make a decent product. Every car company worth its salt fails sometimes when it tries to be ambitious. But when Chrysler fails, they fail HARD.

They really did make some turds (looking at you sebring and durango) but they also made some really innovative and quirky vehicles (mopar muscle cars, ram trucks, 90s jeeps, etc) its really a shame that the quality lacks so much

Try a Chevy SS or Pontiac G8. The best American cars ever built. In Australia

Aston Martin uses Benz V8 engines

Chrysler owned 12.5% of Peugeot/Citroen in the late 80s, so you can add it in too.

PONTIAC WAS JUNK

BESIDES THE FIREBIRD AND TRANS AM

@@fabiodacosta9573 the grand prix and the bonneville were decent cars. the GTP and SSEi with their supercharged 3800's had decent engines.

Just finished that one and came to this one.

@@fabiodacosta9573 Bullshit!

Hahah all the wrestling references.

@RegularCarReviews keep it up guys, despite the message of failure this video made me feel even more devoted to my favorite car manufacturers

All American car (and most European) manufacturers are PLANNED obsolescence.. they're not counting on you driving it more than 60k miles cause they know by that time your car will be about 3 years old and they'll have a newer, updated, design that will surely entice your consumer "driven" brain.. though I'll admit, I do like jeeps and Durango 😅

Cope. Chrysler products are substantially lower quality than GM and Ford. Obviously, none compare to Toyota.

amogus pp

Oh, and I love the Ferengi rules. :)

Well, it's because Gruppo FIAT (the Company under which FIAT SpA operated right before the merger) was losing cash by the billions ever month, it would've been dead as a doorknob in 10 years without it. FIAT needed a foothold in the US, as well as new powerplants and fresh capitals and ideas, Chrysler needed a new stock of models and some love. After all, it seems us Italians understood what Americans like better than the Germans did... plus, we do honestly respect what Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge represent, they're not just a sticker to most of us. This was truly a merger between equals.

@@gabem.5242 except for Jeep just being a sticker, minus the renegade/actual Jeep looking vehicles, the splitting of Dodge and Dodge Trucks(and the losing of the exclusive Cummins diesel), the thought of spinning off Jeep and Dodge trucks and the selling off of MOPAR, the idea of discontinuing of Dodge, and somehow the quality is still...the same. Oh and Fiat still hasn't really gained a market share(excluding rebrands)

True. Also; from 1990 to 1997 Chrysler was doing pretty well. Then came the merge with Daimler-Benz in 1998. Daimler-Benz pretty much ran Chrysler into the ground from 1998 to 2009.

​​@@gabem.5242sure, fiat almost failure their financials and almost bankrupt. But they purchased Chrysler and their platforms and the vehicles helped both to increase his sales and exit the both them of red lines.. Now Fiat has found your golden goose: Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep platforms and vehicles, mainly SUVs/CUVs and pick up Trucks, cuz they've had a profit margin high, Fiat nowadays almost had in their line up SUVs and CUVs, they almost phase out his regular cars to increase the production of CUVs and SUVs.

Maurice Slingerland I didn't get the joke. I thought it had something to do with those comics about the ardvark.

What aardvark? :P

Mercedes passed BMW in sales, Merc is not going anywhere

"Design Brilliance"? "PT Cruiser" ? You must be a profession comedian!

+Burlats de Montaigne It sold well and a lot of people love it. It is the retro car that sells better than Mini and Beetle combined.

+GodricThe Mercedes was losing money by building "overengineered" cars back then. Mercedes had the same problem as Chrysler: multiple platforms and specialized parts for different classes. They looked down on Chrysler designs but then when they tried to "fix" the engineering, they realized they won't make any money or they simply built a cheaper and bigger version of their own car. So, they skipped most of the engineering works and left Chrysler to milk profitable models as long as possible, looking for buyers while sucking the profit dry for themselves.

The LX platform has done very well for them. I'm always surprised how well it continues on even after 12 years of it now. Though I do feel a little upset for jumping into it when I did. (2006 Charger Daytona) only to see it explode into what it is today. On the flip side the Dart and the 200 didn't work as well for them (I daily a 2015 Dart). The 200 and Dart are okay at best chassis (even though I keep hearing rave reviews, it doesn't live up to my old E36 BMW), and they also suffered from poor production quality. I love Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep and even the Plymouth of old, but I worry about their future...

Not only that a 50 Min one too!!!!

Indeed

Chrysler is just fiats bitch now.

@@avdgaming3550It seems to me that Fiat hasn't learned anything about the American car market they were shit when they left the USA market in 1983 and they seem to be shit now,!

michael weizer they aren’t. Do research on CUSTOMER REVIEWS. you’ll be surprised.

They did just that when they had the 200, 300 and Pacifica. Once they knocked the 200 and dart they fell off. Great cars that the reviewers gave bad names. Sad.

ChevyBM but charger & challenger

The SRT-6 Crossfire is a pretty cool car.

Don't forget the Sprinter vans! ;)

Mid-late 00's Grand Cherokee is also bretty good.

challenger yes, charger that name should have stayed in 1970

provostkhot As I understand it, the late '90s and early '00s, under Juergen Schrempp, was the problematic era. Under Dieter Zetsche, aka Dr. Z, who is an engineer, the products were better.

should've went back to making aircraft

provostkhot But it sure is a gorgeous car.

Chrysler was well into the black, had lots of cash back in the late 90's, but Daimler just sucked them dry...then Cerebrus maintained the problem and the rest is history.....precarious situation for the company, results of very poor management. They almost went under during the recession of 59, the famous 1979 year, then 2008.

Benjamin 1 that’s bmw. Get you’re facts right bitch

Yes please

Well, they do retain the crappy unrefined American suspension, so I guess you‘ll like them.

@@tomsommer8372 Are we talking about the Challenger/Charger? Because those are based off Mercedes E class suspension parts.

@@averyw.3939 - True. Then again, suspension geometry is a bit "black magic" , and it takes little to thoroughly change the behavior of a car, especially when it comes to multilink ones, like those in the rears of all generations of Mercedes E-class, which use different stiffnesses if the aritulation rubber supports to tweak the response. From the point of view of Europeans, all American cars have crappy suspension simply because they are designed to meet the needs of American buyers. Sometimes, even European cars sold in the U. S. have their suspensions tweaked for American roads. I have a neighbor that kept his Merceded when he moved back to Spain from New Jersey. The only external difference with my own car are its federalized Lights and 5 mph bumpers. But the couple of times he gave me a ride, I was surprised at how wobbly and mooshy his car felt. On the other hand, when FCA "badge engineered" the new "Lancia Thema" out of the Chrysler 300, they tweaked the suspension and steering a bit to make it more palatable for Italian drivers. In the end, an engineer is an engineer is sn engineer. Give him the right set of goals and they will give you a nice car, but the goals are decided by the guys of the marketing with the hope of satisfying potential customers.

@@averyw.3939 It runs on the same chassis, not the same suspension parts. My E550 runs on air suspension, a 392 does not.

@@diablocls55 Didn’t know those cars were air ride, that’s pretty cool. I would expect that most of the links and geometry are similar though, just supported by coils rather than air.

True, but keep in mind the LS400 was a loss leader for Lexus, meaning they lost money on everyone they sold. My father had one for years, a tank, solid, incredibly smooth engine.

Thomas De Doncker but that loss leader made the lexus brand they executed it neat perfectly

the only things that Fiat Chrysler cant sell are Fiats and Chryslers.

The Abarth 500 is exciting, but that’s technically an Abarth and not fiat

Fiatsler is junk, and were it not for Ram/Jeep would be long gone. Do not be surprised if that is exactly what happens as the industry continues to slow. Chrysler and Fiat get ditched, and only Ram/Jeep remains.

Cornelius McMuffin they sale a lot of Chrysler’s the Pacifica is too selling and the 300.

Nooooo shit! & it's srsly annoying. aside from "slant sixes are tough" everything else is 'junk'. which is a seemingly inescapable lie. Chrysler's least good stuff has always been from using brand x parts, not their own in house engineered stuff..which isn't so common anymore, bc of 'the merger' with Daimler who dropped all of the awesome Chrysler personnel in exchange for the Mercedes ppl. i too see how Fiat has been a blessing in multiple ways for Chrysler, as good as Daimler was bad.

Yep. That 6G72 engine option in damn near everything was incredible. What a hell of a motor!

Tim Beck. and Cerberus was worse, just in terms of interior style and quality Cerberus era cars are less attractive to me than 90s era cars.

Kev Doe it was Japan's answer to GM's 3800 V6.

Go drive in a car with a Mitsubishi platform? I own 3 of them. My built 90 GSX and stock 94 3000GT VR-4 would probably embarrass whatever you drive. It was a good partnership

KingMacintosh so anything that isn't American is shit ?

You're wrong on both counts Durango is stretched GC and charger is not an e class..haaaa...has s classfeont suspension..there from 2004 and before The GC was made with the old ML

Samuel Abraham So had it not been for MB, in other words, Chrysler would have been as dead as AMC. So, even though Chrysler hated MB's parenting, Chrysler was better off with them than with its pen pal, Fiat.

Stefan Unson Yep. Chrysler stuck a 700hp Hemi into a 2002 E class... they haven't yet developed their own platform for their popular cars

Samuel Abraham wrong.

akaki202 im there with ya. i got a 70 plymouth gtx and 75 dodge ramcharger se, both with 440s and my 2004 dodge srt4 as a daily. i love the feeling of people asking "what kind of car is that?". mustangs and camaros are a dime a dozen from where im from. roadrunners are not :-) MOPAR or no car brother.

Adam K They just didn't get along with each other, though I believe that Chrysler didn't like to do the things that Mercedes instructed them to do that were probably good for them.

And the tradition continues... F I A T