William Maley
Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com
October 31, 2013
Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne vowed this week that the company would not repeat the mistakes that caused the new 2014 Cherokee to be delayed.
"What we've learned is that we'll never repeat it. We're never going to take a plant down and be out of the market for over a year," Marchionne said on a call with analysts.
The Cherokee is the first Chrysler vehicle to use a new nine-speed automatic transmission. However, problems arose with how the engine, nine-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel-drive system interacted with each other. Engineers worked for months to create a software patch to smooth out the interaction. This is turn caused a number of Cherokees to sit at Jeep's Toledo factory, waiting for this update. It also caused the sale date to be pushed back from the summer to this month.
"We were naïve that it would be a seamless introduction," Marchionne said.
With the issue resolved, dealers are now getting their Cherokees. Also, the Toledo factory is hard at work, producing 1,000 Cherokees a day.
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.
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