As for why it takes so long for you to get your vehicle after you order it. I
can answer that. Just think of it this way. They produce a completed car every
47 seconds, seems like a lot. Then take into account all the dealerships around
the nation waiting for those vehicles. Then, you have to realize that they are
sent out by train, which takes quite a while to get to their delivery point.
Then they sometimes sit at the delivery points for weeks, even months before a
driver becomes available to transport them. Then they are loaded onto a
transport truck and hauled, sometimes all the way across several states to their
final destination.
Then you can take into account that alot of vehicles are damaged during
transport. Vandalized on the trains.... scratched, dented, scuffed by the
transport drivers... etc.... and have to be sent back to Chrysler and then
you're waiting in line all over again. When I worked for the Chrysler
dealership here in town I was in charge of checking in all the shipments. You
wouldn't believe some of the stories I heard from these drivers. One that
springs to mind particularly is about a Quad Cab dak. One of the first ones
made. Some idiot got careless at the warehouse while loading it onto his truck
and totaled it. Backed into a pillar at about 40-50 mph, bent the frame, broke
out the back whindshield, screwed the tailgate and bed all up. So, maybe that
will help you understand the process by which a dealer gets his inventory and
why it takes so long sometimes.
Norah Bleazard wrote:
> After taking the Chrysler Plant tour last Thursday in Bramalea, Ontario
> Canada... I have to say that I was completely impressed and amazed. In this
> particular plant is where all the Intrepid, 300M, LHS and Concordes are
> made. Apparently this plant just completed their 2 millionth car the other
> day.
>
> The plant was like a small city and the robotics used were awesome. All the
> welding is done by these robots and the speed and accuracy at which they
> work made me speechless. The other thing that caught my eye were these
> unmanned forklifts running around picking up and delivering parts. They are
> all computer controlled, but it was very strange seeing all these vehicle
> running around without drivers. The whole experience kind of reminded me of
> being inside a "Borg" ship from Star Trek :-)
>
> I understood the concept of the "unibody" but never completely realized that
> these cars all start out their lives as the exact same thing. They just
> keep pumping them out without even knowing what car they will become in the
> beginning.
>
> I also didn't know that all of these cars for all over the world are all
> made right here. They pump out a completed car every 47 seconds and each
> car from start to finish takes 17 hours. Funny how it can take most
> mechanics longer than that to just change a transmission. So my question
> is... why does it take so many weeks before the vehicle you order is finally
> delivered to a person? :-)
>
> Our tour group was rather small (around 12 people), which I rather liked.
> This gave me (the inquisitive DMLer), a chance to ask many questions and the
> plant manager (at least I think that's who he was) managed to answer all my
> questions and was very pleasant and knowledgeable. Of course I also managed
> to promote the DML to him and told him of our group of Dakota enthusiast.
> He said he would go check out our site :-)
>
> As impressed as I was, I could never live my life on an assembly line. 12
> minutes for a break, 17 minutes for lunch, never being able to leave your
> position unless relieved, doing the same step, such as installing a door
> over and over and over again every 17 seconds. Not even getting the chance
> to do a different door :-). I guess it's ok for some, but I have a problem
> with getting bored on the job and need constant variety or I become a very
> unhappy camper. I applaud the people that can do it though, as they did do
> this job with precision and excellence.
>
> All in all, it was a fantastic tour... 2 1/2 hours long & about 3 miles of
> walking. I really enjoyed myself and learned so very much. I'm still
> relatively speechless.
>
> TTYL,
>
> Norah
> current: '98 Dakota Sport black 4x4 CC V8/5.2L/Auto
> current: '95 Dakota Sport white 4x4 Reg Cab V6/3.9L/5spd
> RIP: '95 Dakota Sport black 4x2 CC V6/3.9L/Auto
> previous: '93 Dakota blue 4x2 CC V6/3.9L/Auto
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:52:33 EDT