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FCA recalling Chrysler and Dodge minivans, Dodge Nitro SUVs for faulty airbag covers

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said on Friday it would recall about 925,239 of its older model vehicles in the United States to replace airbag covers on their steering wheels after 14 potentially related injuries. The recall is limited to 2007-2011 Dodge Nitro SUVs, 2008-2010 Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans, the Italian-American automaker said. The move follows an FCA investigation that found these vehicles were equipped with certain clips that may loosen and disengage over time, and in case of a driver-side airbag deployment the clips could act as projectiles. Fiat Chrysler said none of the potential injuries involved occupants of front-passenger or rear seats and that the airbags were not supplied by Takata. Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel. Related Video:   Recalls Chrysler Dodge Minivan/Van SUV

Stellantis sees vehicle loan durations extended amid banking turmoil

Stellantis is seeing clients seeking longer-term financing and leasing deals for their vehicles as a consequence of higher global interest rates, the carmaker's head for the business said. Chief Affiliates Officer Philippe de Rovira said loans which normally had a three-year maturity were now increasingly moved to four years. "This allows customers to get a car for a monthly instalment that is similar to that they had before," he said. The world's third largest carmaker by sales on Tuesday announced it had completed a plan announced in late 2021 to reshuffle and simplify its leasing and financing operations in Europe. Under its terms, Stellantis created a 50-50 single long term multi-brand leasing company named Leasys with Credit Agricole Consumer Finance. It also set up local joint ventures in European countries for its new Stellantis Financial Services unit, formerly Banque PSA Finance, with BNP Paribas Personal Finance and Santander Consumer Finance. "These banks have always had better funding conditions than those we can have as an automaker," de Rovira said. Benefits of the plan included cutting the number of financing and leasing entities the group runs in each country and the number of IT systems it uses, with expected savings exceeding 30% in this particular area, he added. De Rovira said the group had a huge portfolio of orders it had not yet delivered due to supply chain shortages impacting production. "Demand is not our main issue. The issue is to deliver as fast as we can cars that are in our order portfolio, which is still at record levels," he said. The group aims to expand its corporate leased vehicle fleet to more than one million units in 2026 and to double net income from its so-called banking activities to 5.8 billion euros ($6.3 billion) by 2030. De Rovira said Stellantis was not seeing a downward trend in vehicle pricing. "Probably the significant price increases we have seen in 2021 and 2022 will not be repeated because the context is changing, but for the moment we don't see decreases, we see stabilisation". ($1 = 0.9188 euros) (Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari and Gilles Guillaume; Editing by Jan Harvey) Earnings/Financials Plants/Manufacturing Alfa Romeo Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM

NC dealer creates the convertible Challenger that Dodge won't build

Dodge still hasn't turned the Challenger into a convertible, and the odds of seeing a factory-built drop-top muscle car appear in showrooms are decreasing annually. Tired of waiting, a dealership in North Carolina teamed up with a Florida-based body shop to create a topless alternative to the Ford Mustang and the Chevrolet Camaro. It's the real thing, and it's for sale. Keffer Dodge, Chrysler, Ram and Jeep shipped three 2019 Challengers to a shop named Convertible Builders, according to Motor Authority. After losing their lid, they gained a cloth soft top that opens and closes at the push of a button. There's no word on what effect the conversion has on handling, or what Convertible Builders did to offset the loss of structural rigidity. The build didn't include mechanical modifications. Two of the convertibles are R/T Scat Pack models equipped with a 6.4-liter Hemi V8 engine that serves 485 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque. It's not a supercharged Hellcat V8, but it's potent enough to spin the rear wheels in third gear. The third, R/T-based model features a 375-horsepower, 5.7-liter V8. While our dream build would use a six-speed manual transmission, all three come with an eight-speed automatic that sends the engine's power to the rear wheels. Keffer's website lists the gray, white, and red cars at $64,000, $60,000, and $56,300, respectively. The regular R/T Scat Pack Widebody model starts at $46,245, and the eight-speed automatic adds another $1,595, so the convertible conversion adds about $16,000. It's your only option, unless you're brave enough to chop the top yourself, or patient enough to wait until the early 2020s. Dodge has already started developing the next-generation Challenger, so the current car is unlikely to spawn a convertible before it retires. Its replacement due out in 2021 or 2022 will allegedly ride on a wider, longer evolution of the Giorgio platform found under the Alfa Romeo Giulia, among other models, and unverified rumors claim it's being designed with a topless variant in mind from the get-go. It might resurrect the Barracuda nameplate originally assigned to Plymouth when it makes its debut. Auto News Dodge Convertible Performance