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Chrysler recalling 780k minivans over fire risk

Chrysler is recalling 780,000 of its Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans from the 2010 to 2014 model years due to the possibility of circuits overheating, which can lead to a fire. Of the 780,000 total vans being recalled, Chrysler estimates that 644,850 are in the US, 106,980 are in Canada, 8,009 are in Mexico, and 20,638 are in other markets. All of the affected vehicles were built between August 25, 2010 and October 31, 2013.
Chrysler's engineers discovered that beverage spills or exposure to moisture (from rain, snow, car washes, and the like) were linked to circuits shorting in the window switch assembly. Short circuits can overheat, and thus, cause a fire.
Chrysler will contact owners and let them know when they may schedule service, at which point, the window switches will be replaced. In the interim, the automaker says that owners may visit their dealers after May 14 to have the switches disconnected.

How Dodge dealers are earning the right to sell Hellcats

We all hate the idea of the dreaded dealer markup when it comes to buying a highly anticipated new car. Take the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, for example. You might spend hours reading about its supercharged V8 and speccing the model just right in the configurator, but when it finally comes down to laying down the cash, the dealer adds thousands of dollars as a "market adjustment" on the muscle machine of your dreams. As it turns out, when the Hellcat starts hitting showrooms in the third quarter, Dodge is trying to make sure that's not the case.
Dealer orders for the much-hyped Hellcat recently started, but Dodge boss Tim Kuniskis has put some special caveats in place to ensure that the Hellcat makes it to the road quickly. The initial allocation is based on the number of Dodge products that a showroom has sold in the last 180 days, and a second allotment in December is based on the last 90 days of sales and 30-day turnover. "You sell a lot of Darts for me, Journeys for me, Durangos for me, I'm going to give you the rights to this one, too, because this is a halo of the brand," said Kuniskis to Automotive News.
Furthermore, how quickly the Hellcat sells is also going to decide whether showrooms get more of them. "If you want to market-adjust the car, that's your right. But if your days-on-lot goes above what the other guys that are selling them at MSRP is, they will end up earning the allocation because their days-on-lot will be lower," he said to Automotive News. Obviously, this doesn't prevent dealers from marking up the Challenger SRT, but the strategy certainly discourages it.

2019 Dodge Challenger Hellcat with twin-scoop hood spied with no camouflage

Dodge recently teased an updated 2019 Challenger SRT Hellcat sports coupe complete with an all-new hood with dual scoops. It didn't reveal anything else about the vehicle, saying more details were coming. And now we have more details, but not in the way Dodge probably wanted. We can now see the updated Hellcat with the new hood. To be perfectly honest, it's pretty much what we expected. The teaser photos indicated that the hood was the only major body change, and this car confirms it. The rest of the body is identical to a normal Hellcat. The bumpers, grille mesh, even the wheels are all standard Hellcat parts. Even the slotted rotors and Brembo calipers look the same. This car does suggest that the hood will be available on both the narrow-body Hellcat and the Hellcat Widebody, the latter of which was featured in the teaser images. There is actually one other minor difference on this 2019 Hellcat's exterior, and that's the grille badging. There's now a vintage-style badge with "Challenger" written in script off to one side. Currently only one grille and badge design is available on Hellcat, and it features just the SRT Hellcat logo. It appears the SRT badge is still present, but blocked off on this prototype. So it's possible this new badge comes with the new hood as a sort of retro package for Hellcat. We should have all the details on this and other 2019 Challengers when the car is officially revealed later this summer. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2019 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Spy Shots View 11 Photos Image Credit: KGP Photography Spy Photos Dodge Coupe Performance dodge challenger srt hellcat