2004 Jeep Wrangler Sport Utility 2-door 4.0l on 2040-cars

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Coronavirus shakes up America's truck market: GM outselling Ford and Ram

FCA, Ford and General Motors joined the rest of the U.S. auto industry in taking heavy volume hits due to coronavirus-related shortages of both cars and customers. The saying goes that a rising tide lifts all boats; it stands to reason, then, that a falling one would have the opposite effect.  However, as we learned Thursday, the automotive market can behave in unpredictable ways. While the F-Series remained the best-selling nameplate in Q1, GM's full-size trucks are now outselling Ford's again for the first time in years, and with this upward thrust from the General, FCA's Ram was unceremoniously booted out of a hard-earned second place.  While late-March sales declines hit just about every major automaker in one way or another, the model-by-model results weren't nearly so uniform. And because the market tends to be a zero-sum game, for every winner, there generally has to be a loser.  In this case, that winner was GM, and its rise had to come at the expense of another automaker, in this case, Ford. F-Series sales dropped 13.1 percent in the first quarter of 2020, while sales of GM's full-sized Silverado and Sierra surged nearly 28% in the same period. FCA's Ram lineup managed a steady-as-she-goes 7% increase. All-in, GM finished the quarter with 197,743 full-size trucks sold to Ford's 186,562. Here's the full breakdown: Ford F-Series: 186,562  Chevrolet Silverado*: 144,734 Ram P/U: 128,805 GMC Sierra: 53,009 *includes 1,036 Medium Duty sales Things are a but murkier in the midsize segment, where the Chevy Colorado slipped 36% to just 21,430 units sold — just a few hundred better than the slow-selling Ford Ranger's Q1 numbers. The GMC Canyon experienced an almost identical slide, finishing the quarter with just 4,483 units sold. For perspective, Jeep sold more than 15,000 Gladiators and Toyota's midsize Tacoma slipped less than 8%, finishing the quarter with nearly 54,000 sales.  We suspect this discrepancy in full- and mid-size truck sales comes from shifting incentives. Ford, GM and FCA would like to keep selling bigger trucks because there's far more profit margin built into their list prices. Even with tens of thousands of dollars in manufacturer money on the hood, big trucks still make money.  Since these automakers report quarterly, we won't get another good look at these numbers until July, but if you thought that 2019 represented the new normal for U.S. auto sales, well, think again.

470,000 Jeep Liberty, Chrysler 200, and Dodge Avenger models recalled for restraint defect

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said on Friday it is recalling 470,000 vehicles worldwide to replace a component that may inhibit deployment of the vehicles' active head restraints in the event of a crash. Around 414,000 of those vehicles were sold in the United States. Apparently, "a component common to the modules of certain vehicles may degrade after extensive vehicle use." The recall covers 2012 Jeep Liberty sport utility vehicles and 2012-13 Chrysler 200 and Dodge Avenger midsize cars. FCA says a warning light may alert owners to the problem. The Italian-American automaker said it is unaware of any injuries or accidents related to the recall. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the issue in June. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Steve Orlofsky) Related Video:

The Apple of the auto industry isn't Tesla, it's Jeep

Whenever Apple is going to have a new product for sale in its stores, the fanboys line up in such great numbers that it's surprising Ticketmaster hasn't figured out a way to capitalize on the multitude of anxious buyers with credit cards ready to go. When Elon Musk talks about a new car being added to the lineup, there is an analogous group of people, and Musk has cleverly set up a model in which people place deposits for their place in line. The number of deposits (two per customer only, it should be noted) for the Model 3 is some 400,000. Because Tesla is a Silicon Valley company that has a highly desirable, highly designed suite of products for which there is demand the likes of which is completely uncharacteristic for the category, it is often compared to Apple. After all, has anyone gotten into line to buy a Windows phone? Do you even remember the Zune? So it must be that Tesla is like Apple. But there is one nontrivial problem with this comparison: Apple sells its products in mass quantity. Tesla, even though it just had its best quarter ever, delivering a record 25,418 vehicles - up 69 percent over the first quarter of 2016 - is still, when compared to the car industry in general, selling a specialized product. No, the automotive brand most like Apple is Jeep. Just as with Apple's quickly identified design language - either for the physical phones and computers or the interfaces for same - there is no mistaking a Jeep. Like Apple's legion of fans, there are people for whom a Jeep is not merely a form of transportation, but a statement about one's way of life. Like the companies that wish they could have designs that are Apple-like and do their utmost to have a similar objects or appearances (sometimes landing them in court, a la Samsung), is there a single automotive company that wouldn't like to have some of Jeep's magic? While there aren't people who are lined up outside of dealerships when a new Jeep goes on sale, there is probably more interest in the forthcoming Wrangler than in the accumulation of interest in a half-dozen other vehicles from other companies. And like Apple, Jeep is a comparative volume play. Last year FCA US LLC delivered 926,376 Jeeps. Walter P. Chrysler and the Dodge Brothers must be spinning at high velocity in their graves, because the U.S. total for Chrysler brand was 231,972, and Dodge was 506,858. The sum of the two - 738,830 - is well shy of Jeep's sales. On a global basis, Jeep sold some 1.4 million units in 2016.