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Say goodbye to the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200

Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne outlined an update to the company's five-year business plan Wednesday, and among the changes, the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 sedans will soon be phased out. The company's presentation to investors states that the "market shift from cars to trucks and UVs [utility vehicles is] now seen as permanent shift in demand," and FCA wants to respond as quickly as possible. Killing the 200 and Dart will allow FCA to build more Jeep and Ram models at the Sterling Heights, MI, and Belvidere, IL, plants where the sedans were produced. We already knew FCA was planning to shift 200 and Dart production to Mexico, to free up the Sterling Heights facility for Ram 1500 production, and the Belivdere site for Jeep Cherokee output. The Cherokee will move from its current home in Toledo, OH, to allow for increased Wrangler production. It's no shock that FCA wants to shift its focus to crossovers and trucks. In December 2015, for example, combined sales of the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 were 15,310. The Jeep Cherokee, which uses the same platform as the Dart and 200, outsold both models combined, with 24,049 sales. Both the Dart and 200 had troubles from the beginning. Marchionne recently blamed designers for the 200 not receiving a Consumer Reports 'recommended' rating, and the Dart was one of the lowest-scoring cars in a CR reliability study. Featured Gallery 2013 Dodge Dart: Review View 27 Photos Related Gallery 2015 Chrysler 200 View 43 Photos Image Credit: Copyright 2016 Drew Phillips / AOL Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM FCA confirmed

Junkyard Gem: 1983 AM General postal Jeep DJ-5L

When neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night will stay you from your appointed rounds, you don't need fancy styling or futuristic technology. All you need is a simple steel box with four wheels, one seat (on the right-hand side), a mail-sorting tray, and an engine. The Jeep DJ was that vehicle, and DJs served as workhorses for the United States Postal Service starting in 1955 and — in some rural areas— into our current century. Here's one of the last ones made, found covered with snow in a Denver self-service wrecking yard. Related: Postal truck prototypes spied from Oshkosh and Karsan When American Motors bought Jeep in 1970, it built and sold DJs via its AM General subsidiary. The DJ-5 was a stripped-down, two-wheel-drive version of the pretty-spartan-to-start-with Jeep CJ, and there wasn't much to go wrong with it. The final year for the DJ-5 was 1984. During the AMC era, the DJ received an ever-shifting array of engines, depending on what looked like the best deal in Kenosha at a given time. Starting with the Chevrolet Nova straight-four, Jeep DJ engine compartments boasted AMC straight-sixes of 232- and 258-cubic-inch displacements, followed by Audi 2-liter straight-fours (yes, the same engine used by the Porsche 924), then the 2.5-liter GM Iron Duke four, and finally the 2.5-liter AMC straight-four. This DJ-5L has Duke power. The early DJs had manual transmissions, but all the AM General DJ-5s came with automatics. If you think an Iron Duke powering a Jeep is odd, consider that it's bolted to a Chrysler Torqueflite transmission. Once the USPS was done with them, cheap DJ-5s flooded the market. This one has had a random junkyard seat swap, but retains the handy mail-sorting tray. Featured Gallery Junked 1983 Jeep DJ-5L View 21 Photos Jeep Commercial Vehicles Classics amc mail truck

Chrysler recalls 468,700 Jeep Grand Cherokees, Commanders over rollaway risk

Chrysler has issued a recall covering a combined 469,000 units of the 2005-2010 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the 2006-2010 Jeep Commander (inset). Of that number, 295,000 are in the US, roughly 33,000 in Canada and Mexico and the remainder in other markets. It seems an electrical fault in the transfer case can allow the affected SUVs to shift into neutral on their own, while an Associated Press report says that Chrysler had "found cracks in a circuit board that turns the four-wheel-drive system on and off." The issue was discovered when an owner started his car remotely and it rolled away.
Chrysler is expected to begin notifying owners in June 2013, who can then take their cars to dealers. The dealer will reflash the final drive controller free of charge. There's a bulletin from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration below with more information.