Many of us were shocked when former Sergio Marchionne announced in 2016 that FCA was ending production of the second-generation Chrysler 200 after just three model years. The shock was two-fold. Firstly, it was virtually unheard of for a mainstream automaker to exit the mid-size market, especially considering the best-selling passenger car in the US market at the time was a mid-size sedan. Secondly, to abort a car so soon into its production run seemed so rash. Looking back, however, FCA’s decision seems remarkably prescient.
The introduction of the second-generation 200 was FCA’s last attempt at following the old way of working for domestic automakers: continue to invest in passenger car segments even as the Japanese and Koreans had almost taken over. With the second and final generation of Chrysler 200, FCA finally decided a new way of thinking was needed. Why bother investing millions in a segment if you were never going to topple mighty Toyota? Why not focus one’s energies in segments where you have more profitable products with greater market share?
Since the 200’s axing, Ford famously announced they were discontinuing all of their sedans from the North American market and potentially transitioning the Fusion name to a new, high-riding station wagon. Shortly thereafter, GM largely followed suit with a planned cull of almost all their passenger cars from the market. At present, that excludes the mid-size Buick Regal and Chevrolet Malibu but GM’s decisions of late don’t inspire much confidence in their future.
It’s simultaneously a new and old way of thinking. On one hand, it’s radical to completely eliminate nameplates that have existed for years and sometimes decades and abandon segments you once dominated. On the other hand, it’s not the first time a domestic automaker (especially GM) has finally developed one of the best products they’ve ever offered in a particular segment only to drop it.
What seemed like a waste of money – axing an all-new car so soon into its production run before its development costs could be amortized – now seems like another shrewd move by the late Sergio Marchionne. FCA’s profit margins and share prices have risen since the axing of the Chrysler 200 and related Dodge Dart and the future product plan has been thinned of vehicles that wouldn’t have been any more successful, like the Chrysler 100. The company is wisely focussing on the markets its experienced great success and profits in: full-size trucks and Jeep-branded crossovers and SUVs. After the 200’s axing, Marchionne had this to say:
“I can tell you right now that both the Chrysler 200 and the Dodge Dart, as great products as they were, were the least financially rewarding enterprises that we’ve carried out inside FCA in the last eight years. I don’t know one investment that was as bad as these two were.”
He was right. Chrysler had spent around $1 billion developing the 200 and re-tooling the Sterling Heights assembly plant. That was in addition to $600 million spent developing the Dart. And how did the 200 fare? After an initially strong start, the 200 flamed out – comparing 2016’s sales numbers to 2015, the 200’s sales were down by two-thirds and Chrysler even had to pause production in January 2016 due to excess inventory, as well as layoff 1500 workers at the plant. That the 200 didn’t sell much better than its predecessor was especially disappointing as, by being FCA’s only mid-size sedan, it was actually supposed to be a replacement for both the 200 and the defunct Dodge Avenger.
The 200 wasn’t a bad car but “not bad” wasn’t good enough. There was no must-have feature like truly successful FCA passenger cars in recent years have had. Where the Chrysler PT Cruiser and 300 had thrived on the back of their brash styling, the 200 was attractive, neatly-proportioned but relatively nondescript. The optional V6 had a class-leading 295 hp and 262 ft-lbs but there was no shortage of powerful V6s (and turbocharged fours) in this class. The option of all-wheel-drive was a little less common but the 200 still had to contend with the Subaru Legacy and Ford Fusion, both of which featured all-wheel-drive. FCA’s uConnect infotainment was one of the best systems in the class but mediocre infotainment hasn’t been an impediment to many commercially-successful cars.
Then there was the size. Quite simply, the 200 was too small. Conversely, the related Dart was rather large and heavy for its segment. Like the 2015 Chevrolet Malibu and the Ford Contour/Mercury Mystique, the 200 received a great deal of scorn from critics for its snug backseat. While none of those cars were complete torture chambers back there, it certainly didn’t endear them to buyers for whom the spacious Toyota Camry was the norm. Marchionne even criticized his own designers, saying:
“The [2010 Hyundai Sonata] which we copied has the same problem. We didn’t copy the car, we copied the entry point to the rear seat. Dummies. I acknowledge it. Some people from design left some of their private parts on the table after we came up with that determination. But I think we’re learning from this process.”
Unfortunately for FCA, the Sonata also had a much more spacious back seat. The 200’s CUSW platform had been derived from the compact Alfa Romeo Giulietta but, while being longer and fractionally wider than rivals like the Camry, it had a wheelbase three inches shorter than the Sonata and Fusion. At least the trunk was big, boasting greater cargo volume than rivals like the Nissan Altima.
The satisfying Pentastar V6 was carried over for the second 200 but the coarse 2.4 four of the first 200 was replaced with a new 2.4 four, the Tigershark, which endured similar criticisms of its refinement. Though its power and torque figures (184 hp, 173 ft-lbs) were competitive with the class, its refinement was lacking. The new ZF-sourced nine-speed automatic transmission was also dinged by critics, particularly in the four-cylinder models, and had to be reprogrammed.
Moving up the range, beyond the four-cylinder LX and Limited, yielded more satisfying 200s. The range was topped with the sporty S and posh C, both of which were available with the V6 which was in turn available with all-wheel-drive. The S had its own unique suspension tune, sports seats, and fetching 19-inch wheels, while the C had 17 or 18-inch wheels, leather seats and available real wood trim.
The 200 kept up with the segment leaders in most respects but rarely surpassed them. It was well and truly competitive with rivals in terms of feature content, offering options like an automated parking system, panoramic sunroof, an 8.4-inch infotainment screen (the standard unit was 5 inches), ventilated front seats and adaptive cruise control.
After suspending production of the 200 in January 2016, FCA announced in July that it would stop production by year’s end. Marchionne expressed some interest in replacing it and the Dart with “outsourced” models. But while the FCA stable had a potential Dart replacement in the Fiat Viaggio and Dodge Neon sold in markets like Mexico and China, there was no other mid-sizer in their global line-up and evidently no other automakers that would provide them with one. Both cars, therefore, went without replacement. And as further proof of Marchionne’s rationalization of the FCA line-up, the Sterling Heights plant was re-tooled for Ram 1500 production. The money spent on developing the CUSW platform wasn’t a total waste though as it was used for the Jeep Cherokee.
The 200 may have been hamstrung by memories of its predecessor, a merely adequate base engine, and a rather tight cabin but it made up for it with an attractive interior, class-competitive ride and handling, excellent infotainment and keen pricing. In a segment brimming with talented rivals, however, that wasn’t enough to make the 200 stand out. Though it didn’t deserve to be executed so soon, FCA probably made the right call. Now, Chrysler doesn’t offer a conventional sedan in a huge albeit shrinking segment and Ford and Chevrolet may soon join them. The domestic automakers know perfectly well how to make a good, competitive passenger car but it’s no longer considered viable to do so. Welcome to the new normal.
Related Reading:
COAL: 2017 Ford Fusion Platinum – The Car of a Lifetime
Rental Car Review: 2015 Chevrolet Malibu – This Is The Worst GM Can Do Now?
Now if Chrysler would fill out its lineup with other types of vehicles. Not holding my breath. Sad to see what FCA has done to the Chrysler brand.
Meh, why bother? You’ve got Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram all in the one showroom and despite the culling, there’s still a little bit of overlap (300 and Charger). Chrysler’s been rumoured to be introducing two crossovers but it’s been a few years now and no sign of them. And wouldn’t they just cannibalize Jeep sales, and isn’t Jeep the vastly more desirable brand to consumers?
I know the Chrysler brand has a rich heritage and has had myriad desirable cars over the years but it was being mistreated long before FCA showed up.
More playing Devil’s Advocate than anything, but why does a manufacturer REALLY have to have a full lineup for a single brand?
FCA has a full lineup. It’s just spread out over several brands, and all are usually lumped together at your local Chrysler/Dodge/Ram/Jeep/Fiat franchise. Now, some franchisees may not carry Fiat, but they can if they choose to do so. With all of those brands, you can choose from a Fiat 500 to a Chrysler 300, and any truck or SUV niche that you need.
We need to see a culling of brands, as the Sloane Ladder hierarchy died long ago, and there is no value in the separate brands. Brand loyalty is long gone, and badge engineering of separate models for branding sake is a waste of money for the OEMs. Fewer models means lower production costs, and thus higher margin and profit.
This is the new normal. Dystopian for enthusiasts, but it is what it is.
For the majority of the time Chrysler ran the Chrysler brand, until 1975, there was ONE model with a few different trim levels applied to it to pad out the “lineup”. The Chrysler lineup in 2019 looks little different than it did in 1965, in the “good old days”
That being said, they stuck with the “no jr. editions” policy almost 10 years too long. Chrysler was missing a Cutlass-fighter as Dodge moved downmarket.
Of course, the reason they *could* be a one-model brand back then was that they were paired with Plymouth, much as FCA sells all its’ historically-American brands under one roof now.
I was hopeful for this car when it came out. It was a major improvement over its cobbled-together, refreshed Sebring (which was a disappointing car to begin with) predecessor. Unfortunately, as you point out, this second generation 200 just wasn’t great enough.
Those were pretty much my thoughts when I drove one back in 2015:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/future-classic/future-ccdriving-impressions-2015-chrysler-200-inherently-better-but-how-much-better/
The midsize sedan market became as mature as an auto market can be. How does anybody truly stand out in it? Chrysler’s two sins here were the snug back seat and, unfortunately, the Chrysler name, which hasn’t exactly stood for high build quality in the last 10 years or so.
Consumer Reports seems to think that it has average reliability, and looking at their dot chart, there seem to be a few trouble spots, most notably ‘minor transmission’ & ‘power equipment’. It certainly doesn’t seem to be any worse than the other Big Three cars in it’s segment. Of course Honda and Toyota have a much better reputation. Nissan seems to have screwed the pooch with their CVT Altima tho. YMMV
To me, a 200 with the V-6 would be a nice Interstate cruiser for road trips.
I parked next to one and I saw rust bubbling on the drivers side corner of the hood
The car was clean dent free
I don’t know what year it was but it can’t be that old .very disappointing for a fairly new car
Jim, did you mean 40 years or so?
Just kidding Mopar dudes!
I think this 200 is a very good looking car. Classy touches all around and a pleasant if conservative shape. But usually what I like isn’t what is hot to everyone else. They are almost down to my price range and if my family fits okay in it I’d consider one.
So the 200 gave up the one advantage that the Sebring had over the Contour/Mystique and Malibu: more space for the rear passengers. What a strategy.
Instead of doing something that would possibly lead the segment they just tried to fit in the segment. The Dart (and I guess to a degree the Sebring) platform owed a lot to the Alfa Romeo Giulietta (previous generation from 2010). I had seen the Alfa in Europe and thought its design was pretty brilliant. Instead of widening the platform and doing a whole new body and interior Chrysler would I think have done a lot better to just put a Chrysler face on the Guilietta (which was also a hatchback) and made whatever federal regulation imposed changes, and sold it as the Dart, saving hundreds of millions of dollars.
And overall, other than with anything branded Jeep where buyers don’t seem to care, a reliability record at least equal to Toyota etc. is necessary in order to change the Fiat/Chrysler reputation. Instead, anything Chrysler is generally in the bottom half of anyone’s ratings and Fiat us usually dead last.
^That
The 200 was one of those nice cars that somehow just slipped through the cracks. I honestly think its biggest problem was that not many people knew it existed. How many people shopping Camrys and Accords and Altimas and even Fusions never thought to check out a Chrysler 200? I found it quite attractive, with the V6, the AWD option, a reasonably nice interior, and UConnect its strong points, but the car was hardly a standout even if you did know it existed.
I miss Marchionne’s blunt, honest assessments. Without him around to champion the Italian side of the company in the US, I wonder if Fiat and Alfa won’t be next to leave the US market (again) after years of slow sales. Sergio’s plan was to build Alfa up to be a popular alternative to the German luxury trio, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon if ever. Mike Manley is also very smart, but he comes from the Jeep (and later Ram) side of the business, it’s what he understands best, and I think that’s what he’ll continue to push – and given the recent results, why not?
+1 on missing Sergio. Can’t think of another auto exec with his style, as a technical person I found him trustworthy as he sounded like he knew what he was doing and wasn’t just spouting buzzwords.
I rented one for a few days one winter when my 2001 Focus had coughed it’s alternator. At the time I thought with a manual transaxle it would have been a decent replacement. No such luck on the stick version though, but I can’t blame them, with take levels on new manual cars so low they can’t engineer and build it just for me and the 5 others who’d want it 🙂
And he’s not in some jail in Tokyo, like another controversial auto exec we know. I like it when my CEOs wear suits instead of Orange.
“…even if you did know it existed”
I was given one of these as a rental in 2016 and thought it was the funniest thing ever. I had no idea there was a Chrysler 200, I thought maybe it was a rental only version of the Chrysler 300 or something. The car was fine.
I also didn’t realize the 200 existed, until someone I knew bought one. And then I thought it was a rebranded Sebring.
It’s easy to see how this car slipped through the cracks. Having a relatively undistinguished product could probably still lead to success in a hot market segment like CUVs right now… but in the wilting sedan market, forget it.
Count me as another who had high hopes for this car, particularly coming on the heels of the competitive-only-on-price Sebring/Avenger. Its failure was surprising but should not have been. It was neither a standout nor a screaming value.
This car and the related Dart remind me a bit of the way Ford built the 1966+ Falcon and Fairlane on the same platform, making both of them compromised in certain areas (a little undersized in the Fairlane’s case). The difference was that in the 60s Ford had a steady base of loyal buyers who would drive a Fairlane home because it was a Ford. Chrysler enjoyed no such luxury when the 200 came out.
The 200 and Dart were the first indications of how badly Detroit screwed the pooch back in the 70’s-90’s. The sheep that are American car buyers, for the most part, are only looking at two nameplates anymore: Toyota and Honda. The classic Detroit nameplates are still getting pilloried for those three decades of crap, and it appears that that market is permanently lost.
Take a 2019 Toyota Corolla, put on a different grille, build it on the same line as the Corolla, call it a Dodge Dart . . . . . . and I’ll stake my bank account that it fails in the marketplace. Completely.
And I’m not venturing a wild guess either. I’ve got past documentation: Toyota Camry vs. Geo/Chevy Prism. And Consumer’s Reports screaming at their readership to go to the Chevy dealer to buy one and not get ripped off with ADM.
As much as I hate to admit it, Detroit has only two markets left: Muscle cars and pickup trucks. I fully expect the Japanese/Koreans to move the Americans out of crossovers in the next ten years, assuming the market survives.
I think the 200 and Dart are more an indication of how badly FCA screwed the pooch on the 200 and Dart. The Detroit-brand Fusion and Malibu sold far better over their runs. So did the Focus and Cruze. The 200 and Dart had serious fundamental flaws that had nothing to do with brand perception. Brand perception just ensured the fatal flaws would indeed be fatal. Sheep mentality is also why the Big3 are being kept afloat by their full size pickup truck lines while the Japanese can’t manage a tenth the volume. Trends have inertia.
While the styling was nice enough, I have to say the 200 was my worst rental car experience ever. The car is cramped, has atrocious visibility and is really difficult to get in and out of without hitting your head. Add to that a thrashy engine, a transmission that constantly hunts for gears, and that silly gear change dial. Good riddance.
You beat me to it! Mine was a rental experience also, albeit it a rather long-term one. I looked forward to it as I thought the car quite handsome, but I came to dread it. Egregious egress and ingress, horrifying visibility, claustrophobic cabin fore and aft, and the transmission that never seemed quite right in any gear. It did excel at one thing though–when I finally got my Honda Civic back it seemed like a genuine luxury sedan by comparison.
Looking at the rear of this generation 200, I can’t help but think of how much the taillights remind me of the current gen SEAT Leon that came out in 2012
Incentives were thick, rich, and deep on these after the first year. Seven thousand dollars off MSRP any time I cared to look at my dealer’s website. That would have been a good deal on a Pentastar model. Unfortunately, that dealer also treated them as some crown jewel to be kept behind glass. I was curious enough to saunter down there for a poke about and test drive, but the snit of a salesmen didn’t think my car buying timeline was soon enough and refused. “Sir, these are special cars that we have to knock 25% off of just to get them unbolted from the showroom floor, we can’t just let any random Joe take one for a spin”
Anyway, they were attractive cars inside and out but as William pointed out they were far too small to compete with the other midsizers and the Fusion had already stolen that styling thunder several years before so it really didn’t stand out as much as it would have. And there just seemed to be no urgency to get them noticed by the public. Odd strategy, spend billions on development and just kind of drop the thing like a dead fish on the dealer lot and walk away…
Inevitably people will one day return to mid-size sedans in droves and GM, Ford and Chrysler will bow to the success of Honda and Toyota even mores so than before. I thought the 200 was a very handsome car, but after driving a rental for a few weeks I found the lack of visibility to be horrifying and the car was the most claustrophobic I’ve ever driven or ridden in.
Why is it inevitable? The only reasons to opt for a sedan are the long, low profile and the perceived security of a separate trunk. The public prefers the SUV seating position, high sides, and greenhouse. A sedan with those hard points will lose the long, low style.
The Americans who prefer sedans today bought them 30 years ago, too. Young buyers switched to Asian brands then, and stayed with them. But they’re aging out of the market now. The diehard American sedan buyers already have.
Today, Toyota is experiencing the previously unimaginable: the irrelevance of the Camry.
The public is fickle. What’s in now won’t be in 30 years from now either. Even the most practical of trends never last, it’s how long/low/wide happened in the first place.
Not all who prefer sedans were even in the market 30 years ago. For instance I would have been 12 thirty years prior to my last sedan purchase.
There are some advantages to SUVs and CUVs, no argument from me on that, but compromised storage capacity is the deal breaker. That is why I prefer sedans, as hauling some items in a S/CUV is an exercise in frustration with some models.
Double the price of gas. Then let’s see what sells.
I’m a fan of the tall (but not *raised*) hatchback as an ideal compromise between a sedan and a crossover. You get an easy step-in height without giving up handling, a usefully wide greenhouse, and an upright seating position without giving up fuel efficiency (far from it). While not inherent to the concept, most also eschew the oversize consoles that plague too many cars now.
Its’ one fatal flaw is that it doesn’t represent a sufficient outlay of money to project status. Yet, push the ride height a tiny amount higher – just out of the “no handling/mpg compromise” butter zone – add some gray cladding, and it’s the hottest thing going right now. Go figure.
I don’t know if I’d call it totally inevitable but yeah CUVs and SUVs will fall out of favor once again. People don’t really want to drive what their parents drove. A couple of months ago I overheard a conversation between 2 teen girls, one of which apparently just got or was about to get her driver’s license and her first vehicle. Girl 2 asks what kind of car she was getting. Now I didn’t catch what Girl 1 responded with but Girl 2 said so a crossover? Girl 1 said yeah to which Girl 2 responded boring….
On the other hand I’ve got a former student who had a CR-V that called it a wagon. Interestingly enough her mother drove a Ford Flex because she needed a mini-van but didn’t want a mini-van, so she calls it a wagon too. Of course she is exceptionally more observant and insightful than the average teen too.
Whenever I saw one of these on the road I was sure it was a Hyundai that I saw coming towards me.
Styling was decent, but almost borderline generic by the time this model showed up.
Add in that it had little market visiblity, and it carried the stigma of previous models and a less than stellar effort wouldn’t cut it.
I always liked the looks of this gen 200. The Dart, not so much. It seems to be ingrained in Chrysler DNA to leave the development program half done, don’t get the accommodations quite right, leave some rough edges in the driving experience. Then they wonder why people don’t want to pay top dollar for them. I have read the same comments wrt the Fiat Tipo, words to the effect “this car has everything it needs to be very competitive, but, either through indifference or incompetence, they never got anything dialed in”.
When Marchionne said he was looking for a contractor to build the 200/Dart for FCA, my first thought was ship the tooling to China, where the Dart based Viaggio and Ottimo were already in production, and also meeting a lot of customer resistance. Besides building the 200 and Dart in China, for the US, I would have brought over the Ottimo hatchback for US Fiat dealers. Nope. FCA dropped the Viaggio and Ottimo and withdrew the Fiat brand from China, and switched the plant to building Jeeps. A year or so ago, Marchionne said words to the effect “talking about significant volume for Fiat in Asia/Pacific is a waste of time”.
At least, FCA had models that are in demand to place in SHAP and Belvidere, where GM simply closes plants.
While it seems that people in the US will pay a premium price for anything with a Jeep badge on it, people elsewhere are not so eager. While the Renegade and Compass have been seeing sales increases in Europe, I have seen comments from both Brit and Polish testers that they seem significantly overpriced.
The Compass experience has been different in India, with second year sales only half what first year sales were. I have seen two different comparison tests, one a Compass, Tata Harrier and a Mahindra, and the second with a Compass, Harrier and a Hyundai. Both testers agreed the Compass was well built, drove well, and was very overpriced. The bottom of the Compass price range is about where the Tata and Mahindra models top out, and the Compass is the smallest of the three. The Mahindra is a 3 row.
The Chinese car market has been soft lately, but Jeep seems to be receiving more than it’s share of rejection. For Q1 of 19, Compass sales are down 43% and Renegade down 68%.
I have a working theory that the big three’s priorities are ever higher transaction price and gross margin, volume doesn’t matter. If that is the case, they are leaving the door wide open for someone who is willing to accept a less grand transaction price and GM, to steal their lunch.
“I have a working theory that the big three’s priorities are ever higher transaction price and gross margin, volume doesn’t matter. If that is the case, they are leaving the door wide open for someone who is willing to accept a less grand transaction price and GM, to steal their lunch.”
Works for Apple.
Works for Apple.
I know a guy who has traveled extensively in China. He has two Chinese cell phones. He reports they are more technically advanced than an iPhone, and they cost less. iPhone sales in China have been falling sharply.
Correct. They are light years ahead in 5G, and Huawai and HTC are as good or better phones, but sell for less. The issue with Chinese ownership and ties to the government is what is making it tough to sell here.
The Chinese market has three times more potential customers, so volume will more than make up for margin over there for a good while longer.
Exactly.
After 2 years of iPhone ownership, I paid 200 bucks and bought a Xiaomi. Flawless for the 13 months (and counting) I’ve had it
I hope that someone in Auburn Hills has the foresight to imagine that SUVs will not rule the markets permanently. Selling all things labeled “Jeep” is only going to work for so long and eventually consumer tides will turn. I know folks like to go on about fuel shortages and such, but even if we stay in our current circumstances for the next 20 years, consumer attitudes *will* change.
WRT leaving the door wide open: Until the promised tide of Chinese cars (real Chinese brands like Zotye and Geely, not relabeled Hondas and Buicks) are imported into the USDM *and* they undercut the price of the existing players, I think little will change. But the fly in that ointment is our leadership and the potential popularity of BEVs.
But, as I understand it, the idea right now is to amass a war chest with which to build and market the upcoming mandated BEVs.
You can still buy a new Chrysler 200 in 2019, just go to cars.com. I know at least one rental car company that stopped buying these because they were so unreliable and I was never a big fan of them what with their jerky transmission. They look nice, but were just were the wrong car at the wrong time. Thank you for the writeup.
Ah well. The styling lives on in the Pacifica as it has all the same cues, albeit pop tarted up to minivan size.
I’m guessing that part of the reason the Dart and 200 were killed were to make FCA/Chrysler/Jeep/Ram a better fit for a potential purchaser, which still has not happened.
I think Sergio made Jeep and Ram profit centres for Chrysler in order to make it fit with an automaker which does not have strong Truck/SUV sales, like Honda, Hyundai/Kia, a Chinese company, or even BMW. Even though Honda has the CR-V, Pilot, and Ridgeline, it has strong passenger car sales and you could see the CR-V going well with Jeep products as they’re different flavours. Hyundai/Kia makes SUVs and crossovers but nothing remarkable, but the Accent, Sonata, and Elantra are very competitive.
I don’t think Chrysler or Dodge has much of a future as a brand once the next recession hits. What is left after the model lines have been pared are pretty elderly, although the RWD cars are very competitive, and selling on price like the Journey and Grand Caravan or the Pacifica, which isn’t selling all that well and has had to be discounted pretty heavily. Does anyone know the Durango exists?
On the one hand, it doesn’t make sense to produce cars that people aren’t buying. On the other hand, instead of giving up on a piece of the market, it would make more sense to figure out how to make your products/marketing/brand image more competitive. Lee did a great job of rescuing Chrysler from its brand woes in the late ’70’s by both making sure the products were better (and at the time, cars like the omnirizon and K didn’t have a LOT of competition) and changing the public image of Chrysler from a failed, pathetic, loser company, to a scrappy underdog. Hyundai did the same thing by improving the quality of the cars immensely and also offering the 10 year 100K warranty. Chrysler offers a lifetime warranty at extra cost but puts no effort into marketing it. What do you want to bet $3000 spent towards a lifetime warranty would be a better $3000 spent than $3000 in discounts and incentives? How many people would say, for $19k I can get a Civic, but for $19K I can get a dart with a LIFETIME WARRANTY?
I doubt that Manley wants Chrysler or Dodge to succeed, much less live on. It just becomes a question of if he is as hard-nosed as Sergio was and will commit to axing the brands. Fiat, and to a lesser degree, Alfa are in the same boat. Chrysler/Dodge is NA market only, Fiat/Alfa is EU-centric, and neither work well in Asia, the fastest growing and largest market.
You make financial decisions with your head, not your heart. That means that Sergio was on the right path, and as sad as it is, losing a brand to keep the company alive is not a bad idea.
Great piece, Will. To echo a couple of the other commenters, I also really wanted this car to succeed in the marketplace. I did have the opportunity to rent one, and I thought it was a pleasant car with good ergonomics and a responsive drivetrain. The transmission did seem a slightly jerky, though, and that did stand out in my mind.
To qualify the above, I’ll also mention that I don’t own a car, nor did I sit in the back seat of this one.
I see these final 200s parallel parked in my neighborhood, often next to (or in full view of) other current midsized cars (i.e. Malibus, Camrys, etc.), and the 200 always seemed at least a half-size smaller than the others.
I could see where this might be of benefit when trying to parallel park one, but at 6′ tall with legs that are prone to cramps, I don’t know that I’d ever want to ride in one anywhere else but in the front seat, based on what I’ve read.
I agree this is a fine piece you have delivered William. I was saddened to see this car be pushed over the edge.
Somewhere above it was mentioned about the overlap between the Charger and the 300. There is also the Challenger in that space. I can’t help but think not all three will survive. In that the 300 is still essentially the same body style as when it was introduced 15+ years ago I can’t help but think it might be on its last legs. New car dealers don’t even advertise them any longer. Pickup trucks rule I’m afraid.
Good article on a car that will be a rare CC find in 2030. Not only did this 200 not have any real distinguishing features, it lagged far behind the class-leading Camry and Accord in desirability and overall buyer appeal, not to mention the Passat, Fusion, and Altima, as a mid-sized family sedan.
I too have rented a couple of these back to back over a two week period and found them wanting in terms of ingress/egress, visibility, the transmission constantly hunting for (and never finding) the right gear and indifferent assembly quality.
More important in terms of its appeal, I found the fully optioned top of the line model with the Pentastar 6, leather upholstery, and U-Connect to be far more satisfying (tolerable?) than the four cylinder, sparsely optioned, Rubbermaid interior rental car edition. Nobody punishes a base model buyer more than Chrysler.
Needless to say, the next time I rented, I made sure I got a Camry instead.
As a general note to Chrysler, Fords and GM, the “no sedans or compacts” policy makes sense whilst fuel prices are low.
But what happens if there is a fuel price crunch? You never known when they’re coming.
Short sightedness is a distinct talent among some. It’s frustrating.
Well the fact is that in all of the gas price spikes fuel efficient cars were only popular for a short time. In the most recent case the best selling vehicles were still the Ford and Chevy pickups. So it doesn’t make much sense to sell a car with no profit for several years in hopes of making a profit on it for 2 years.
In the case of the 200 they were loosing money with each one they sold and there was no possibility of even recouping the development costs let alone making a profit on it.
For a pseudo-semi-premium-mid-level brand (I don’t know how else to describe Chrysler) their lineups just gravely lacked any real flavor or family resemblance with each other, which is all the more curious when considering how Jeep, Ram and Dodge have fairly defineable identities and physical traits.
The 200 seemed more like a hasty copy of what every other midsize player was doing combined into one forgettable package, and the same can be said for every one of its predecessors. When the 300c came out I presumed it would set the theme for the whole Chrysler lineup as the original CTS did for Cadillac with its then fresh art & science design language, instead the 300 kind of lingered on in the lineup as a sideshow attraction while the rest of Chrysler mostly soldiered on uninterrupted with boring silver soapbar shaped 90sish looking cars, of which the 200 was no exception if not for its trendy led lights. The name 200 should have implied some resemblance to the 300 at least, even over at Dodge the Dart received the Charger’s distinctive racetrack taillight design.
I always thought a big part of the problem was the 200’s predecessor, the hoary old Daimler Sebring. To FCA’s credit, they renamed the Sebring to the much improved 200, but the damage had been done.
And the reason for that is the first generation 200 didn’t actually look any different from what you’d expect out of a followup Sebring, echoing my main point.
I won’t give Chrysler credit for the name change for that reason. Changing Sebring to 200 is the same as changing Cavalier to Cobalt. Changing the name hoping that’s all that’s needed to shake all the negative connotations of this class car isn’t something worthy of credit, it’s lazy marketing. It’s a different story if a name change results in something truly and completely different, but a Sebring in all but name with (many of) the negatives removed isn’t that, it’s what a Sebring should have been in the first place. Not a Chrysler 300 minus 100
My wife has a 2015 Dodge Dart GT, and if this is what the market calls a failure, then what the hell does it take to be a success? Other than saying Toyota or Honda on the hood, of course.
Contrary to all the nit-picking on the Internet (starting with the belief that being FCA, it’s automatically completely unreliable junk – anytime I run across one of those opinions, I automatically shut the person out because its obvious they have no clue what they’re talking about), our Dart has been one hell of a nice car, comfortable, reliable (6 speed automatic, not the 9), and Maggie wants to keep it forever.
But yes, yes, yes, it’s not a Toyota, it’s not a Honda. Why don’t we just give up the entire C- and D- class market to them, quit trying, and let them continue to live off the reputations they earned in the 70’s and 80’s, but aren’t quite living up to now as much as a lot of consumers want to believe.
Oh yeah. That is the American auto industry’s long term plan.
Excuse me while I hope for $6.00/gallon gas.
I had two kids in carseats at the time the 200 was out. That put nearly *everything* in the class ahead of the Chrysler from a real world usability standpoint. This Chrysler occupied the same netherworld ‘tweener status as the Suzuki Kizashi (big sales success there) and Mark 5 VW Jetta: not quite compact, not quite midsize, semi-quasi premium at the risk of longer-term ownership cost. If you’re not sure why it was a failure, you weren’t shopping midsize sedans in 2016.
Dart’s got similar issues. If you wanted a set-it-forget-it appliance, why risk a new model with no history from the manufacturer that brought us the second-gen Neon and Caliber, and uses a FIAT turbo engine? If you wanted something a little different and special in the segment, you could get the Cruze (for the little Lexus feel), and the Focus, Jetta, or Mazda3 for the sporty alternative. The sportiness angle of the Dart was sabotaged from the beginning. It launched with the weird 1.4T that received all kinds of driveability complaints right off the bat in reviews, or you could get the dog-slow 2.0. The penultimate 2.4 engine had the power and thirst characteristics of the Volkswagen inline 5 that had been on the market for 10 years by that point. Except now VW had the 1.8T that appealed far more to enthusiasts.
No, I am not at all surprised the unfocused Dart didn’t make waves in a very crowded and cost-conscious segment.
I’d like to offer feedback on the Dart from the owner of one. I find the 2016 Dodge Dart SXT, with it’s 2.0L and six-speed automatic, more than adequate for around town or highway driving. To be more specific, I’ve found that it’s certainly not necessary to mash the gas pedal to the floor to get up to highway speeds. I’ve more than once thought that the available 2.4L was really unnecessary, as the 2.0L seems to offer an ideal balance of power and fuel economy. And, as I work out-of-town, most of my driving is highway. Fuel economy has varied between 36 and 41 mpg. Typically about 38-39 mpg. And, compared to cars of any brand from 30-40 years ago, the Dart seems to be solid, tight, well-built with no issues to dates. None. And, it seems to be imbued with a bit of sportiness such that it’s not what anyone would call merely basic transportation.
I’m glad you like yours, Litewerk. My point wasn’t to label the Dart a bad car…just an uncompetitive one. I don’t think your listed experience refutes that, every positive aspect listed can be found elsewhere. I get it, though, I owned a VW with a similar set of talents and drawbacks and I loved it. But I also understood why most buyers went with the safer bets in the segment.
For many years I loudly and widely propounded this idea that Hondas and Toyotas are automatically and undeservedly gushed-over by Consumer Reports and other publications, and despite gullible readers mindlessly eating it up with a fork and spoon it’s all a big bunch of bulk wrap; they’re not better than Chrysler products, which I didn’t care what anyone else said about them, they were awesome and great and I never had any problems with mine and wanted to keep them forever, and people weren’t buying the Dart because they’d been carefully trained to avoid Chrysler products so it wasn’t really the car’s fault it was a failure, etc.
Then I decided to try replacing my certitude with knowledge gained by actual, firsthand experience, and now I can say that it’s kind of nice having back the mind resources I used to devote to maintaining and defending the cognitive dissonance that results from digging in and doubling down on a position not supportable by reality. I’ve found it’s much less work to simply acknowledge that different people have different preferences and they’re welcome to them, but the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.
That’s not to say that a Honda or a Toyota is a perfect car, but it’s very difficult to think of an instance wherein any instantiation of Chrysler put out a car superior to competing Honda and Toyota models in engineering, design, build quality, dependability, and durability.
Decades later, some people apparently are still extremely angry that the domestics ceded the passenger car market to the Japanese and feel blaming the consumer for going with what has worked out well for them is the answer. I don’t get it either. Cars are expensive, many people don’t want to take a risk on a purchase that large.
Thinking back to my own past opinions, I’d say a fair amount of simplistic nationalism and thoughtless racism went into them. I used to be a rabid, strident American-car booster and Mopar fanboy til I figured out that “Buy American!!!” is a facile, unhelpful slogan and brand loyalty is dumb and creepy, and in the long run a my-country (or brand)-right-or-wrong attitude is damaging to the country (or brand).
Now I’ve put some more grownup thought into it, spending my money on a car—or anything else—is nothing at all like going to see the Special Olympics: there will be one winner. There will be many losers, and none them gets a prize for it.
I recently drove one of these back the 150 miles from Cincinnati for a friend whose daughter was moving here. I had never seen the car before I picked it up. I was expecting some boring sedan that I wouldn’t want to drive. I was pleasantly surprised. I am not very familiar with the 200 but this must have been some kind of sport model or something as it was actually a fun drive. There are sections of US 50 in Indiana that have a lot of hills and curves. I set the car in “sport” and had a lot of fun going through those areas. I’m used to driving those sections in my Mustang and was pleasantly surprised.
I dissent. I had a thoroughly disagreeable ’16 Chrysler 200 with low miles on it as a rental for about 750 miles and five days in the winter of 2016. I’ll give it this: the driver’s seat was supportive and comfortable for long trips, and the pretend-analog speedometer was easy to read. That’s where the praise ends.
The electric power steering feels like it’s on a toy kiddy-car (steering wheel not connected to anything).
The controls are clumsily designed: you get turn-dials of almost identical size, shape, and feel, and all located close to one another, for the blower speed, radio volume, and gear selector (shifters don’t need to be sticks any more because they’re just selector switches, but the dial-a-gear shifter is dumb. Okeh, I get it, they were trying to ape BMW; they failed).
A random selection of the HVAC controls are poorly-labelled buttons; the equally-random rest of them you have to navigate through multiple menus to access on the touchscreen. None of it is at all intuitive or thoughtfully configured.
The transmission is sluggish to engage and kind of drunken in its shift quality. It’s a 9-speed, by the way. You feel like being on the hook for its overhaul when it fails? Me either, and Chrysler’s reputation in transmission durability is deservedly lousy.
The electric parking brake sometimes requires two switch pushes (pulls) to release (apply), sometimes three, sometimes just one.
The 4-cylinder engine idles with noticeable roughness, much more so than Chrysler’s 2.5-litre 4-cylinder of the ’80s and ’90s.
The blue lighting on the IP isn’t obnoxiously piercing like that on VW products, but the digital speedometer/message center is a damn pain. Push any button that affects it and you get to read all about how you’ve pushed that button for multiple long seconds until it remembers that oh yeah, the driver might’ve maybe kinda wanted to see the speedometer. The tachometer is pointless.
The rearview mirror is this ridiculously giant, chunky thing—it contains no compass, no auto-dim, no reading lights, etc—positioned such that it blocks an unreasonably huge proportion of the view through the windshield. I’m sure the sideview mirrors meet the minimum legal field-of-view requirements…and I’m equally sure that’s all they only just barely do.
The headlamps aren’t abjectly inadequate, but they’re also a whole hell of a lot less thoughtfully engineered than they could’ve and should’ve been for no additional money: way too much foreground light and not nearly enough seeing distance on low beam; high beam almost marginally adequate. Taillamps are functionally pathetic.
But really, none of the above complaints matter at all. Know why? Because you CANNOT TURN OFF THE RADIO. There is no way to turn it off. You can mute it, but only until you next start the engine or touch one of a fairly long list of buttons or dials, then it comes blaring back. I looked in the owner’s manual: not a thing on how to turn it off. I looked on Google: lots of threads in the forums with people saying “I just bought/rented a 200, how do you turn off the radio?” and the answer is uniform: You don’t. WHAT THOUGHTLESS CLUELESS BRAINLESS SENSELESS DILLWEED DECIDED AN OFF-SWITCH ISN’T NECESSARY?!!!
The cruise control switches are on the steering wheel…where the cruise control switches were on the Spirit/Acclaim of 25 years before. Right place for them, but the ones in the 200 could not be operated by touch because they all felt alike—not like the ones in the Spirit/Acclaim, which, like that car’s HVAC controls but not this car’s, could be accurately discerned, selected, and operated without looking. Speaking of which, the 200 felt very much like a direct successor to the Spirit/Acclaim: competent, adequate, and not a bare shred more; nothing about it any better than it minimally had to be. It was only better than the Spirit/Acclaim because people’s expectations, even the bottom end of them, advanced in the two and a half decades.
I cannot see making or buying this car ever having been a good idea. At best it was uncompetitive.
Count me as one of the folks who hoped this car would do better than it did. While I can see Sergio’s point about this and the Dart not making the corporation money, I thought the way he threw his staff under the bus, calling them “dummies”, was inexcusable.
I wonder if they had re-named the car after the redesign, would it have sold better? I think the previous gen 200 set the bar for low transaction price and people expected the new 200 to do the same.
Too bad, it was a pretty car in the upper trim levels. I really wanted to try a 200S while they were still available as it sounded like quite the ride. But, with SUV uber alles, I guess I should be happy there are any new sedans to try out.
“SUVs are a fad” “Cars will comeback big time soon”
When is this “fad” supposed to end? It’s funny all the posts from near 3 years ago claiming that buyers will return to cars by now. Gas is up now, but where is the ‘car comeback’?