Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, or FCA, has preliminarily reported that the first quarter of 2020 should go down in history as having the lowest repair rate in the six-year history of the conglomerate.
Typically ranked among the bottom quartile for reliability, FCA – which owns Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, Jeep, and Maserati – has long been hampered by below-average rankings on all major reliability metrics.
“The months of February and March were especially tough on the sales side, but I’m proud to say our repairs have never been lower,” says FCA’s Director of Global Service, Carlo Vaffanculo. “In fact, dealership service visits dropped to near-zero in Italy and have slowed to a trickle across most of Europe. The US is already following a similar pattern.”
Given the complex world situation at the moment, Mr. Vaffanculo was reluctant to attribute the decline to any single factor.
“To be honest, I think this is just the result of many years of hard work to streamline our supply chain and improve our manufacturing process,” Vaffanculo concluded. “It’s a combination of factors at work, and now we’re finally reaping the rewards.”
FCA also cited record low investor complaints at its annual worldwide shareholder meeting in Turin, Italy, last month. According to CEO Mike Manley, there were virtually no questions from industry analysts or investors in attendance. “Neither one of them had any issues with my presentation,” Manley summarized in a press release. “They left as quickly as they had arrived.”
While Manley noted that it was too soon to tell whether this trend would continue, Automotive News analyst Kevin McCullough has already predicted that FCA’s repair rates will climb back to historic highs once people can actually drive their cars again: “FCA seems to be ignoring the one big elephant in the room – the fact that their cars just suck.”