Interesting idea from Chrysler

If you get 25 mpg, you'll need 480 gallons to drive 12,000 miles. But if the price of gas goes up by another dollar or so, this becomes more and more attractive.


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Chrysler LLC, looking to spur sales, will offer new car buyers a $2.99 gas guarantee starting Wednesday.

The auto maker will give new customers a Chrysler, Dodge or Jeep branded fuel card that will lock their gas price at $2.99 a gallon for three years, Chrysler co-Chairman Jim Press said.

In addition, the auto maker will give up to $3,000 back on the Chrysler PT Cruiser, Dodge Charger, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Dodge Dakota and Dodge Ram.

The gas money allocated to each customer will be based on 12,000 miles a year divided by a vehicle's estimated miles per gallon.

 

Great idea.

 

Good.

Gas prices are going to go down soon.

No company would do this unless they were going to make money down the road. Once Bush is out and the environmental restrictions on gas has gotten a little more in line, the prices will fall. I'm guessing in two years, $2.75 a gallon will be about right.

Chrysler needs to focus on building a car that does not rattle like a child's toy after 2,000 miles or runs after 75,000 miles.

 

The Big Three as a whole need to work on making cars that don't rattle like children's toys. Though it must be said that while those domestic cars, across the board, don't sound as dependable, even the bad ones will run 75,000 miles given no wrecks or catastrophic circumstances.

We can only hope that when W leaves office that someone will do something about the price of gasoline. He won't because that's how he made his fortune ... small wonder it doesn't get addressed.

Good idea by Chrysler. But here's to betting that gasoline prices won't stay this high. To boot, the domestics need to sink their money into engineering and not cutting corners rather than schmaltzy ads and gimmicks. Those don't make vehicles better.

 

Perhaps Chrysler could try a novel approach: build a car people want to buy instead of paying people to buy their cars.

 

Toyota's already taken that gimmick.

 

This was my immediate thought.

 

So if gas goes to $2.75 a gallon, you're forced to pay $2.99? You think that's the racket?

 

Yes.

Does everyone remember a few years ago when Best Buy was doing a deal that you could get $400 off a computer if you signed up for a certain online service provider that was tied to dail-up? You were sucker for doing it because dial-up was about to start becoming obsolete.

Why would Chrysler give you gas for $2.99 if it was going to leap to $4 or $5? If you buy 80 gallons a month they would be eating $80 a month or $960 a year. That is close to $3,000 for three years. What do you think their profit margin is on a $25,000 after they sell it to a dealer?

Or $6,000 if it jumped to $5.

If they sell 500,000 cars this year, they would possibly be paying back $2,250,000,000 or 2.25 billion. Billion.

They will go belly up if they had to do this.

I know my math might be a little screwed up, but even if they were paying back half of the amount it would be catastrophic.

 

Umm, if gas goes below $2.99/gallon, just don't use the card when you buy gas.

 

For the same reason a car maker will give you zero percent financing -- to move cars out of the showroom.