Discontinued. Dropped. Demand. Decisions.
All of those D-words led Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to one more ‘D’ thing for its 2017 December, as well as yearly, sales.
Decline.
FCA Wednesday posted an 11 percent sales drop last month compared to December 2016, and reported an overall eight percent decrease in year-over-year sales compared to 2016.
The decline also continued FCA’s losing streak to 16 consecutive months.
The company’s Jeep lineup did provide some positives as Grand Cherokee continued its excellent 2017 run with a two percent gain for December, while demand for the Cherokee rebounded and jumped 18 percent during the month. However, for all brands in the Jeep segment, only Grand Cherokee finished the year positive at 13 percent over 2016.
Wrangler demand tumbled 13 percent in December which essentially wiped out gains from the past few months and put the vehicle slightly into negative sales for the year down one percent – about 1,000 units less than 2016. The decision by FCA to reveal its newest Wrangler – the 2018 JL – early in December may have contributed to this decrease as consumers reacted well to the redesign and may be delaying a purchase to see the latest Wrangler on dealer lots.
Demand for Renegade also slipped in December, as the vehicle posted a 37 percent drop. The shortfall capped an up-and-down year for Renegade and it finished with a three percent drop against 2016.
Both the new Compass (up 10 percent) and Pacifica (eight percent) continued to display strong demand. The Compass, released last August, nearly toppled 2016 numbers in just over four months (off 11 percent) which bodes well for the model headed into 2018.
Besides demand and decisions, FCA attributed some of its 2017 performance decline to an ongoing planned strategy to drop sales to the daily rental segment. FCA said last January it believes this will boost its lineup’s residual value and should make leasing more affordable for customers.
“It’s a good strategy, especially in a market like mine that has strong leasing,” former FCA National Dealer Council chairman Gary Brown said to Automotive News. Brown also owns Brown’s Jeep-Chrysler-Dodge on Long Island, N.Y.
For December, fleet sales dropped to 21,174 units, marking a 42 percent decrease against 2016. Jeep had the largest planned volume reduction, FCA said, with a 75 percent drop for the month.
The automaker’s fleet to retail mix now stands at 12 percent, its lowest amount acquiring Chrysler LLC in 2009.
Discontinued products also bit into FCA’s numbers once again for December, as dealers tried to finish off remaining inventory. The Jeep Patriot (off 97 percent) sold nearly 7,000 less vehicles than December 2016, while the Chrysler 200 (down 87 percent) and Dodge Dart (down 91 percent) together were off nearly 3,000 units compared to this time last year.
The vacuum of sales on all three discontinued vehicles accounted for nearly 153,000 less units for FCA in 2017. That sales gap only grows when combined with the discontinued Town & Country, which sold a mere 577 vehicles last year compared to 59,071 in 2016.
Overall, Fiat Chrysler sold 2,059,376 vehicles in 2017 compared with 2,244,315 in 2016.
For Jeep, even though the brand was off 11 percent year-over-year, it did have three of the top-five selling vehicles in FCA’s stable. Grand Cherokee (240,696), Wrangler (190,522) and Cherokee (169,882) finished second, third and fourth respectively. Renegade ended up seventh at 103,434 sold.
The Dodge Ram Pickup led the way for Fiat Chrysler in 2017, selling 500,723 vehicles. Chrysler’s Caravan, which may be discontinued in 2018, ended up fifth at 125,196.
