Chrysler will revise standards for top dealers

If the Chrysler group’s prediction of an increase in market share next year comes true, it will be because of a revamped lineup that includes the four-door Jeep Wrangler.

Mary Connelly | | Automotive News / October 23, 2006 - 1:00 am DETROIT - The Chrysler group's standards for top-rated Five Star dealerships will change next year.

Chrysler plans to tweak standards related to customer relations, owner loyalty and dealership upkeep, said attendees of a meeting last week of executives and dealers in Detroit.

Chrysler group spokesman Kevin McCormick says the company has not completed details of the changes.

Five Star dealerships enjoy advantages for meeting factory standards. They can tout their top-performing status in advertising. The automaker's Web site has new- and used-vehicle inventory links only to Five Star stores. And only Five Star dealerships can sell factory-certified used vehicles.

The anticipated Five Star changes were among the topics Chrysler executives discussed with dealers at meetings in the company's eight U.S. sales regions last week. The Chrysler group holds the meetings each year.

Chrysler continued to ask dealers to order vehicles in an effort to shrink bloated factory inventories. The company also predicted an increase in U.S. market share next year.

"They are very confident about 2007, and so am I," says Ralph Mahalak Jr., who co-owns three Chrysler group stores in Michigan, Ohio and Florida. "With the product lineup we will have in 2007, we'd better have an increase in share."

The revamped lineup includes the four-door Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Compass, Jeep Patriot, Dodge Nitro and the redesigned Chrysler Sebring.

Mahalak says his stock of 2006 vehicles is shrinking.

"We stopped ordering a few months ago because we were choking on inventory," he says. "But our inventories are back down to manageable levels. We are back to ordering 2007 product."