New "Ram" division

[bheiting]

Just finished reading an article in Business Week that claims Fiat-Chrysler

has notified it's ad agencies that all trucks produced by the enterprise will be

sold through a new "Ram" division. That includes commercial vehicles.

The plot thickens.

 

[DBentley]

What the heck is a ram division?

 

[bheiting]

What the heck is a ram division?

A new division named "Ram" like "Jeep" or "Dodge".

 

[BrianJ]

Division means nothing to me, and only makes sense. Any decent size business has different departments and divisions for various operations.



Now if it said something about a spin-off or something like that it may be newsworthy.



I would venture to guess the trucks have already been a seperate division, it seems as though they are just giving it a new name.

 

[bheiting]

What makes me nervous is reports that Cummins, for a couple of years, has been
cautious of giving Fiat too much engineering info. in their joint ventures. These JV's
are becoming strained, and in some cases have disintegrated. Another thing that
bothers me is a headline from Autobloggreen titled:
" Report: Chrysler could ditch Cummins for Fiat diesel power. "
The subject of that article was about the Chrysler bankruptcy relieving the company
from their contract with Cummins for the light duty pickup engine. From what I
understand, that new engine plant is still sitting idle. While all this is speculation,
the reorganization of the truck division should be of great interest to all of us.

 

[Bob4x4]

The 6. 7 plant is working,

 

[DennyDay]

Read somewhere the other day that the RAM 1500 with a Cummins is not gonna' be built. No plans for Fiat diesel in the 1500 either. Toyota and Nissan have shelved their plans of light duty diesel. I think you can thank Nobamma. I wish I could remember where i read it so I could give an address.



Dennt

 

[rscurtis]

The main reasons you're not seeing a light-duty diesel pickup are first, American manufacturers have become followers rather than leaders in innovation. The second is that no administration, including the present, has the political will to tax fuel to the level that it will change consumers' behavior. So in the meanwhile, we as a nation will just keep doing the same things we have been doing for the last thirty years, which is nothing.

 

[GOlsen]

I wonder if we could see a Ram with a Cat. :-laf

 

[Wingate]

NO, you will NOT see any light duty truck with a CAT. Don't even mention that. The Cat OTR market will be under Navistar. Still not sure how all this is gonna work out (with Cat and Navistar) I KNOW they will have the new Cat automatic transmissions. But I believe it will be a Cat bottom end with a Navistar top-end, fuel system, and emission components.

 

[WCPoe]

Didn't I read somewhere that Caterpillar will stop making on-highway engines to be used in the USA due to 2010 emissions requirements were too tough. They'll concentrate on the off-road stuff here.







See this article:

Reporter: Caterpillar, Navistar form truck, engine alliance - EquipmentWorldMagazine.com



They quote:

"Also, Caterpillar will not produce an engine for North American on-highway truck makers that will meet stricter 2010 emissions standards, says George Taylor, company director for global on-highway products. "

 

[bheiting]

I sure hope Cat has better luck with Navistar than Ford did.

 

[Wingate]

One of the contributing factors to the 6. 0 and 6. 4 failing was due to Ford leaning on the engines so hard. The Navistar version did not have the failure rate of the Ford engine, but was rated lower that the Ford engine.

The horsepower commercial wars between the big three cost Gm and FORD a considerable amount of warrranty money...

 

[rscurtis]

I believe you'll find that Navistar's version of the 6. 0, the VT 365, has a whole different set of issues than the Ford version. I certainly wouldn't want one in an MD truck.