The new Consumer Reports annual rankings of manufacturers and vehicles released on Monday and Fiat-Chrysler took a hard belly punch. Hard enough, apparently, to have knocked the wind out of them as their chief quality person, Doug Betts, resigned his post almost immediately after the CR report published.
All of the Fiat-Chrysler brands (Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Ram) appeared in the bottom of the rankings from CR. The FCA scores overall were all down, in fact, with CR really holding nothing back and likely throwing the automaker against the ropes with their negative assessments.
This didn’t bode well for Betts, who joined Chrysler about seven years ago after holding similar quality control positions at several other major makes like Nissan, Toyota, and GM. It appears that either he or the management team at Chrysler failed, however, as quality reports from outlets like Consumer Reports haven’t been kind to the Chrysler and Fiat brands.
Hasty press releases from FCA announced two new quality heads to replace Betts. The hapless men are Mark Chrernoby, taking over as Head of Quality while retaining his role as Chief Operating Officer of Product Development and Matthew Liddane as Head of Quality North AMerica, moving up(?) from his position as Systems and Components VP for Chrysler.
