Possible Chrysler savior Fiat has low reliability scores
— -- Fiat cars are unreliable and unsatisfying, according to two respected independent surveys of European-market vehicles.
What's more, parent company Fiat Group appears not to have enough money to pay debt that matures in the next 12 months, Standard & Poor's said Tuesday as it downgraded Fiat's ratings.
Those are chilling reports at a time the Italian automaker is viewed as the only savior for Chrysler, via a proposed partnership.
Chrysler on Tuesday had no comment on meetings with Fiat or progress of the proposed deal.
President Obama's auto task force on Monday judged "Chrysler is not viable as a stand-alone company," and Obama said it won't get more bailout loans (it got $4 billion last year) unless it partners with Fiat — or somebody — by the end of April.
Fiat's poor scores give new life to the low-quality image the brand gained in the U.S. before it left in 1987. Some 1970s models "rotted away, fell apart as you drove down the freeway," says David Champion, head of auto testing at Consumer Reports.
Josh Whitford, a Columbia University assistant professor who's spent years in Italy studying auto manufacturing, says the newest models are improved: "Fiats are quite good these days. Fiat, in 2002, went through its own deep, deep crisis and bet on innovative new products."
But two European-market surveys report dissatisfaction.
•Fiats and Fiat-owned Alfa Romeos sold in European countries are near the bottom in reliability and "need to improve significantly to move away from the foot of the table where they have languished for several years," according to U.K.-based Which?, an advice publication that accepts no ads, similar to Consumer Reports in the U.S. It says newer models are improved.
•A survey of U.K.-market models by J.D. Power and Associates and magazine What Car? put Fiat 28th of 28 brands in the 2008 Customer Satisfaction Index for 2-year-old vehicles. Quality and reliability count for 30%.
The reliablity surveys don't reflect recent improvements, and give a misleading impression of Fiat products, says Gualberto Ranieri, vice president at Fiat Group headquarters in Italy. "We take quality and customer care issues seriously, and industry audits show that our performance has dramatically improved over the past decade," he said in an e-mail.
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