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Buyer says Dodge dealer gave him wrong Charger, failed to notice for 2 months

Mistakes happen, and they happen all the time. But when that mistake means a customer doesn't get what he or she paid for, something's gotta give. That's what one Dodge Charger buyer claims he is trying to sort out with his local dealership. Two months after taking delivery, the owner (going by the user name Dakrbouncer4689 on Reddit) says he got a call from his local Dodge dealership reporting a little problem. He had ordered and paid for the Charger SXT (pictured above on the dealer lot), but was given a Charger SE instead. The SE being the lower trim level, this presented one set of problems – namely a $2,000 discrepancy in equipment, like a five-speed automatic versus an eight-speed, a 4.3-inch infotainment display instead of 8.4, heated seats, leather steering wheel, premium audio, remote starter and so on. The second set of issues is that the VIN number on the paperwork (including the registration and insurance papers) of course doesn't match that of the car itself. The dealer, having obviously made a rather large mistake, apparently called the owner in to sort out the mess, but according to the customer's account, things didn't go as smoothly. Instead of immediately working to address the problem, the salesman kept the owner waiting, acted like it was no big deal, and offered only to swap the cars with no compensation for the trouble. Fortunately, the manager proved more sympathetic and apologetic, and offered the customer three options: he could swap the cars (re-doing the tinted windows on the SXT that the customer had done on the SE and throwing in leather seats for free), he could keep the SE (with the dealership handling the paperwork, throwing in the leather seats, adjusting the price and refunding an extra $400), or they could cancel everything, return the car and part company. As we go to press, the Charger owner had yet to make (or at least share) his decision. But while the principle of caveat emptor makes us wonder how he managed to take home a different car from the one he paid for, clearly the salesman and the dealership made a pretty large mistake by presenting him with the wrong set of keys and letting him off the lot without double checking it all. News Source: Darkbouncer4689 via Reddit, World Car Fans Dodge Car Buying Car Dealers Economy Cars Sedan

Chrysler slows minivan production, hasn't built VW Routan this year

Chrysler has slowed production of its Town and Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans this week, Automotive News reports. The Windsor, Ontario plant will cut its three shifts from eight hours each to four hours each in an effort "to align production with market demand," a Chrysler spokesperson told AN. Chrysler also builds the closely related Routan minivan for Volkswagen at its Ontario facility, but has not built a single example thus far in 2013.
Sales of Chrysler's minivans fell 15 percent for the first two months of 2013, and a large part of that has to do with the 26-percent drop of the Grand Caravan alone (the T&C was only down by one percent). According to Automotive News data, as of March 1, Chrysler had an unsold inventory of 24,713 Town and Country models and 18,547 Grand Caravans - a 69- and 43-day supply, respectively.
"No sense running full speed now, then have a lot of vehicles sitting around a few months down the line," Chrysler spokeswoman Jodi Tinson told AN. Full production is expected to resume again on March 18.

Race Recap: Rolex 24 at Daytona was fast and feisty

Let the record show that victory at the 2015 Rolex 24 at Daytona went to the No. 02 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Target/Ford EcoBoost Riley DP driven by Verizon IndyCar drivers Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan and NASCAR drivers Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson. The winner did 740 laps to cover 2,634.3 miles in 24 hours and 57.667 seconds. That's a statement to this year's pace in spite of 18 cautions, two more than last year: the Michael Shank Racing Ligier got pole with a time of 1:39.194, slower than last year's pole time of 1:38.270; however, the winning car last year only did 695 laps. The fight for top honors was shaved to a four-car battle over the first third of the event. The No. 02 Ganassi car took the lead on the first lap, swapping it well into the night with the No. 01 Ganassi car, the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP, and the defending champion No. 5 Action Express Corvette DP, all of them staying within about 20 seconds of one another. The Action Express car had a fuel connector come loose and lost three laps getting towed back to the pits to have it reattached, but was back in the lead 18 hours in. The No. 01 Ganassi car dropped out with recurring clutch problems 22 hours in, retiring not long after. A race-within-the-race is where the concluding action happened, a seven minute, 30-second dash from the end of the last caution to the checkered flag. During the penultimate pit stops with an hour to go, Dixon was in second place followed Jordan Taylor in the Wayne Taylor Racing DP into the pits but beat him out, taking the lead. The Action Express car was in third. In the last pit stops of the race, Dixon gained even more time, getting a four-second advantage over Taylor. Then a full-course caution came out twenty minutes before the finish when a Prototype Challenge car hit the wall and caught fire, bunching up the field. That closed the pits, but the Wayne Taylor Racing car had to pit during that yellow because of a miscalculation of driver time. No driver can be behind the wheel for more than four hours in a six-hour period but Jordan Taylor was going to go over, so he came in to swap out for brother Ricky. That cost the team any chance of second place, since they took an additional drive-through penalty for entering closed pits. When the track went green again, Sebastien Bourdais in the Action Express car stayed all over Dixon for the final five laps but couldn't get around him.