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FCA Falsifies Sales Reporting

5K views 56 replies 29 participants last post by  Car253 
#1 ·
Motortrend

Definitely wouldn't call this a surprise. Where's the FCA fan boys at?
 
#8 ·
Definitely wouldn't call this a surprise. Where's the FCA fan boys at?
So I guess because GM didn't offer a truck to suite me and I'm 100% happy with my Ram, I guess that makes me one of those "fan boys"? Is inflating numbers wrong? Yes. There's no denying that. It doesn't matter to me if they sold 50% less, I buy what I like, not what magazines, or other sales tell me to. Why does everything on this site have to be a "GM fanboy" vs "Ford fanboy" vs "FCA fanboy"? I'm glad having this thing to gloat about makes your day, and that GM is a flawless company. Not sure why so many wish ill upon other automakers.
 
#15 ·
So I guess because GM didn't offer a truck to suite me and I'm 100% happy with my Ram, I guess that makes me one of those "fan boys"? Is inflating numbers wrong? Yes. There's no denying that. It doesn't matter to me if they sold 50% less, I buy what I like, not what magazines, or other sales tell me to. Why does everything on this site have to be a "GM fanboy" vs "Ford fanboy" vs "FCA fanboy"? I'm glad having this thing to gloat about makes your day, and that GM is a flawless company. Not sure why so many wish ill upon other automakers.
Well nothing was posted directly at you so obviously you felt the shoe fit. :lmao:
 
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#11 ·
This is an interesting case which I have been following.

From my reading between the lines it seems FCA invited the FBI, DOJ and SEC to come and conduct this investigation into what if any criminal activity some of FCA's staff have engaged in to better their own personal financial positions within the company.

Many people forget that it is possible for a company to commit crimes; but also for employees of a company to commit crimes while the company remains innocent.

Just because employees may have faked sales numbers so they make their personal targets and get paid a bonus does not make the company guilty.

That is what it sounds like has happened here.

One should not that the investigation is visiting employees homes which is rare when investigating workplace crime of a company but common when investigating workplace crime against an employees company.

It seems individuals were falsifying monthly sales numbers and FCA put a stop to it but certain individuals started it back up again and FCA was exposed to law suits from dealers and so FCA this time called in the Feds.

My advice to the FCA employees involved is confess everything to the Feds.

Just look at Martha Stewart who served time for telling lies to Feds but never served a day for any crime they actually were investigating her about in the first place. The attempted cover-up is where they always get you.

As to FCA there was no crime as they do not report monthly sales to the SEC and have no legal obligation to report them. And against the legal opinion of the lawyer in the article FCA has no legal responsibility to report truthful monthly sales sales figures.

The reason is simple - it is not possible for any investor to deduce any accurate financial data from monthly sales figures - unless they also have a lot of secret illegal insider knowledge about the profitability of those sales. Thus no advantage or disadvantage to investors results from false monthly sales figures whic FCA has no obligation to report.




;)
 
#12 ·
I agree, I don't think Sergio even knew about it. But seeing what's going on in the market and what they're reporting, you could tell something was up. Record sales streaks and sales of the 200 and Dart being so bad that you're going to outsource the next generation are a perfect example of that. And clearly FCA had came to the same conclusion as well. The bad thing is that this may impact their stock value and they don't need another hit.
 
#24 ·
Just to add more salt on the menu, I spotted this blog post from Allpar. http://www.allpar.com/news/2016/07/is-the-fca-streak-real-32194

There's one poster who posted a comment if we should take it seriously or on a sarcastic tone but it was worth to quote. http://www.allpar.com/news/2016/07/is-the-fca-streak-real-32194#comment-2802621075

Wonder if Toyota and Honda do this...for cars that are supposed to sell a gazillion per month are pretty RARE !
I guess Pete DeLorenzo of Autoextremist will have lots of wet dreams tonight. :rolleyes:
 
#40 ·
I guess Pete DeLorenzo of Autoextremist will have lots of wet dreams tonight. :rolleyes:

Looks like PDL begin to sharpen his knife. Here his latest "On the table". http://www.autoextremist.com/on-the-table1/

Editor-In-Chief's Note: According to a report in Automotive News, FCA execs ordered an internal review of its reported sales numbers in mid-2015 and discovered that thousands of vehicle sales reported by FCA's brands didn't have actual buyers. Oops. Don't think there's fire generating that smoke? The investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice obviously think there is. It seems that Sergio's obsession with delivering monthly sales gains at all costs is going to be a very costly decision, which is why he's going to sell the company off as soon as he can lasso a serious buyer. This is going to get real ugly, folks. -PMD
 
#33 ·
You may very well be proving the point, you had no intention of proving.......... like "they both knew".

However, Mary was Vice President of Global Manufacturing Engineering and then Executive Vice President of Global Product Development, during much of the times the ignition switch issues were coming to light internally, to me, that would be akin to Sergio being the "National Sales Manager" and having no idea someone was cooking the books.

I sit 20' from out CEO's office, I know and understand there are things that go on every day that he doesn't have a clue about, but there isn't an engineering problem and the head of engineering doesn't know about it.
 
#30 ·
You do not have to be a rocket scientist or have that much of an inside look at FCA to see why things are rough for them, they have even been honest in some articles talking about how they can survive but things are going to be rough for the next few years.

FCA was cutting development cost, this has the short term affect of boosting profits but the long term affect of killing profits. You are spending less hence a boost to profits however in a few years when your competitors have a bunch of new products and you don't guess what is going to happen to profits?. Just look at the gaps in the Dodge product lineup compared to other mainstream full line brands, Dodge has no city car, no sub compact and no mid sized sedans. For trucks they have the Ram but they have no small or mid sized trucks (no one currently has a small truck in the US).

They are killing the viper for what really amounts to not having enough cash to invest in it compared to other offerings, also they were offering too many discounts on the Ram trucks (which honestly I don't think they needed). The only consistent bright side has been Jeep due to a swing in consumer demands toward crossovers and the ever popular wrangler.

So they are in a position where they are not bringing in enough cash to properly develop vehicles in all of the segments that they need to compete in. If they could have tied up with GM for example then that would have amounted to a huge cash infusion for them, honestly I do think that with all of the talk over economies of scale it really came down to this with Sergio.

I do think that the announce came from those who thought that FCA was in GM spot and GM was in FCA spot, especially when it was obviously the other way around. Some people who were understandably bitter over the ending of local production with holden to the point where it blinded them to reality.
 
#37 ·
I was always of the belief that FCA reported Sales when the Vehicle left the Factory. Not when the Vehicle left the Dealership or into the hands of the End User.

So yes Big Numbers now basically mean Clean Up of 2016's and Build Up of 2017's.

Even in Our Dealership there are many different ways Sales are counted, some count them when the Customer says Yes, some when the Finance Company says Yes, I count them when the Tail Lights cross the Curb, with the new owner at the wheel.
 
#38 ·
There is a difference; since FCA "gets paid" when they make/ship a car to the Dealer, that is the "factory sales" that is in quarterly reports, the "monthly sales" numbers are what their Dealers sold to you and I.

They are never going to be equal, except by chance, but over the course of time they should equal-out.
 
#56 ·
How sad is this.

Ford, who is massively capacity constrained, will move production of a low profit product (Focus) to Mexico, and retool an entire factory to build the Ranger and Bronco, before GM (who is far from capacity constrained) can build a Grand Cherokee or Wrangler competitor.

Argue with me all you want, but offer something as proof.
 
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