Fiat Is America’s Slowest Selling Car

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 4:37AM EST · Published Aug 14, 9:31AM EDT

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The troubled Fiat brand from Fiat Chrysler Automoblies Inc. (NYSE: FCAU), plagued by slow sales and poor quality reviews, is also America’s slowest selling car by one measure.

Auto research firm Edmunds tracks days to turn, one measure of how long dealers have to keep a new car on their lot, from when it is delivered until when it is sold. Volkswagen’s number is 152 days — five months. The average across the industry is 69.

Among other brands with the same trouble are Dodge (110), smart (151) and Chrysler (112). Notably Dodge and Chrysler are Fiat Chrysler products. The manufacturer’s best-selling brand, Jeep, has only 75 days to turn.

At the other end of the spectrum, Subaru has a number of 24, Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) 54 and Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) 57.

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Fiat has suffered from falling sales. Its sales for the first seven months were 19,346, down 16%. In July, the number was 2,754, down 14%.

Fiat has gotten bad grades on quality from several sources, most notably J.D. Power. In the J.D. Power 2016 U.S. Initial Quality Study, Fiat ranked second to last, ahead of only smart, among 33 brands. It had a score of 174 against an average of 105. At the top of the list, Kia had a grade of 83.

J.D. Power methodology: The study, now in its 30th year, examines problems experienced by vehicle owners during the first 90 days of ownership. Initial quality is determined by the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles, with a lower score reflecting higher quality.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.