Fiat Chrysler settlement with gov't could prove costly - WSB Radio
Fiat Chrysler could be required to lay out billions of dollars to get potentially defective Ram pickups and older Jeeps off the road under a deal with safety regulators to settle claims that the automaker mishandled nearly two dozen recalls. The Italian-American automaker must offer to buy back 500,000 Ram pickup trucks and other vehicles in the biggest such action in U. S. history. It must also either allow owners of more than a million older Jeeps with vulnerable rear-mounted gas tanks to trade them in at above market value or cover the cost of a repair. Even so, the settlement leaves out about 1. 7 million owners of Rams and Jeeps whose vehicles potentially have the same problem as those covered. What can those people do. The Ram pickups, which are the company's top-selling vehicle, have defective steering parts that can cause drivers to lose control. The older Jeeps have fuel tanks located behind the rear axle, with little to shield them in a rear crash. It's unclear just how many Rams the automaker will have to repurchase, but the cash outlay could be substantial. According to Kelly Blue Book, a 2010 Dodge Ram 1500 — one of the smaller,. Source: www.wsbradio.com
