As much as horrible press reviews are blamed for the non existent SRT Viper sales (with SRT and its chief, Ralph Gilles being guilty of this disaster, without any doubt), there is a more direct reason why the latest Viper proudly occupies dealers lots, unsold since 2013- CHRYSLER DEALERS themselves.
First of all, Viper is not being sold as SRT Viper, it is being sold as a DODGE, with SRT Viper model designation. So much for the 25k select dealers paid to become SRT dealers, there are no SRT dealerships and anyone who looks for SRT dealer will have a hard time finding one, unless he or she figure out Dodge/Chrysler dealers are the ones to contact.
The problem with these dealers is that they make living selling mini vans, Chargers and pick up trucks. What does this mean? They are truly horrible to deal with, this is a very unfortunate fact.
Here is my personal experience dealing with these numbnuts. Many of them have not just 2014 Vipers in stock, they have many 2013 Vipers sitting unsold as well. For some mysterious there is a schism among the dealers, with one group understanding that Vipers do not sell and quickly become financial liability to them, thus motivating them to discount these cars heavily, between 20 thousand for 2014 and up to 40 thousand for GTS option of 2013 model year. Then there dealers, stuck with cars from the PREVIOUS MODEL YEAR who refuse to understand what depreciation means and who insist that previous model year is discounted because they decided to remove the mark up from their cars and sell them at MSRP. Talking to both groups of dealers is very aggravating since there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the discounts any of these dealers offer.
In other words, the selling price for exact same car can vary by ten or more thousand dollars. At the same time, the price of a fully loaded GTS version with MSRP of 140k that was about 30k higher than the same year base SRT version, ends up being only 10k due to absolute lack of consistency between dealers and their discounting practices.
In my situation, when shopping for a base SRT and getting a best price of 90k while fully loaded GTS sells at another dealer for 99k, completely removes a motivation to purchase that base car period. Why? Because the future depreciation will be based on the selling price of the higher priced version of Viper and the base car, while discounted less now, will depreciate considerably more in a very near future.
Thus, the base car does not sell. There are exceptions, with dealers realizing this part and discounting the base car more but the rule is that the other dealers refuse to acknowledge the reality.
What is the result of this discounting mess? The dealers who discount reasonably, sell their cars while others get to pay their floor fees for the cars that continue to sit.
As much as SRT and bad publicity can be faulted, the real problem lies with the dealers and apparently Ralph Gilles or anyone else in Chrysler have absolutely no intention to make this better.
At this rate, the current Viper sabbatical may very well become a permanent vacation. There is no doubt that absolutely nothing has been learned from the similar situation back in 2010.
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