I've kept out of this thread so far because it steers me into an area that always gets me going. Jeep seem to have engineers that know how to build utility vehicles that are world joint number one with Land Rover, but they have always had a marketing team that couldn't shift ice-cream cones in the bloody Sahara. I really totally despair of them. No offers, just take it or leave it, while other manufacturers are beating the living crap out of them. No freely extended warranties, when other European and Far Eastern manufacturers are giving five and six years and up to a hundred thousand miles. No attempt to beat other 4-by-4s in the emissions battle, when they only need to claw back one more gramme of CO2 ( that's right: one more gram, out of a total of hundred and eighty!) in order to qualify for cheaper road tax in over ten major EU states! No plugging the fact that it's the cheapest 4-by-4 to fill up on the road. No advertising on TV whatsoever, when other manufacturers have been aware of the invention of the television since about the end of the Second World War. Models that make no sense whatsoever in Europe, such as the Commodore or Commander or whatever it's called; it's never ever going to take more than three to five percent of the Range Rover's market.
I really, truly mean it when I say that, if all their marketing team were sacked and replaced by me, Henna my tortoiseshell cat, and Big Owen from our rugby club whom I have never, ever, in twenty five years ever seen stone cold sober, then they could not possibly do worse.
I'd love to know how many Patriots are actually sold each year in just the UK. I mean, why would anyone who wasn't totally pi55ed (English "pi55ed", not American "pi55ed" go out and buy, say, a Rexton, rather than a Pat?
A Daihatsu rather than a Pat? Anything priced between twenty and twenty-five thousand quid rather than a Pat? Why? It's got to be because of marketing and availability of information, hasn't it? We know that there simply isn't anything in the 4-by-4 world on British roads under twenty-five thousand quid that's better value than a Patriot.
Go up to thirty thousand and you get Land Rovers, Volvos, VW's, all way better than a Patriot, sure, but Jayzes, so they ought to be! They're ten thousand quid more expensive!
If I really, really believed that I had a chance of getting through and speaking to an ear that mattered, I'd get on the phone to someone at the top in Michigan and give them the complete earful of all of this; I really would.
Russ O'C
