Last week, the bankruptcy news of an auto parts supplier in Dearborn, Michigan, may have a direct impact on consumers. And it reveals some insight into what goes into the parts of the car that owners see and touch every day.

Plastech Engineered Products makes interior components for Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors vehicles. About a week ago, Plastech declared bankruptcy amidst a dispute with Chrysler, as widely reported. As a result, Plastech stopped supplying Chrysler interior components, causing the automaker to run short of parts and shut down four factories temporarily, with the potential to close many more.

The standoff didn’t last for long before a temporary agreement could be reached and production resumed. According to the trade paper Automotive News, the new arrangement will “allow the automaker to resume production at four idled plants and avoid shutdown of all its assembly operations.” Plastech has secured a line of credit to keep operations running for the time being.

Chrysler’s initial announcement of the four plant closings gives us an idea what cars have critical interior parts built by Plastech:
• The Belvidere, Ill., factory builds the Dodge Caliber, Jeep Compass, and Jeep Patriot SUVs.
• Newark, Delaware builds the Chrysler Aspen and Dodge Durango SUVs.
• Sterling Heights, Michigan, builds the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger.
• The Dodge Nitro, Jeep Liberty, and Jeep Wrangler are built in Toledo, Ohio.

Consumer Reports has tested the Caliber, Compass, Patriot, Durango, Sebring (three of them), Avenger, Nitro, and Wrangler, and we are currently testing a Jeep Liberty.

When we tested the Nitro, we said its interior “looks cheap, with hard plastics, rough-finished components, large gaps, and loose pieces.” Likewise the Patriot, we said, “is full of cheap plastics, some of which are poorly finished.” We said the Sebring’s interior, “looks cheap and insubstantial.”

All these vehicles came in for similar harsh criticism. (Of course, suppliers like Plastech build components to manufacturer specs.) Some automotive writers have referred to this generation of Chrysler interiors as looking like they come from Playskool toys. One of our engineers likened driving the Compass to “sitting in an Igloo ice chest.”

Last year Chrysler announced it would create a new “advanced” interior design studio to focus on building better interiors. The first product of that effort, according to the company, is the new Dodge Ram pickup displayed at the Detroit Auto Show. It certainly had the highest initial quality interior we’ve seen on a new Chrysler design in a long time.

The particulars in this dispute remain a bit unclear. If Plastech had collapsed, many people would have been in trouble. The same Automotive News article mentioned that the company “owns more than 35 plants in North America and generated $1.4 billion in sales last year, [and] employs 7,700 people.”

In the end, we hope future Chrysler products will offer consumers more comfortable, better-finished interiors. (In theory, that could be good for everyone’s business.) The 2009 Ram has us optimistic. Just hope more jobs aren’t lost, or threatened, in the process.

—Eric Evarts

Edited 2/12/08