Stellantis and its cars are having a rough go of things as of late. Of course, its CEO recently resigned following multiple years of sales declines. Of course, there have also been several car recalls. Now, a new study has found that the vast majority of the dealerships tasked with getting people into Stellantis vehicles have lost faith in the company’s direction. Of course, this comes as new reports show exactly how bad 2024 was for the automotive giant.

Buyers aren’t the only ones losing trust in Stellantis and its cars

Many of us still believe Stellantis makes some of the best new cars. The problem is that not enough people think that. Now, it seems something similar may be true for its dealers. According to Jalopnik, a recently released survey from Kerrigan Advisors shows that 72 percent of Stellantis dealerships no longer support the direction in which the company is heading. In fact, they say they have “no trust” in the company. Notably, Kerrigan Advisors is a dealership consulting firm.

Breaking down the numbers, 26 percent of dealerships studied said they had “moderate” trust in Stellantis and its cars. Sadly, only two percent of dealerships had substantial trust in the company and its future. This paints a pretty bleak picture, as only 39 percent of dealers said they had “no trust” in the company in 2023. Of course, this marks a 33 percent decline in trust from the very entities that are supposed to sell Stellantis vehicles. 

Specifically, this study used 635 dealerships as its subjects and measured how they felt about “the future value of their business, franchise earnings, and valuation expectations.” Of course, this isn’t the only piece of bad news for Stellantis and its cars. Most recent reports say that the automaker experienced a 15 percent decline in sales from 2023. The brand sold 1,303,570 vehicles in all of 2024.

Sadly, this makes Stellantis the least trusted company from the point of view of dealerships. Ford was the least trusted in last year’s survey. This year, Infiniti isn’t trusted by 59 percent of its dealers, Nissan has the displeasure of 58 percent of dealers having no trust, Lincoln is at 53 percent, and Ford isn’t trusted by 37 percent of its dealerships. Toyota, Lexus, and Subaru dealers had the most trust in their respective companies. 

Check out this recent article on one of the several Steallantis car recalls.