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More Weekend Dealership Hours Sought by Chrysler Exec

Hard as it may be to believe, but Chrysler is on a major push to get its dealerships to have weekend hours, with a special emphasis on Sunday service openings coming in 2012.

According to a report by Bloomberg, Pietro Gorlier, head of Chrysler's Mopar service, parts and customer-care unit, wants 80 percent of the automaker's U.S. dealers to be open on Saturdays by the end of the year, up from 60 percent in 2009 and about 70 percent now.

Basically, that meant if you wanted to get your Grand Cherokee serviced at a time convenient to you, less than two out of three Chrysler dealerships were available to service your vehicle on a Saturday.

That number drops significantly for Sunday service. According to the Bloomberg report, there are about 2300 Chrysler dealers in the United States – and less than 30 of those, about 1 percent are open on Sundays.

Gorlier wants to see dealers open on Sundays because that is when customers do their errands. (Sunday is the busiest day of the week at grocery stores, for example). He told Bloomberg that sealers that added Saturday hours increased their service businesses by 20 percent, and starting Sunday hours may boost service business 10 percent to 15 percent.

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