Inside the Trenton Engine plant: One person’s experience
I was at Trenton Engine from 1976-1978. When Chrysler dropped the large V8s in the late seventies a lot of us younger workers who were laid off. Some were recalled to work several years later and are now ready to retire. I was not one of them; but twenty years later, I was lured back to Chrysler by the big money, iron clad contract and the fact that I could add to the time I already had there and work on another pension.
When I arrived back at Trenton Engine in December 1999, the place was full of life and machines for making parts. I don't think there was any floor space left in the 2.1 million square foot building to add anything else. At that time they were making the 3.2L and 3.5L aluminum block V6 engines, the 3.3L and 3.8L V6 engines for the minivans, and the 1.8L (for export) and 2.0L Neon motors. They made all of the pistons, connecting rods, crankshafts, camshafts, blocks, cylinder heads, intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds and water pumps for each of these motors plus some parts for the 318 and the 3.9L V6 that were assembled at Mound Rd engine plant.
The process of outsourcing began around the beginning of 2000. The parts made in-house were held to a much higher quality standard then the ones they bought from the outside. One department after another was shut down and the machines were torn out and scrapped. It was so bad that there were new machines being unloaded from trucks for departments that were to be shut down within two weeks of their arrival. I guess once the ball got rolling to outsource there wasn't time to stop new equipment on order from being built and delivered. I think the new machinery ended up in the bone yard along with the rest of the scrap as Chrysler wasn't going to be making these parts at any of their other plants either. Some of the parts like connecting rods were going to be changed over to powdered metal so even the suppliers couldn't use this stuff.
After a while, DCX decided that Kenosha would be a good place to build the 3.5L V6 and now we were shutting down assembly lines. In late 2000 we had just finished putting in a new assembly line to add production for the 3.8L V6 which was started up and run for about one year. It could never hit its production numbers due to its size and poor design.
In 2001, we put in another assembly line for a version of the 3.5L V6 to go into the minivans. Chrysler even advertised that the 3.5 was going to be available in 2003 in the sales brochures. Unfortunately the weak transaxles for the minivans just couldn't handle the torque from the high revving 3.5 and the Pacifica transmission would not be ready for another year. I doubt that 50 engines made it off that assembly line before it was shut down, ripped out and sent to Mexico.
The World Engine project meant the 2.0L was doomed. When is a joint venture not really a joint venture? When two of the three partners announce a year before the plant opens that they have no plans of using any of the engines produced there. So now DCX is hiring new workers off the street for this venture while 25 miles away the workers who should be allowed to follow the work being transferred out of their plant are going into the job bank. The employment level has gone from about 3500 workers in the year 2000 to less than 1600 in 2006. I have a lot of friends with me in the job bank now. The plant is getting to more and more like it was in 1955 when it opened and all it made was water pumps and air raid sirens. I guess there was a good market for them back then.
