Still, none of this will happen anytime soon. With competition being so fierce and so many major players in trouble, everyone in the car business appears to be talking to everyone else.

In the meantime, Zetsche is trying to quickly fix the company he resurrected just three years ago. That's why he has three German executives shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic to see what can be done to fix the American carmaker. One of these executives is Chief Operating Officer Rainer Schmueckle, who was in Auburn Hills, Mich., two weeks ago. He is known as a relentless cost-cutter with brash manners. There are seven teams under Schmueckle looking at every aspect of the business. A fix-it plan might be divulged as soon as late January.

But to get anything done, the Germans will have to rely on Chrysler Group CEO Tom LaSorda to win over the United Auto Workers. That's where it gets tough. Expect Chrysler to continue to hound the UAW for health-care cost cuts, especially if losses keep piling up in the coming quarters. The company needs to slash its health-care costs, which add up to $1,400 a vehicle in the U.S. If you include Chrysler's plants in Mexico and Canada, where health care is a small expense, the cost drops to $600 a vehicle, says Sean McAlinden, chief economist for the Center for Automotive Research. That's not as bad, but still triple what Toyota pays.

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Plant Closings Also, look for the kind of plant closings and job cuts that GM announced. McAlinden says Chrysler needs to take out 5,000 of its 48,000 UAW hourly workers. Like Ford and GM, the company will likely offer buyouts and severance packages. LaSorda can do that without opening an existing labor pact.

That means two assembly plants and a few smaller parts plants could go. Michael Robinet, vice president of CSM Worldwide, a Northville Mich.-based consulting firm, says the company will likely shutter its Newark, Del., plant, which builds the Durango model. The company may also close a minivan plant in St. Louis or another across town that builds Ram pickups. As many as four parts plants may go, too.

Unfortunately, Chrysler proved it wasn't immune to the ills plaguing Ford and GM. It looks like it's about to get some of the same medicine.

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