MAIL CALL.

Our Dec. 11 article on Daimler-Benz and Chrysler Corp.'s troubled marriage stirred up anger and bad memories among our readers. Business is bound to fail, one reader wrote, "when it becomes a matter of egos and gross mismanagement at the cost of customer relations." Several complained about bad experiences with Chrysler's services or its vehicles--one referred to his Reliant as "junk"--while others laid blame elsewhere. "Daimler's theft of Chrysler was near criminal," lament-ed one former Chrysler employee.

DaimlerChrysler's Woes

The top brass at Daimler-Benz lacked the courage of their conviction to admit that their merger with the Chrysler Corp. was never planned as a merger, let alone a merger of equals ("A Mess of a Merger," BUSINESS, Dec. 11). But it was sold as a merger. Even before the ink was dry, the orders came fast and furious from Daimler and Co. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that morale and loyalty go out the window when the acquirer demotes or gets rid of the key people who had the respect of the Chrysler team worldwide. If you really want to marry someone as an equal, then first demonstrate the ability to unite the two before you are accepted as the leader.

Roy L. Manns -- Marshfield, Massachusetts

As a Chrysler retiree who endured 30 years of sporadic, hapless and inept management by bean counters and educated fools, I thought it was delightful to see the company's turnaround in the late '80s and the '90s. The solution was, of all things, creative car guys building cars. Daimler's theft of Chrysler, made easy by huge buyouts for top Chrysler executives, was near criminal. It is tantamount to a major-league-team owner's sacking all his coaches and first-string players in the middle of a pennant race. The new guys may be good ballplayers, but when they fall off the bus, can they speak the same language, understand the rules or even find their way to the locker room? Cost control is necessary, but this may become a textbook example of how arrogant mismanagement can mess up a "merger."

Allan E. Bradshaw -- Hackensack, Minnesota

I was moved to write by former Chrysler board member John Neff's quote "I am just confounded that the Chrysler franchise could become as bad as they say so quickly." I, on the other hand, wonder how it survived as long as it has and how it managed to fool Daimler-Benz. Lest we forget, Chrysler was in serious trouble in the '70s. It represented the worst of America's manufacturing decline, it was guilty of loading its vehicles with expensive features that consumers didn't want and it eventually had to be bailed out by the U.S. government. It "recovered" by producing a line of K cars. My family, in an effort to buy American, purchased a new Reliant in 1982. That car was junk, and Lee Iacocca admitted as much in this publication when he acknowledged that the company may have "shipped... some crap." Chrysler is a house of cards that is tumbling down. The company is populated by thugs, and I couldn't be happier to see them go. I only hope they don't take Benz with them.