Bargain Benz with Detroit muscle - An awesome combo

I keep coming back to the Charger

I’ve been test-driving Chargers off and on for about three years now. Technically I’m supposed to be finding my wife a new car and this is the one I keep coming back to. I own all the old beater classic cars and never drive new cars. She has always owned the one family new car. Since I started test-driving Chargers I leave Charger pictures on the desk where she can discover them. I’ll exclaim off the top of my head for no reason how great a seven year unlimited power train warranty would be. I’ll talk on endlessly about how this car is the best value for money sedan on the market. Yet my wife has yet to come around to my way of thinking. OK, so maybe she knows I’m really lusting after the big lump of a Hemi V8 motor under the hood, the Daimler MB underpinnings, the lazy mans Auto stick shift. But still, lust combined with intelligence makes for great marriages, right?

I mentioned in last years BMW 525 review that I was more impressed driving the Charger RT than the Bimmer. This has not changed a bit. The 07’ model that I was thrashing around in was not much different than the new 08’ model. From the 18’ Goodyears that plant the car firmly through the Mercedes E-class chassis and suspension right up through the 5.7 litre multi displacement engine (MDS) there isn’t much to say about changes. But when you build something this good, the refrain “why change what works” holds true.

It’s all in your perception honey
 
Driving the Charger is where life gets interesting and where it gets difficult for some. This is the one point where my wife and I have the big disconnect. She prefers smaller cars with long swept back windshields. Her Accord, my son’s Contour, all the Renaults she’s owned. These are all examples of the cars she likes. The Charger according to her makes her feel like she’s in a capsule. I had to stop and think about that for a few and concluded that unlike the original Charger or any of the bigger American cars that I grew up with, the Charger is trying to play a triple role, and like Pantoja in Yo soy esa, it can get confusing.

It’s a tough guy. The windows of the Charger are all canted at a lower (numerical degree) angle than almost any other car produced in the last twenty years “except for its cousin the Chrysler 300”. By doing this the windows, and most significantly the windshield all become smaller and allow the designers to give the car a billy bad boy look. The result though is a windshield physically further from the driver with less glass to peer through. The effect is what you might experience backing up from a window in your house and trying to see what the kids are doing outside. 

She’s sweet and complacent. Chrysler/Dodge gave us the term “cab forward’ about eighteen years ago That deep cowl, wide dash, heavily insulated cabin design hasn’t been lost on the Charger. Building a larger car with that criteria compounds the pushed back from the road sensation that you already get with the upright windshield and small windows.

The Escort. She wants to do everything for you, but at a cost. The creature comforts aren’t always so comfortable and that’s what throws her off. The door arm rests and center console armrests for the passenger seem more intrusive than comforting. My wife is 5’6” but has to put the seat to its highest position to get above the rests enough so that her arms don’t push into them, but are on top of them. That only compounds the feeling of being encapsulated because now the angle that she sees through the windshield is decreased.  Combine the width of the car with the disconnected feeling through the glass and it makes you feel like your playing a video game.

It must be a mans car

For me, I’m just fine behind the wheel of the Charger. At six foot, I have plenty of room to move about. I don’t even need to put the seat all the way back, so I’m sure taller guys will like this car. The foot controls are electrically adjustable to bring them in closer or move them away. You can really find a sweet spot, between steering adjust, seat adjust and foot control adjust to match any body size. With the electrically heated seats you can jump in and take the chill off in a jiffy. The heater and air conditioning will pump out probably faster than any car in recent memory. A big V8 will create a lot of heat and push a lot of freon, so that’s not surprising.

I like the cab ergonomics from the driver side. The seats are wide and supportive with good lumbar support. I think the arm rest and console are positioned well so you can lazily rest over them. I was getting in the habit of laying my arm over the console and flicking the Auto stick lever left and right to up and downshift. That transmission is one of the sweetest auto/manual over auto transmissions Iv used. Very precise without being jerky and will only counter your decisions if it knows the RPM / speed are really too far out of synch. Not to say that its standard shift precise. It is still and automatic and comes with the disconnected from the engine to road feel that comes with and auto.

I keep reading complaints about the Chrysler / Dodge interiors being plasticy or not of best quality. I find them to be durable, easy to clean and aesthetically pleasing. I was recently driving a Saab 9/3 and for as much as I liked that car, I found its interior far less robust than the Dodge.
Mini tirade here; I love people that whine about the interior not being to their liking, it’s not Asian enough, or German enough, then trash whatever they have up with cigarette ash, spilled coke, grass shavings, McDonalds wrappers etc.. then on top of that never clean it and let the dust build up an inch thick. What in the world does it matter if you have a wood grained five thousand dollar interior if you take care of it like that anyway? The Dodge interior for lack of exotic Italian design, porcelain inlays and gold plated knobs is very practical. Maybe Detroit figured that out and decided to cut costs and just let the Koreans build industrial interiors so they could concentrate on building a better car. Tirade over.

The lights, radio, climate controls and other controls are all laid out very well and easy to use. I borrow a friends Dodge pickup on occasion and found that Dodge takes a pretty straight forward concept on cab layout, so I found getting into the Charger an easy step. I did feel kind of funky using the security bung key for starting the car though. I like the insertion into the dash panel like back in the day when that’s where keys went. Not having a steel key doing the work for me was odd though.

Backseat accommodations are great. My daughter and her friends will get back there and carry on, yet never complain about not having enough room. The split 60/40 rear seat will also fold down giving the huge trunk even more room for stuff. Throw a step ladder in there, racing bike, grandfather clock or what have you. It’s almost truckish. With separate climate controls I don’t have to argue about the heat or AC being too high or low.

Keeping the Hemi legend alive

The Charger is an exceptional highway car and this isn’t surprising considering it took its underpinnings and tub right from the E-class Mercedes. Autobahn speeds are dead easy with this car and it is very stable and sure footed at those speeds to boot. On secondary roads the car isn’t too shabby either. Although it’s carrying over 4000 pounds of steel, it can be tossed around better than most big sedans including the latest genre of larger Bimmers. Special thanks to Daimler for their superior engineering. It does have a bit of big car boatishness to it over rough, whop de do roads and some good lean over through narrow off camber curves, but overall the Electronic Stability Control, Anti lock brakes and multi link suspension do a heck of a job keeping it in the middle of the road where it belongs.

I was fortunate enough this past summer to get this car lent out for a weekend road trip. Although only a couple of hours ride up the highway, I could probably endure one of those real long two day ‘dad are we there yet” trips. Aside from all the adjustability and lumbar support, the sound system was exceptional. With a low road noise and nicely balanced speaker system, I could hear the music clearly at a low background volume. My wife complained a little about the visibility, but once she dropped the seat and reclined back and eyes closed; problem solved.

The car was given to me with a nearly empty tank of gas. Filling it up was an excruciating endeavor. Remember the gas prices this past summer. Multiply them by two for here. Once on the road I wasn’t too eager to burn all my hard earned dollars away so I kept it around seventy MPH. At a constant highway speed I was actually getting almost exactly the 25 MPG Dodge estimates. Of course this is a brand new engine that hasn’t been broken in. I’m sure with a few good miles on it, that figure should increase slightly. Since we did so well on the ride up, I decided to open it up a bit on the way home. If you read my Infiniti G35 review you’ll know how enamored I was with that car. The G35 only delivered about 17 MPG and 11 while thrashing it, and in a smaller body car to boot. The Charger’s lowest figure was 17 and that was at post ton highway speed. Note here: To be fair even back when the Chrysler Hemi was released for Desoto, Dodge, Plymouth, and Chrysler products as a 331 CID motor it was racking up great (record making) MPG and performance figures. I’ll go more into this when I drop my Challenger review.

As far as reliability of this car goes I would have no fear. The whole car is built with tried and true components that have been around a while. If anything this car is built more on the old Mercedes model of being a little overbuilt. A quick look at the recalls on this car only comes up with two and on a small number of units. Both fixes are straight-forward low time fixes. As far as future care and feeding and possible maintenance issues go, I as a mechanic would much rather work on this car than most of the cramped inaccessible vehicles coming off the line from other makers. That easy access for the mechanic means a lower repair bill for the consumer too. Chances are a lot of shade tree guys will do their own work on this car since it is so easy.

A recommendation of opposing views.

Since my wife and I both have spent wheel time with this car and we have opposing views we’re splitting the difference on rating. She finds the car to be a bit intimidating. With a preference for small open airy cars this car just feels too big. She’s a real neck bender and loves to look around instead of use her mirrors. She isn’t comfortable getting into and out of parking spaces because of its size. She does concede that the sit up seating is comfortable and prefers it over 90’s era vehicles with legs forward race car ergos. Her rating is a three.
I’m very comfortable using the mirrors and trust what I see so don’t feel as encapsulated like she does. I can rip this car through traffic as easily as any other car and really appreciate the straight-forward engineering, easy access for maintenance, and overbuilt undercarriage that screams durability. With outstanding carrying capacity (we actually threw a kitchen table and semi foldable chairs in there) and a simple yet comfortable cabin, I think this car represents one of the best values for a sedan on the market. I’d give it a five. Since she had so much input to this review, we’re splitting the difference and giving it a four and a thumbs-up purchase recommendation.