This thing came into my posession a few years ago. My mom bought it(used) as a retirement gift for my dad, problem is, he retired on health grounds and physically cannot actually get into or out of it. He has driven it maybe 6 times in 4 years. My mom doesn't like how low it sits and has developed a near-addiction to AWD she never uses, so she doesn't want to drive it. And thus it got bucked down to me. I have had to deal with this unapologetic POS for the bulk of the time my family has owned it(50k to 140k miles).
The trim package is fairly basic, which is honestly fine by me, but there aren't that many bells and whistles in this thing. V6, 5AT, etc.
What's good about it? Well, the radio. Ish. Most of the time. I don't know what antenna Dodge used instead of a tried and trusty whip sticking out of the passenger front fender like they should have used, but it has trouble with reception that my older vehicles don't have. The steering wheel mounted radio controls are a constant thorn in my side and actively encourage me NOT to hold it correctly. But yeah. The radio's decent. Sounds great, loud, doesn't clip. Has actual knobs on the face for tuning and volume control(even if they are just attached to rotary encoders, still, knobs are best), plenty of presets, easy to program, reasonable amount of sound adjustment capability. It's a good head unit. If I was working on an old vehicle that needed a 2DIN head unit I would be more than willing to transplant this one.
Oh, right, also: Props for it being a standard size. 2-DIN. that is good. Genuinely appreciate that, even if I never actually needed it. If a replacement H/U was ever needed for any reason(whether for feature upgrades, replacement due to failure, etc) sourcing one would not be difficult because of this. More manufacturers need to do this. I killed the head unit in a 2013 Elantra because Master of Puppets came on and I rocked out slightly too hard for that poor little Korean econobomb. Never replaced it because Hyundai used a proprietary form factor....
That's the only compliment I can give this car. On to a condensed list of my gripes about it...
Engine: Terrible, in a word. Ok, ok, ok, it does actually function, I will grant it that. It isn't leaking anything, it isn't burning a significant amount of oil, it does eventually start, gasoline goes in movement comes out the other end, yadda yadda. But that isn't going to make a good argument for an engine. That's the bare minimum. It sounds like a disappointingly wet fart if it makes enough of a wheezing moan to be heard at all. I'm one of those wierdos that actually wants to hear their engine, but this engine sounds so bad I'm glad I can't hear it most of the time. It has NO power...they quote 300+HP but I'm convinced I'm lucky to get 200 out of it if I eat some taco bell an hour before leaving...it has a miss at about 65mph/5th gear that I can reproduce on command, it stumbles often when a load comes onto it...bleh.
Oh, and I somehow managed to flood it. BAD. Cleared it the same way one clears a flooded carb engine(WFO + crank until it lights off) and it did the same exact sputter-cough-cough-smoke-smoke-smoke thing when it eventually did come back to life. Hasn't done it since. How the hell a 10 year old MP-EFI engine floods on startup eludes me....
Transmission: As with every single other automatic transmission I've ever had the displeasure of driving, this one is terrible. It has all the same failings as every other automatic I've ever driven. Can't figure out which gear to be in, always shifts into the wrong one, can't just pick a gear, can't proactively select gears, no engine braking to speak of. The only way I can live with this horrible thing is the manumatic mode...slapshift...whatever you wanna call it. Bop the shifter right for up, left for down. I haven't allowed it to shift its own gears in over a year because it doesn't know how to do so. Gained 3-4mpg by doing so and it's at least tolerable now. And I have
some engine braking, which is why I haven't had to do brakes on it yet.
Brakes: Decent I guess. I mean I seldom ever have to use them...I stop more by engine braking than anything else...but it doesn't seem to have much trouble whoa'ing up. I've also gotten...well potentially 140,000 miles out of the brake linings. That's a positive I suppose, though I imagine that's also because I use the engine to slow down as much as I possibly can.
Fuel economy: terrible. Dashboard claims 22-23mpg(which is still middling to meh for the V6 it should be around 25-26) but the
actual MPG is closer to 17-18. There's way too much carbon on the exhaust tips for it to be getting what it claims it gets, and I've checked it the old fashioned way to confirm 17-18mpg. And that's with me driving it like I want decent economy! If I drove this thing like a muscle car is SUPPOSED to be driven it would drink like it had the 392.
That's the same sort of numbers my 85 F150 gave me with 400,000 miles on it. That's the same sort of numbers my dad was getting out of my C10 when he was driving it in the 80s. RIDICULOUS! These trucks have way larger engines with far less efficient designs/fuel systems and yet they return the same economy...what the actual -beep-, Stellantis?! How the hell does 40 years of engine efficiency improvement net absolutely zero gain in actual fuel economy? WHERE IS MY FUEL GOING?!
Ergonomics: I'm 6' 250-ish pounds and I do not fit into this car. At all. If I have the seat in the 'correct' position my head hits the roof, I can't see anything above the car, and I can't reach any of the dash mounted controls(IE headlights, HVAC). If I put the seat where I can at least reach all the controls both knees are painfully jammed into the dash and I'm dangerously close to the airbag. In order to actually drive this thing, not only do I have to put the seat in the incorrect position, but I also have to slouch in it. My right knee is still jammed right up into the dash but not as tightly, I still struggle to see some traffic lights if I'm first in line at them. The steering wheel mounted controls are a constant pain in the ass(They're TOO convenient and are very very easy to bump while simply steering the car particularly when making a sharp turn/parking), my keychain fights with both the dash and my knee constantly, the visor hits my head if I'm using it over the side window and makes it unsafely hard to see if I put it forward....hell even the chrome trim around the shifter blinds me sometimes. Headrests rip hats off heads, but happily they just pop out so I run around without the headrests fitted. 1 point for Stellantis over this at least. They're in the car, mind, just not in the seat.
Visibility:
Ride: Bulldozers have smoother rides.
Comfort: I've been in school buses that were more comfortable than this thing.
Handling: Terrible. Absolutely terrible. This thing doesn't know which end it wants to point in which direction on the best of days. In inclement conditions...IE a garden variety thunderstorm...it does the ol' John Travolta routine down the road if the rear tires are more than 20% worn. It doesn't communicate what it's doing...probably because it doesn't know until it does it...can't predict what it will do next. Horrible handling.
Oh, and it has a very worrying trait: If I snap the steering wheel hard enough the power steering system...hydraulic? electric? Iono....just gives up, stops working for a moment. The rack in it has such a fast ratio that even I can't manhandle it, so in effect, when this happens the steering just jams up. So far it's only done it when I'm whipping it into my driveway so no big deal, but I have a feeling it will do this if I have to swerve to avoid someone doing something stupid or when it starts doing the John Travolta BS in a rainstorm.....
Cornering: Decent-ish I suppose. I've driven better cornering vehicles I've driven worse. It's average here I think.
Cost of Ownership: Terrible. It eats its tires at four different rates. I will go through 3 right rears for every left front I wear out. And, again, I don't drive this thing like a muscle car! Shifting up at 2k all the time cause, yanno, my broke ass gotta feed it and whatnot. Also traffic. Alignment is fine-ish as the tires wear evenly, it just wears them at four different rates. And it eats them FAST. Annoying, when they cost $200 a piece. Repair parts are expensive(There's a laundry list of things it could stand to have repaired that I've ignored because they cost too much to justify, like the inoperative horn, and it's long overdue for spark plugs because I can't afford to replace the 2 or 3 coil packs I'll inevitably break trying to change them nor the labor costs to pay a shop to do it). Beyond glad I'm not on the hook for insuring this **** thing, either, I'm 34 with a squeaky clean MVR and it's still $150/mo on that front.
Practicality: Perhaps my situation is unique as I fly RC airplanes, but I find it lacking here. I suppose if you're not trying to pack 84" long objects into one of these things it wouldn't be too bad. Generous trunk space for the segment, rear seats fold down. Speaking of, unless you're still in the third grade, don't bother sitting in the back. You don't fit. Ingress and Egress leave much to be desired as well.
Build Quality: I've driven some dilapidated junkboxes over the years but this one takes the cake. THE ENTIRE FRONT BUMPER COVER JUST FELL OFF ONE DAY! ijhaetijh9i356. I sometimes have to fonzie my dashboard to get the air conditioning to work, if I use the push button start sometimes it takes 2 attempts to light off(I just ripped the button out and took to sticking the fob in there and twisting it, cranking it that way, to sidestep this) the parking brake works when it wants to. 2nd gear is getting soft. It pulls to the left. Bleh. At this point the car has this malaise about it where it feels like it's ready to just
die. It has reached its end of life and it really doesn't want to live any longer.
I'm also not entirely confident the driver's side airbag is even present, much less functional. There's no SRS light lit so the body controller
thinks there's a viable airbag in there but I have my doubts.
Serviceability: Oil changes aren't bad if you can get underneath it. The drain plug is easily accessible and the filter is a cartridge type mounted front and center atop the engine with nothing in the way. Anything beyond that is a nightmare and I refuse to even touch it beyond changing the oil. I actually take advantage of the terrible build quality(IE missing front bumper cover) to use some of those old school steel oil change ramps when I change the oil in it.
Tech: Infuriating. Apparently these things won't let you do a donut ON SNOW. What the hell, Chrysler? You'll let me turn the traction control off and do burnouts whenever I want but god forbid I try to do a snownut in my own back yard?! AHITEjetia what kind of pathetic muscle car can't even do a donut ON SNOW AND ICE. Seriously. What is even the point of owning a muscle car if you can't just go 'f it lemme have some fun' once in a while?! Oh, and if I put the donut(*** why not a full size spare) on it picks a random gear and just sits in that gear unless manumatic mode is selected, at which point it shifts as close to fine as it can. If the stability management ever goes off it turns cruise control off. Throttle response is best described as 'SMS messaging', it often disobeys direct orders(I select third gear it will still randomly kick down into 2nd for no reason even though it's in manumatic mode and was TOLD to sit in THIRD). Maintenance minder doesn't know -beep- from shinola, either! I reset it when I change the oil and 500 miles later 'CHANGE OIL NOW'. I ignore it. Set Trip B to 0 when I change the oil and when Trip B shows 5,000 I change. TMPS is constantly crying about
something. Can't satisfy it. It doesn't seem to know how to start itself; as mentioned above I've taken to inserting the fob like a key and twisting it the old fashioned way because at least that way it starts every time.
Overall rating: Modern cars were already on thin ice before I got in this thing. My mom's 2003 Explorer had already skeeved me off pretty bad when it decided a slightly glitchy fuel level sending unit meant disable the throttle-by-wire and leave me idling up the %*$(ing center turn lane(This cost us several tow bills, two indy shop visits and eventually a dealer visit to the tune of roughly $1,500, to fix), but I was willing to give it one last chance to redeem modern cars in my eyes.....and this thing doubled down instead. It's terrible and I genuinely do not see how anyone can stand to be in one of these things. After this, I will never daily another EFI or automatic shift car again. From here on out, I'm strictly carb and stickshift. I'm done with modern cars. No more chances. No more tech. I'll take my chances with poor crashworthiness if it means I have a vehicle that's actually comfortable, enjoyable to drive, reliable, serviceable, and obedient.
Thank you, Stellantis, for guaranteeing I never have to worry about exhorbitant new car prices.
