2004 Chrysler T and C Touring 120k Review and Wholesale Value
We're getting used to Chrysler saving its own skin to the uproarious clash of cymbals. The company stretched a shapely sheathing over a huge cabin for the 1993 Chrysler Concorde and Contrivance Intrepid, and jaws went rubbery. The Canadian-congenital Concorde and Intrepid are history, but if scientific discipline ever revives Al Capone, Chrysler has his car.
The brief on the new 300C Hemi starts with two complex axles yanked almost wholesale from a Mercedes-Benz E-class. They are screwed to the far ends of a retro-ritz cockpit and a chrome-bedecked bunker with gun slits for glass. Optional interior fringe includes a choice of existent walnut or faux tortoise-trounce trim straight from the Gatsby era.
Viii cylinders hump out the Hemi's 340 horses and 390 pound-feet of torque, the power slipped under the floor to the rear where, in full fury, it paints the road with x-foot patches of rubber and shoves the mass to threescore mph in a torrid five.iii seconds. When not needed for saving time, four of the Hemi's cylinders switch off seamlessly to save fuel (see sidebar, "Demi Hemi").
Searching for a rear-commuter between the $25,000 Grand Marquis and the $55,000 Lexus LS430? The Chrysler sits e of the moon and w of the sun. A base 300C stripper with a 190-hp, 2.seven-liter V-six and four-speed automatic sells for base Camry V-6 money, or $23,595. The optional $775 anti-lock brakes (standard on the Camry) and $1025 stability control are wanna-haves in the White Christmas states.
A notch upwards, the 300C Touring model offers more than protein for $27,395: a 250-hp, three.5-liter SOHC V-6, a iv-speed auto, leather chairs, 17-inch wheels, and standard ABS and stability control. Even notchier is the 300C pictured here, which opens at $32,995 and delivers the knockout Hemi plus a Mercedes v-speed automatic and niftier trim. Optional all-wheel drive via a planetary-gear differential with a 32/68 front-to-rear torque split up (the Mercedes-Benz 4MATIC system, in other words) appears this fall on models with 3.5s and Hemis. Drape airbags run some other $840 and are a office of the Protection Group, forth with cocky-sealing Continental tires. A audio package includes a navigation arrangement and Boston Acoustics speakers for a wallet-slimming $2130.
The risky styling, the pricing, the catalog of engines and options--it all makes the 300C the most interesting sedan to roll out of Detroit since, well, since the original Concorde and Intrepid. Similar those cars, the new 300 has size on its side. Stretching 120.0 inches, the 300C'southward wheelbase is 7.6 inches longer than an E-grade'due south, more a foot longer than a Toyota Avalon's. Rear-seaters get forty.2 inches of legroom, about the same as in the space-efficient Avalon but 4.6 inches more than than in the Due east-class.
The 300C's choptop contour is a styling sleight of paw. At 58.4 inches, the 300C is actually i.iii inches taller than the bulbous-looking Avalon. The 300 but wears its flanks yanked upward like oversize trousers. Slinging an arm over the windowsill is a problem. Flattening a Ferrari in the bullheaded spot caused past the high sills and thick C-pillar is a bigger trouble.
Otherwise, good thinking abounds in the unabridged 300C lineup. The compact rear suspension mostly stays out of the body, a flat-floored, 16-cubic-foot closet. Its aluminum chapeau mounts with chemical compound hinges to swing clear of foreheads. The rear seats dissever sixty/forty and fold flat, opening up even more cargo space. We've sampled new Kias and Mitsubishis that don't do that.
When used for sitting, both the front and rear seats coddle the keister with a simple just effective bolster blueprint and somewhat firmer foam than the usual domestic custard. The commuter gets a dead pedal, and the live pedals can swing on an electric adjuster that is a $175 selection. A Mercedes-brand tilting-and-telescoping steering column seals the deal for most torso types.
The 300C's up-lux treatment includes nickel-plated plastic trim, a leather-wrapped wheel, and chrome gauge rings. The vents are frail louvers that fold flush with ane finger. The unmarried flexible skin swathing the upper dash appears make clean and squeak-resistant, although the dashboard'due south deep-cutting grain is out of place. It doesn't say "opulent" every bit much equally "off-route." The center bin is deep, the hat is and then long that, when opened, it traps your right paw behind information technology. Regardless of what it'due south doing, the left manus has to assist.
Nickels were saved on the manifestly ii-tone door panels and rotary-knob climate control, which does accept 1 noteworthy novelty: A "low auto" setting limits the fan speed and thus the noise of fan whoosh; "high car" restores full bluster for more than rapid temperature swings.
If a digital climate-command brandish and French-stitched-leather door inserts are the castoffs that pay for the 300C's excellent underbody, nosotros won't mutter. Chrysler'southward last rear-drive sedan was the 1989 Dodge Diplomat/Plymouth Gran Fury. Those are small shoes to fill up, fifty-fifty without engineering inspiration from Mercedes.
Although the 300C and the Contrivance Magnum share not a single stamping with a Benz, the Silver Star has its glittering imprint on their suspensions, body designs, and technologies. Dual-phase steel is one bang-up-o trick nipped from Mercedes note pads. This special ferrous is rolled relatively thin and soft. It hardens once from the heat and pressure of the stamping press and then again while roasting in the paint shop'southward curing oven. The 300's engineers say the issue is greater strength from thinner steel.
There'due south more sophistication in the suspension. Cast aluminum links paired with aluminum brake calipers prune the mass correct where Newton is his most mischievous. The setup actually supplies a real appetite for curves that the onetime forepart-bulldoze 300M could only promise. The 4140-pound 300C is a large automobile cured of typical big-car ills. There's no squealing or squirming when the roads begin to snake. Slip angles--the difference between where the tires are pointed and where they're actually rolling--stay down in High german 4-door territory. Body pitching in the corners and under braking (a reliable 184 feet from seventy mph under a firm pedal) is minimal, the movements sharp and controlled. The hitch: Buyers trading in softies such as the One thousand Marquis will detect their in one case-leaden ride has livened up. Wait more than feedback, more road bump and tire thrum, from the 300C.
Forget its 0.77-g skidpad performance. The 300C's electronic-stability-control system interfered and cannot exist fully disabled. Thumbing the dash button only quiets the traction control and slightly raises the computer'due south tolerance for sideways play. The stability control never allows real tail swinging fifty-fifty though the Hemi is happy to supply it.
Cached to the carpet, the cast-iron 5.7-liter V-8 sounds just like Lilliputian'due south quondam Plymouth (if information technology had mufflers the size of a milk truck). Posting 5.three to lx and 13.nine in the quarter at 102 mph, the 300C runs with Mustangs and 350Zs. It muscles right past annihilation approaching its size and price, including the 270-hp (and 3480-pound) Acura TL, which is good for 5.7 seconds to 60. It puts the Mercury Marauder on a hauler home to Mama.
Pulling that much sauce from pushrods requires a warm cam, and the 300C shivers noticeably at idle. Nevertheless, throttle tip-in is at the commuter'southward whim--anything from a gentle glide to a tire smoker--and serenity civility reigns in freeway cruise. The Hemi and the Daimler-designed transmission (now congenital in Kokomo, Indiana) speak the same language and concur on the mission. Upshifts are all but invisible, downshifts are quick and hands provoked. The lever, transplanted from a Mercedes, has precise movements, and you slap it sideways, just like a Mercedes', for easy DIY shifting.
So this is what you become when you mix Mercedes with Mopar: a big-cigar car with Teutonic athletics and they-actually-did-it styling. Apologies due. Some of us couldn't see it, especially when Daimler and Chrysler's wedlock seemed at its stormiest. We see it now. The engineers take delivered a first-class blueprint with world-class components to the assemblers in Brampton, Ontario. Chryslers haven't set many quality records, and our preproduction sample had a few notable defects such as an ill-plumbing fixtures hood and commuter's door. If the plant gets the 300C built right, the cymbal crash may be deafening.
Demi Hemi
A Hemi cutting in half? Chrysler calls it the Multi Deportation Arrangement (MDS), a cylinder shut-off feature on the 300C that, by company accounting, boosts fuel economy 10 percentage on the EPA urban center cycle. Nether light throttle at whatever speed between 15 mph and 82 mph, a dedicated oil stream to four intake and 4 exhaust roller lifters pushes a pin in the lifters allowing them to compress rather than stroke the pushrod. The valves stay closed to reduce pumping losses and trap frazzle gases, keeping the cylinders warm. Mash the accelerator, and within xl milliseconds the pivot drops back into identify, reactivating the valves. The 4140-pound 300C Hemi scores 17 mpg in metropolis driving and 25 on the highway in EPA tests. The Auto and Commuter test, absolutely riotous, resulted in 17 miles to the gallon. Did the system ever turn on? Couldn't tell--it'southward completely seamless. --AR
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Source: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a15132940/2005-chrysler-300c-hemi-road-test/
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