or stationwagen
I rented one of these on a recent business trip. I am not an overly large person, but not exactly a little guy either. The steering wheel is so low, I had trouble getting in and out of it ( kept hitting my knees on the steering wheel ) once you got in it, it was not too bad, but for 20 grand, I want to get in and out without pain.
They have a lot of potential, but seem to lack in delivering on it.
The performance of Dodge and Chrysler has gotten dramatically better and the designs are infinitely more attractive than the last 25 years. But they still use the cheapest plastic parts inside the cabin and they just can’t figure out how to make dashboards and knob designs which look like they were created AFTER 1985. The Japs still make a car which is far more fun to ride in.
It’s hard to root for the American car companies when they keep producing more and more garbage like this. For the last 30 years, American car companies have invested their money lawyers and lobbyists to fight higher fuel efficiency standards, while the Japanese car manufacturers put their money into engineers and scientists.
Now that we’ve got gas at $3.50 per gallon in some places, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why the American car industry is dying a slow and painful death.
If you give the people what they want then they will buy it. If the big three can’t sit down and figure out why they are getting their @$$’s kicked by imported comparable models and build something people will buy then I am through feeling sorry for them.
Its not in the original article.
The bottom line of the article is: "It's an open question if Honda or Nissan shoppers will visit Dodge showrooms to check out the Avenger, but they really should."
I dont want it unless it comes with the big hemi.
Well, that settlers it for me. I could never have a car with no inner pull-down trunk lid handle.
I love my 2004 Durango SLT with the Hemi. Drives great after 3 1/2 years and I haven’t had any problems with it. Hands down- engineered 10 fold better than it’s predecssor.
“While fine in town, the base 2.4-liter, 172-horsepower four-cylinder Avenger engine works hard when merging into fast traffic and passing on highways.”
Call me crazy, but I think this is getting a little ridiculous. Just a few years ago you’d be lucky if your average mid-size family car with a 3+ liter V6 managed to sqeuak out 172 HP, although it’d probably be a little torquier. And I wouldn’t call a 190 HP 2.7 litre V6 much of an improvement over a 2.4 liter 172 HP 4 cylinder, anyway. FWIW, I drive a 2004 Honda Accord sedan with the 4 cylinder engine, and unless I have it loaded down with 3 additional people of over 200 lbs each, it performs just fine. Yeah, you’ve got to let it rev a little for best acceleration, but how much of the time you’re driving do you need to push it that hard? Very little. The V6 version of my car would have been nice to get, but would have cost me about $3,000 more up front, more to insure, more to maintain, and a little more in gas.
On a different, but related topic, why do American manufacturers keep creating and then abandoning nameplates? What happened to the Intrepid/Concorde/etc nameplates? How about the Stratus/Cirrus/Cumulonimbus/Breeze? I could come up with similar examples for GM or Ford. Did these cars develop such bad reputations that new nameplates were required? How long has Honda had an Accord or Civic in their lineup, or Toyota a Corolla or Camry (not sure why they dumped “Tercel” in favour of the goofy “Yaris”, though).
I was a loyal Chrysler owner until I bought a 1996 Chrysler LHS (Lousy Hunk of Sh!t). Overall not a bad driving car, but a crappy transmission, and undersized brakes nickled and dimed me to death. The Ford (clit)Taurus and windstars were garbage too. Now I only buy Toyota and love them.
Bring back the old days, eh?