About 2 weeks ago I was walking out of the post office and watched some yutz in a Cherokee plow into my back door and start to take off. Long story short, his insurance is covering everything, he caught me where the front and rear doors meet so of course it's a complicated repair. Worse things have happened.

So anyway, the I30 is in the body shop for 7-10 days and I have a real beauty of a rental... Chrysler 200.

Remember when Ford replaced the Taurus with the 500 and everyone went bonkers, they wanted a Taurus, not a 500. So they rebadged the 500 as the Taurus and suddenly they started selling like hotcakes.

Well, it seems like Chrysler realized that the Sebring was a real dog so they ran around sticking little "200" emblems on all the Sebrings and are expecting people to say "OOH! SHINY!" and buy them like crazy.

After driving around my I30 for all this time, I do have to say that even the allure of driving a new (less than 2000 miles) car is still not as nice as my eleven year old Infiniti. This car sucks, acutally. It has the trademark "Chrysler disconnection" as you drive -- there is no feedback from ANYTHING as you drive. The pedals have no feel to them, the steering wheel just spins in your hand. It's like you're driving one of the old sit-down racing arcade games.

My biggest gripe is the accellerator pedal. I haven't quite decided if the rheostat in the drive-by-wire system is partially broken, or the pedal just doesn't react until you push it down 10-15%, but there simply is no "gentle starting off." When you push the pedal down, it's like that first 10% of pedal motion is skipped and the car jerks ahead every time. Trying ot back into or out of a parking place in the garage is comical. I gently ease the pedal down, nothing nothing nothi.. BAM, 1500 RPM launches me backwards. While I'm driving, there doesn't seem to be any consistency at all, it's like the rheostat in there is a relative variable setting or something.

Anyway. Enough griping. Be thankful we are all lucky enough to drive cars like we do -- they are fantastic machines, and sometimes we forget why so many other people are crabby... they have to deal with crap cars like the 200!

 

I was curious about the 200...not that I would EVER buy on, LMAO!! Thanks for the quick review

 

Isn't this usually where someone says, "Cool store, bro"?

Infiniti's are nice.

 

I was going to go for it.... Story, not store.

 

Oh snap... He's getting sloppy! That's what all the ghustlers' great spelling does to you! Horizontal gene transfer at its best.

 

Personally, i have yet to drive the "new" 200. I have herd some people who have say that they felt it was cheap feeling and had too much plastic (is a Chrysler) but i will say aside from performance/reliability- I do like some of their new designs like the Durango and even the 300 is pretty nice.

But anyway cool storY bro-

 

Yeah cool story bro.... But for real love the Maximas how they, drive a couple of rentals and wont give up my old car for them....

 

you really notice the difference between something thats made of legitimate material versus something made of nothing but plastic i guess

 

I shouldn't have even tried.

A few years ago, I test drove the 2010 Mustang GT. That was the first year of the current model, but still sporting the 4.6L V8 (with the Bullitt engine). Anyway, afterwards I got back into my Maxima and thought to myself, I already had the better car. So I get what the OP is saying.

Uh oh. That's my cool storY.

 

 

Two years ago I went to Florida for a wedding. Flew to Florida and rented a car. Ended up getting a Chrysler something. It wasn't a 300 and the 200 didn't exist yet. It's nice to know that the K car is alive and still sucky.

 

While driving home I realized it felt exactly like the Cirrus/Breeze/Neons I remember driving when I worked for a rental company about 15 years ago. Same plasticy crap.

So... help an old guy out who's not hip to the lingo. What's "Cool Story, Bro" mean? Is that like "TL, DR?"

Edit: Never mind... looked it up:
Many use the phrase in comments on forums to indicate the that OP has said something boring, uninteresting, irrelevant or otherwise unnecessary.

Sorry 'bout that... I thought discussing cars on here might be interesting to some degree!

 

Or you could look at it with a better attitude, and accept that it's maybe a cool story. Or some kind of story. Get it?

It's all in how you make it, OP.

 

This is true... sorry. Long day at work. In a snitty mood.

 

Ay don't knock the Cloud cars... at least not with AutoShift. I had a Cloud with that feature... the only thing I miss about that car. As far as the plastic... everyone has it. Can't do **** about it.

 

Chrysler sebrings or 200 in this case are very ****ty cars in general. Its the only timing chain driven vehicle where you need to replace the chain and water pump every 60K miles because if the water pump leaks, it will leak and mix with the engine oil and seize the engine.

Not to mention constant transmission failures due to over heating and constant silly electrical problems. Terrible car, rather get a Hyundai than this.

 

Not sure if you're implying that they're crappy or not, but Hyundai's reliability and quality have increased exponentially over the past few years.

 

Cool story John. My favorite part was when you stopped talking.

 

I've driven a few 200's, since my rental company swapped all of our Sebrings out for 200's.

They're the exact same car. Both suck. Period.

Oh, and did I mention that the Dodge Avenger is the exact same car with a Dodge shell on it? It's awful. The gear ratios in the transmission are terrible, too. The car has one of the worst 0-60 times I've ever seen.