Scrib

This being my last weekly trip out to Philly (WOO HOO ), I was hoping for a rather decent rental. Today, I struck gold as I landed firmly in a Chrysler 300M. That’s about as good as it gets in rental car land.

The car only has 600 miles on it, yet the new car smell is completely GONE! Oh well…

The tranny feels like it’s going to fall out on any shift. It has a 4-speed sportshift in it. Beats the hell out of me why they designed it such that an upshift is to the right and a downshift is to the left. I hated that design in the Mercesdes C230 when I was shopping for cars. Anyway, back to the tranny… It’s so damn jerky. Out of 1st into 2nd and especially out of 2nd into 3rd. It’s rather quite scary… Shudders, stutters, jerks… I wonder if that is something that is inherent to that tranny or if there is something wrong with it?

Acceleration is nowhere near the CL-S/TL-S. Although the lower gears are REAL long. I didn’t even hit the redline in 2nd and I was going 80. 3rd and 4th gears are real dogs.

The car feels heavy while driving. It’s only like a 20-minute drive from the airport to work, and I was tired. Maybe it has something to do with getting up at 3:30 am… In all seriousness, steering wasn’t all that quick and nimble.

The interior was rather lacking; no big surprise for an American car. I do like the chrome around the instrument gauges however. The wood trim (which is supposed to be REAL California Walnut btw) is just too cheap looking, and there is quite a bit of plastic inside. The leather is so-so, but the seats are really comfortable. I also like the little on-board computer above the rear view mirror, which keeps track of mpg, temperature, etc. The stereo is crap. Bose is da' bomb compared to this factory Chrysler crapola...


It’s a little over 30K (sticker) for the 300M with the options in the car I have this week. Would I recommend it? Maybe to some, but more than likely no. Just a couple more thousand lands you nicely in a TL-S, which is a whole different beast. For the better, of course…

Dom418

This review could apply to almost all American Sedans I believe.....

DOM

JasonT

Ahh, my last car. Yes I owned a 300M for 2 years. It's a nice car. I liked the interior better then the CLS though. It also had a few features I got spolied from & really miss them on the CLS. The CLS will knock the doors off of it 0-60. But having those tall gears means alot of HW power. The 300M will outrun the CL-S in the upper rpm's & speeds over 100.(not by much though) I had the optional performance package. Mine was rattle free, & the only real problems I had was a water leak that took all of last summer to fix,(stupid dealer) & a bad sensor. The tranny's don't fail either. On the 300M board I belonged too, there was only 1 person who ever had a tranny fail.(and I think that was user error) I sold the car with 42K miles on it, & moved into the CLS. If it wasn't so big, & resale wasn't so bad, it would still be mine.
http://community.webshots.com/album/29400152ynZLXBXkAp

pgatour1

WOW that's exactly how my tranny feels, To tell you the truth the F-250 has smoother shifts than my POS Tranny. One of these days i'm gonna fucking flip on Acura, or I'm lighting this shit on fire and saying it was stolen.

fbazakos

i'm driving a chevy blazer (not the new trailblazer, we have them at work) ... this week as my rental here in the big "O" ... (<-- uhh, that's Omaha for those of you not from the midwest)

to sum it up, this thing is a pile. at least the trailblazers HAUL ASS, this thing is a dog, this thing is a dog ... i was on the phone with Ernie and I thought I was gonna flip the thing trying to kick the back end out... last week I had a new intrepid ... damn POS ..

Scrib

Yeah... The best rental I've had to date, dare I say....

A brand new Maxima...