Josh and Erin in the Twin Cities

It's no wonder the current US auto manufacturers are hurting, after having driven one of their more promising vehicles, I am certain to never buy one. I mean, it started out ok, the Charger looked cool, but unfortunately, that's about where it ends as far as positive comments I have about this car. Of course the rental was the base SE model with a V6 and not the uber-cool SRT-8 model, but from what I have read, the only difference there is a Hemi, a body kit, and maybe a bit of fettling with the suspension.

Let's start with the interior. Whomever laid out the gauge pod obviously though that everyone driving the car was going to want it in bus-driver mode with the steering wheel as high as it goes because in any other position the only thing that you can read is the speedo and tach. In order to see the gas gauge or the engine temp you have to move your head forward and side to side to read each one individually. The dash is laid out with a bunch of cubbies strewn variously about the center stack and tansmission tunnel as if they were randomly planting them. All of the controls for the HVAC and the shifter are HUGE taking up about twice the space that they really need, I'm guessing as a way of using up all of the available space. Which brings us to the brick-hard seats that were available to sit on, yeah, that's what I wanted to sit on for a 9-hour drive.

Oh yeah, that brings up a point, did I mention how incredibly HUGE this car is? Pictures do not do justice to size of it. It is extremely wide, tall, and long. It was like driving a lowered H1 with an anemic engine and sloppy transmission. The engine really required that if you wanted to go anywhere you had to stomp on the accelerator and really rev it out, and then the transmission would ruin anything good that you felt out of the engine by shifting so slowly that you would lose 5 MPH between gears. No big deal if you are going 70 or so, but if you are leaving a light at 15MPH and lose 5, you had better hope the person behind you is paying attention so they don't run right up your ass...

But, the one gem of the car was the radio. It had an AUX input for an iPod and an incredible range of sound. I hope that whetever I get next has a radio nearly as good as that one, I was truly impressed with it.

but you know, one of the things that pissed me off the most about that car was a really small seemingly insignificant thing. It was that there was not anything on the seatbelt to keep the fastener from falling to the floor between the seat and b-pillar. The part that most manufacturers attach is probably less than 1/4 cent each and cost maybe 1-2 cents to attach to the belt, but that was one of the areas in which they chose to cut costs. Seriously, of all the areas that they could have cut costs, that has to be the single most annoying place to have done it.

So, rest assured, you will not see me pull up anywhere in my own Charger.