I recieved my long awaited Challenger on Tuesday the 24th around 11:30 am.

Everybody here at the dealership was very excited of course as we had never seen one in person until that day. The car was ordered for me personally as I am a huge sports car fan. I previously owned a 1996 Viper and a 2000 Viper both convertibles. I sold the 2000 model when I ordered the Challenger.

First I'll list the bad:

1. My car had a small rock chip behind the drivers window. Probably picked up going down the road because it was the last car on the bottom of the truck. The chip is small but noticeable however I am going to leave it alone as I do not want the paint blended on or the car repainted if at all possible.

2. It has a large paint run underneath the passenger side door handle about 5" long. It is not noticeable but it is there and it shouldn't be. My body shop is going to attempt to sand it lightly and buff it and it should come out, hopefully.

The worst thing is:

3. My car clearly is not running right between 10-50 mph at 1/4 to 1/2 throttle, it hesitates badly. Oddly enough we have a Grand Cherokee SRT8 that does the exact same thing ? I would like to hear from other owners to see if their cars do the same ?

4. From 0-20mph I am dissapointed in the acceleration, but this could be due to the auto trans and traction control system ?

The good:

1. The car is absolutely beautiful ! If you want to know how a rock star lives , you should buy a Challenger. Everywhere you go and stop you better have some extra time because you cannot get away from people. I have almost been hit a couple of times by people staring and driving toward me. It is impossible to not get noticed in this car. Everybody wants you to burn rubber in this car so try to resist.

2. From 20mph-100mph I doubt if there are many cars as fast as the Challenger at full throttle and 100mph comes quickly.

3. My Challenger is comfortable to ride in and drive. I made a 2 hour trip to Columbus yesterday and got 22.8mpg on the way there with the cruise set at 65-70 mph. This tells me that the car is tuned too conservativley IMHO. It rides very well and is quiet on the road.

4. It handles VERY well. My Viper didn't handle any better in daily driving and was far more difficult to drive.



All in all I am happy with the car but Chrysler definitely has some quality issues with this car that I have reported to my service and sales rep so that they can be addressed at a higher level.