RE: New member with some questions?
I have an R/T 6 speed manual and my current mileage is 3385. I drive in mostly city conditions with a longer trip here and there. I am using a program called Car Care (in my i phone) which tracks gas mileage among other things by inputing the information at each fill up. My fuel economy average is 15.2 between highway and city. I don't race my car but I can't say I drive it for economy either. I am 47 years old and have been driving muscle cars since I was 16.
I owned a 2007 Dodge Charger Police car with the 3.5 V6. It was actually an awesome ride but it had the five speed Mercedes built transmission that retail buyers of Challenger and Charger can't get with a V6. The gas mileage was virtually the same with my 3.5 V6 Charger. I had a retail Hemi Charger as well and the gas mileage in town was about 12.9. It got in the low 20's on the highway. I had the factory MPG computer on that car but I have read that the factory MPG computers have a varience and are not totally acurate. I guess the point of what I am tring to say is that I don't believe the fuel mileage difference between the V6 and 5.7 V8 is enough to be the reason to buy a V6 car vs a V8 car. Your personal taste and love of vehicles plus your budget should be your determining factors in making the choice to buy an SE or RT. If you are looking for great gas mileage I would not buy a Challenger. If you want the best looking car for the money on the road today with a choices in price and performance buy the Challenger. The pricing is great right now on all models except the SRT 8. The odd thing is that the SE should be the model that dealers have plenty of in inventory. The reality is that the SE is currently more scarce than the R/T and the SRT8. Each dealer will be different in their inventory and I am writing about the national Challenger inventory, but if Dodge was being run properly I would think that Dodge dealers would be loaded with SE Challengers in the way they stock Chargers and the V8 cars would be more scarce. Currently that is not the case. Right now the plant that builds the Challenger and all other LX body styles is closed. I would not try to order a car unless you are willing to wait a while.