Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

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.

RE: Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

Well I can definitely agree with all of the positives, but the cons, I am almost shocked. I have had my car since Monday and I have gone over it with a fine tooth comb. Our cars must have been built by a completely different shift, because after spending the past 3 days with it, I have found 1 minor fault; the right rear exhaust tip is slightly tipped down to the left. I didn't notice it until several hours into my thorough inspection. I actually got a level out and put it on the exhaust tip and it is just barely out of alignment.
I don't think my car could have been put together any better.
As for how the car runs, I took it around the beltway outside of DC last night at 1 am so I wouldn't hit any traffic. If you're not familiar with the beltway, it makes a complete loop around DC, so it has some great straight aways but also some pretty good banking turns.
I mostly had the car on cruise at 70, but when people got too close trying to take pictures, etc. the hemi opened up amazingly. I haven't had it above 4000 rmps, but I am absolutely impressed with that acceleration. It goes from 60-80 in the blink of an eye.
The thing that surpised me most is that the car only pulls about 3200 rpms at 90.
I honestly couldn't be happier with this car. I have a 1969 dart swinger as well, and it is going to be hard to pull myself away from the Challenger to drive the Dart now. The Challenger has the looks, the power, and all of today's technology. It was well worth the wait and all of the hassles!! Well done Dodge.

RE: Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

Neal are you running VV today? 8H300664

RE: Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

Oh you reminded me about my left exhaust tip the is almost diagonal instead of straight. That is something we will be fixing as well.

RE: Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

I have noticed the hestiation at low speed as well.

RE: Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

Will tuneing fix this issue or is it a bigger proublem . What do you plan od doing about it .

RE: Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

I'm not really sure at the moment ? Tomorrow we are going to reflash the computer and see if that helps. I will keep you guys posted and the reason I brought it up is to see if others are having the same issue.

RE: Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

Neil

Could the brake dust prouble be fixed by switching brake pads or do all the SRT8s have this proublem .

And will you leave the stock tune on your car or buy a tunner to make it run better.

And will any of these things affect warrenty .

RE: Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

I'm curious - this hesitation, does it change it all if you have the traction control on / off. Almost sounds like a computer software problem. Just a thought.

RE: Honest review of my Challenger from me a dealer
 

Got mine today and I have a very small chip over a wheel and it looks like when they placed the subwoofer in the trunk they caused a couple dimples from inside out. Can't really notice unless you look for it but I know it's there. Everything else looks great.