Our CR-V has a boo-boo (someone pulled out in front of me on a busy road), so while its at the body shop, we have a 2012 Chrysler 300 as a rental.
This is clearly a very nice car. The structure is tight as a drum with no squeaks or rattles. The quality of the interior materials are generally pretty good as well. I will highlight my likes and dislikes below.
Likes
1. There is a lot to like about this car, and first off with me is the engine. The 3.6L V-6 has a lot of power, especially when revved up. It charges strong to its 6,500 rpm redline and has a very lusty sound when doing so. Cheers to Chrysler on this excellent motor. I couldn't tell if it had the ticking. It was generally pretty loud idling, but it sounded more like injector noise or general mechanical din.
2. Interior is very good. Ours has the "Lux Leather". I'm not sure if it's real or fake leather, but it's very comfortable in either case. The infotainment system is very easy to use. It was a snap to pair my phone to the car and to make and receive calls. Sound quality was fair. There were some decidedly cheap parts in the interior. The sunglasses holder and the small cover that hides the bin below the radio felt very cheap. These are pieces you would presumably use often, so I think they need to be made to have a higher quality feel than they do.
3. Exterior styling is very nice. It has an appropriate amount of brightwork on the outside. Ours is in a bright white, and it looks very sharp in this color.
4. The underside is impressive. Most everything is hidden behind an airflow tray and, for the first time I've seen this, all the trays were covered in a carpet-like material, ostensibly for acoustical purposes. Very nice touch. The exhaust (2 into 1, back into 2) also appears to be high quality and is of a decent size.
Dislikes
1. I'm really trying hard to like the 8-speed transmission, but I can't. I've put a few hundred miles on it in the last few days, but I can't get into it. The programming is decidedly "economy". If you pull the electronic shifter down to L, it'll hold gears MUCH longer, but also won't upshift when you need it to. It'll ride around the neighborhood in 2nd gear at 3,500 rpm. When in D mode, and driving normally, it upshifts constantly, and the engine rarely sees north of 2,000 rpm. It lugs the engine often at around 1,000 rpm and there's a booming resonance in the cabin from that. The 5-speed in my dad's Wrangler is much better tuned and is more livable. I'd be satisfied if they put paddle shifters in this car. As it is, there's no way to control all 8 forward speeds, and they're not doing what I'd like them to do, so I can't like it, as much as I want to.
2. The ride is patently smooth, and very quiet. But there's also some float, as if you're in a Lincoln Town Car with good shocks. It reminded me of my Camry; this would be an excellent car for the 40+ crowd, or for someone like a traveling salesman. Very smooth...just no enthusiasm behind the wheel. Isolation is either a plus or a minus, depending on who you are I guess.
3. These are two, but I combined them into one because they're minor. The backup camera is very low quality. My dad's Wrangler and our Acura both have better quality pictures from the BU camera. And the headlamp system on this car is poor. It uses HIR2 lamps in single projectors on each side, with a shutter that moves out of the way for high beam. This helps little; the upper cutoff is generally aimed at the horizon (where it should be for VOR lamps like these). Well, if I want bright light and flip the shutters, all I get is more light into the sky, above the projector's cutoff. I want more light ON THE ROAD, as most high beams do give. And with only around 1800 lumens on each side, that's pretty weak anyway. Our MDX has 1700 lumen high beams (HB3), and 1100 low beams (H11), and all four bulbs are on with high beams, so you get nearly 5600 lumens of forward light instead of 3600 lumens as in the Chrysler. Plus, the driver side shutter was broken anyway on this car (it didn't move). A quick Google search uncovered others with the problem, so that's something for 300 owners to keep an eye out for. But I wasn't impressed with the headlamps.
So, more likes than dislikes. It's a very well-sorted machine, and an excellent choice if you're looking for this type of car. I'd recommend it to anyone shopping for a traditional fullsize sedan and traditional fullsize sedan attributes.
This is clearly a very nice car. The structure is tight as a drum with no squeaks or rattles. The quality of the interior materials are generally pretty good as well. I will highlight my likes and dislikes below.
Likes
1. There is a lot to like about this car, and first off with me is the engine. The 3.6L V-6 has a lot of power, especially when revved up. It charges strong to its 6,500 rpm redline and has a very lusty sound when doing so. Cheers to Chrysler on this excellent motor. I couldn't tell if it had the ticking. It was generally pretty loud idling, but it sounded more like injector noise or general mechanical din.
2. Interior is very good. Ours has the "Lux Leather". I'm not sure if it's real or fake leather, but it's very comfortable in either case. The infotainment system is very easy to use. It was a snap to pair my phone to the car and to make and receive calls. Sound quality was fair. There were some decidedly cheap parts in the interior. The sunglasses holder and the small cover that hides the bin below the radio felt very cheap. These are pieces you would presumably use often, so I think they need to be made to have a higher quality feel than they do.
3. Exterior styling is very nice. It has an appropriate amount of brightwork on the outside. Ours is in a bright white, and it looks very sharp in this color.
4. The underside is impressive. Most everything is hidden behind an airflow tray and, for the first time I've seen this, all the trays were covered in a carpet-like material, ostensibly for acoustical purposes. Very nice touch. The exhaust (2 into 1, back into 2) also appears to be high quality and is of a decent size.
Dislikes
1. I'm really trying hard to like the 8-speed transmission, but I can't. I've put a few hundred miles on it in the last few days, but I can't get into it. The programming is decidedly "economy". If you pull the electronic shifter down to L, it'll hold gears MUCH longer, but also won't upshift when you need it to. It'll ride around the neighborhood in 2nd gear at 3,500 rpm. When in D mode, and driving normally, it upshifts constantly, and the engine rarely sees north of 2,000 rpm. It lugs the engine often at around 1,000 rpm and there's a booming resonance in the cabin from that. The 5-speed in my dad's Wrangler is much better tuned and is more livable. I'd be satisfied if they put paddle shifters in this car. As it is, there's no way to control all 8 forward speeds, and they're not doing what I'd like them to do, so I can't like it, as much as I want to.
2. The ride is patently smooth, and very quiet. But there's also some float, as if you're in a Lincoln Town Car with good shocks. It reminded me of my Camry; this would be an excellent car for the 40+ crowd, or for someone like a traveling salesman. Very smooth...just no enthusiasm behind the wheel. Isolation is either a plus or a minus, depending on who you are I guess.
3. These are two, but I combined them into one because they're minor. The backup camera is very low quality. My dad's Wrangler and our Acura both have better quality pictures from the BU camera. And the headlamp system on this car is poor. It uses HIR2 lamps in single projectors on each side, with a shutter that moves out of the way for high beam. This helps little; the upper cutoff is generally aimed at the horizon (where it should be for VOR lamps like these). Well, if I want bright light and flip the shutters, all I get is more light into the sky, above the projector's cutoff. I want more light ON THE ROAD, as most high beams do give. And with only around 1800 lumens on each side, that's pretty weak anyway. Our MDX has 1700 lumen high beams (HB3), and 1100 low beams (H11), and all four bulbs are on with high beams, so you get nearly 5600 lumens of forward light instead of 3600 lumens as in the Chrysler. Plus, the driver side shutter was broken anyway on this car (it didn't move). A quick Google search uncovered others with the problem, so that's something for 300 owners to keep an eye out for. But I wasn't impressed with the headlamps.
So, more likes than dislikes. It's a very well-sorted machine, and an excellent choice if you're looking for this type of car. I'd recommend it to anyone shopping for a traditional fullsize sedan and traditional fullsize sedan attributes.
