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Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / Driving / December 2005Renting 300C, Magnum or Charger
How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and, yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest of the vehicle I'm interested in. Want to know which agencies rent them, and how to maximize my chances of getting one of those three instead of a substitute. Thank you kindly. John Bartley wrote: > How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and, > yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Thank you kindly. I've gotten Magnums from Dollar Rent-a-Car, one was a nice 3.5-powered one, the other was a pathetic 2.7 powered one. Dollar is a mostly-Chrysler fleet. Thrifty has a pretty high percentage of Chryslers as well. I rented a Magnum from Thrifty at Edmonton Airport. Dreadful Car, very poor visibility, bad road holding and gulped gas. Glad I rented rather than bought. Keith > How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and, > yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Thank you kindly. > I rented a Magnum from Thrifty at Edmonton Airport. > Dreadful Car, very poor visibility, bad road holding and gulped gas. > Glad I rented rather than bought. Not my impression at all. The 2.7 powered one I had was HIDEOUSLY underpowered, but got good mileage. The 3.5 had plenty of power for most uses, though I'd buy a 5.7 Hemi with MDS to get the acceptable mileage and >300 horsepower. Both of them handled superbly in spite of having the smaller wheels than the Hemi version gets. Rear visibility isn't great, but it sin't terrible either. The windows are small, but well placed. If I do get a new car within the next couple of years, it WILL be a Magnum. My biggest complaints are that the interior is fairly spartan, and I'm not sure the A/C system is adequate for my climate. It seemed to take a long time to cool down, and the temps were only in the high 90s when I had the 2.7 rental. Neither had auto climate control, so maybe the full ATC climate control system has more cooling power. Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre engine? It seems that particularly NAs love big engines (who wouldn't) but also wonder about fuel consumption. If the price of petrol were to double tomorrow you'd be singing a different tune. Small wonder that most cars in Europe are 2 litres or less. DAS For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling --- >I rented a Magnum from Thrifty at Edmonton Airport. > Dreadful Car, very poor visibility, bad road holding and gulped gas. > Glad I rented rather than bought. > Keith [...] > Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre engine? You might be surprised. When my mother had to give up driving last year I bought her Buick with a 3.8 l engine. I was amazed at its gas mileage, 39 mpg on the highway, much better than a lot of small cars. My Honda Civic, which is about half the weight and has less than half the power, gets only a little better than that. > > "Keith Phillips" wrote > > > > I rented a Magnum from Thrifty at Edmonton Airport. > > ... and gulped gas With what engine? 3.5 or 5.2? > Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre > engine? NAs love big engines LOL. You think 3.5 is a large engine? You guys in the UK have mostly engines under 2.5L because (historically) you were taxed an insane amount based on engine displacement, even engine bore, and also you tax automatic trannies because your gov't thinks they're evil. If it wasn't for that, you'd have more 3 and 4L engines in cars. We also love out automatic transmissions too - but I think that most people under 40 (here in USA/Canada) at this point who grew up as teenagers driving/owning sh.t-box 4-cylinders (like VW's) with manual trannys tend to also look for manual trannys in new cars they buy now. People over 40 are more likely to have had only automatic-transmission cars at home while they were growing up, and tend to not have ever learned how to drive a stick. > but also wonder about fuel consumption. People with large vehicles justify it because of the friggin kiddies (they need the back seat, or the 2 back seats, the baby sh.t, the perception of saftey in their land slugs. They buy a $40k vehicle so they can shlep $300 worth of kid-sh.t to the cottage or the grand parents place for the weekend. They need 4 and 5L engines to move those 4500 lb vehicles around. No. We in Europe and much of the rest of the world have 'small' engines because of the high price of fuel. As I indicated in my earlier post. I have never heard of taxes on auto gearboxes, neither in UK nor in Germany, for example. Cite your source/s. I have never heard any member of the UK government express any opinion on the type of transmission. Have you been smoking wacky 'baccy? As it happens I personally much prefer automatic. When I was young I used to scoff at auto... until I went to the States when I was 21 and hired a car (which, of course, was auto). Although I have had some manuals I would never get one now unless forced. Haven't had one for maybe 20 years. 'Course I hire them all the time. Too dear to hire autos in Europe. And manual reminds why I prefer auto, especially as I live in a metropolis. DAS For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling --- [...] > You guys in the UK have mostly engines under 2.5L because > (historically) you were taxed an insane amount based on engine [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > >> but also wonder about fuel consumption. [...] Having visited London for a couple of weeks last year, I'd hate to see you guys driving around with faster cars. You make NY taxi's look like careful drivers. By the way you are driving on the wrong side of the street although it is convenient for mailmen. > Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre engine? > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] >> Keith > [...] > Having visited London for a couple of weeks last year, I'd hate to see you > guys driving around with faster cars. You make NY taxi's look like careful > drivers. By the way you are driving on the wrong side of the street > although it is convenient for mailmen. Hi... Durn, I have to ask... how can it be (more) convenient for mailmen? I agree that they're driving on the wrong side of the street, but the driver also gets in the wrong door... still ends up away from the curb. (or kerb, as I believe they spell it) Ken Actually I am wrong about the mailmen. But wrong sided cars, when used in the US, are convenient to mailmen in rural areas so they can easily reach the mailbox on the right side of the street. >> Having visited London for a couple of weeks last year, I'd hate to see >> you guys driving around with faster cars. You make NY taxi's look like [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Ken > Actually I am wrong about the mailmen. But wrong sided cars, when used in > the US, are convenient to mailmen in rural areas so they can easily reach > the mailbox on the right side of the street. The people delivering around here just drive the wrong way down the road. You don't expect me to overlook this gratuitous, inaccurate criticism, do you? ;-) You raised the subject, not I... We drive on the correct side of the road, and have been doing so for 2000 years, whereas Americans follow the regime imposed by Napoleon on Europe when he occupied most of it in the 19th C. Before then many regions drove on the left. To this day about one-third of the world still drives on the left, notably AU, Japan, the Subcontinent and other chunks of Asia. http://www.i18nguy.com/driver-side.html#countrytable So, YOU drive on the 'other' side which is, of course, correct for you. After all, you would not want to drive on the left in NYC, would you, though other contributors seem to think that people DO drive on the left in some parts of the US?... DAS  SignatureFor direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling --- [...] By the way you are driving on the wrong side of the street > although it is convenient for mailmen. [...] Dori A Schmetterling, <ng@nospam.co.uk> was motivated to say this in rec.autos.driving on Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:19:38 -0000: > So, YOU drive on the 'other' side which is, of course, correct for you. > After all, you would not want to drive on the left in NYC, would you, though > other contributors seem to think that people DO drive on the left in some > parts of the US?... You are thinking of LLB's (Left Lane Blockers - or Bandits or Bastards...); hypocritical selfrighetous bastards who think it is their God given right to drive slowly and well under the flow of traffic in the passing lane (the leftmost lane of a highway with two or more lanes going in the same direction) of an interstate or other expressway. Not sure which lane you guys in the UK use for the passing lane on your expressways, but I'm willing to bet you have people with the same LLB mentality there... We happen to call them left-lane-dicks. We have plenty of them here in NJ. Ken > Dori A Schmetterling, <ng@nospam.co.uk> was motivated to say this in > rec.autos.driving on Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:19:38 -0000: [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > expressways, but I'm willing to bet you have people with the same LLB > mentality there... I meant postmen & women... :-) (Previous post had alluded to them.) Yes, we also have the LLB equivalents. Of course. People who don't go back into the left lane when not overtaking and blocking other overtakers are known as roadhogs. Not so serious when we have three lanes each way. And we DON'T allow (legally, anyway) overtaking on either side. DAS For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling --- > Dori A Schmetterling, <ng@nospam.co.uk> was motivated to say this in > rec.autos.driving on Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:19:38 -0000: [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > expressways, but I'm willing to bet you have people with the same LLB > mentality there... > I meant postmen & women... :-) > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > And we DON'T allow (legally, anyway) overtaking on either side. Not strictly true: it is legal to overtake on the left hand side on a one-way road. I was told by a UK policeman some years back, during a lecture on road safety, that there is not an explicit ban on overtaking on the left on a motorway. He then pointed out that a motorway is really 2 one-way roads side by side. I think if you were to be charged for overtaking on the left, it would be for some vague offense such as "dangerous driving", "driving without due care and attention", etc.. I think it is explicitly legal to overtake on the left if there are 2 or more streams of traffic and the left hand stream is moving faster than the right-hand stream. Yes, in heavy traffic. And at low speed only, IIRC. (Don't ask me what mph, I think it is a matter of disgression.) Mind you, I'd hate to change lanes when a full motorway-load is moving at c. 90 mph (which I have experienced more than once). DAS For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling --- [...] > I think it is explicitly legal to overtake on the left if there are 2 or > more streams of traffic and the left hand stream is moving faster than the > right-hand stream. "Dori A Schmetterling" <ng@nospam.co.uk> wrote in message After all, you would not want to drive on the left in NYC, would you, though other contributors seem to think that people DO drive on the left in some parts of the US?... I don't think anyone wants to drive through NYC ;-) Ken > Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre engine? Engine displacement doesn't correlate to fuel efficiency very strongly with modern combustion chamber design and engine control systems. All external things being equal (including driving style) a 2-liter and a 3.5 liter would get within a few percent of each other installed in the same vehicle. Case in point, the Magnum with a 2.7 gets barely any better milage than a 3.5, and in the real world may get worse mileage than a 3.5 because the 2.7 has to be flogged continually. If the Magnum has a gas mileage problem, its got more to do with weight and frontal area than with engine size. Personally, the gas mileage numbers I'm hearing (23-25 highway with the 5.7 Hemi) are great for a car of that size. >> Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre engine? > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > area than with engine size. Personally, the gas mileage numbers I'm > hearing (23-25 highway with the 5.7 Hemi) are great for a car of that size. 23 is the absolute best that I've been able to get with my AWD 300C and that only happens on very long drives (hundreds of miles of pure highway driving). Generally I'm getting 16-17 in everyday driving and highway trips usually peak at 21. My old Concorde got 22 in everyday driving and 29 on the highway. I agree it's probably not the engine, it's the weight. The 300C is a two ton car with a square nose that can't possible have decent aerodynamics. The Concorde was lighter and much more streamlined. Things HAVE improved and I have seen cases where, say, a 2.0 l engine consumes as much as or slightly more than a 2.3. However, I don't think a 3.5 will use as little as a 2-litre in a similar car. DAS For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling --- >>> Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre engine? >> [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > The 300C is a two ton car with a square nose that can't possible have > decent aerodynamics. The Concorde was lighter and much more streamlined. > Things HAVE improved and I have seen cases where, say, a 2.0 l engine > consumes as much as or slightly more than a 2.3. > > However, I don't think a 3.5 will use as little as a 2-litre in a similar > car. I think the problem is that at anything less than wide open throttle, there are pumping losses that are inherent in normal gasoline engine design. The only way to counter this is to reduce the effective cylinder volume (eg. Atkinson cycle or Miller cycle) or remove the throttle (eg. diesel engine). > How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and, > yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Thank you kindly. You'll have to call the rental agency directly to guarantee that they'll hold a 300C for you. Making a reservation on a website won't do it. Do a Google search for Chrysler 300C Rental to find out who rents them. BTW renting a vanilla 300 is pointless. The Hemi is what makes the 300C. The performance of the C makes up for the deficiencies of the 300. I have the 300C AWD and I love it but if I had a 300 I'm sure I'd hate it. The car has awful visibility because of it's tiny windows. The Nav system has a poor user interface and a terrible data base. And the trunk is smaller then you would expect on a car this size (although it's still fairly large). However it's handling is great, the acceleration is breathtaking, and it can stop on a dime. The handling and stopping features are tied to the C packages so if you get a 6 cylinder 300 all you would have is an ordinary car with bad visibility and a small trunk. > How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and, > yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Thank you kindly. most dealers will let you rent one for 24-48 hours.. usually for free.. i just did that with the Dodge Ram 2500 Found the 2.7L Magnum strippie & rented it from Enterprise here in Portland. 23.4mpg at avg 80MPH up and down the I-5 mountain passes for Thanksgiving. Found acceleration better tham my 3.0L 1995 4Runner. Like it. Enterprise will sell some of their soon, and I just may get one, if the other rides on my "A" list don't measure up. Oddly enough, got 23.1mpg, on the same run, in a 2006 PT Cruiser Touring (slushbox, normally-aspirated), same trip down & up I-5 last weekend. The Magnum was more nimble and accelerated much better. Go figure. |
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