Gadgetory

the first Chrysler 200 yeah it was a 300 - 100 it was basically a Sebring and dragged there was nothing about it that anybody loved turn the page and let's drive the 2015 all-new Chrysler 200 C now I wouldn't blame you if you think we screwed up and brought the wrong car to the shoot today yes this is a Chrysler 200 it's a whole new platform though a whole new Fiat corporate platform that has real nice lines as I look at and I'm kind of seeing out ea4 and some Kia Optima which from me is high praise this is a nice looking vehicle and of course it doesn't hurt we have a 200 C which is upgraded everywhere the body the wheels sports suspension much nicer interior this is as good as a 200 okay first thing you notice getting in this car is they've done a really nice job doing a distinctive sculpted look on the dash and the whole center stack right here the angle that your wrist is called upon is actually an angle it wants to bend I can't tell you how many cars want to make you do things that hurt to operate knobs and buttons ditto for the buttons here on the wheel look how large they are about twice the size as that on most cars on they're actually about the size of your finger who thought of that brilliant directly in front of me is a large LCD nestled in between two analog gauges tack and speedo it's got a matching should I say garish blue design to go with a head unit now Chrysler's UConnect here is 8.4 inch and it's an interesting way they've done the navigation they continue to use Garmin here and they get incredibly high marks on usability wear to very simple hit the address look how fast that response look how big these menu bars are navigate to 235 second Street San Francisco California 2 3 5 2nd Street San Francisco it took it a while to figure it out but in my use of this car it gets it right basically every time under radio you've got am/fm and your satellite radio media they consider to be your USB iPod connection auxilary jack and bluetooth streaming now it gets a little bit subdivided too far when you have to go to apps to get things like I Heart Radio Pandora Slacker or AHA I'm not a fan of companies that still think a media app isn't media come on guys it's all one thing and the meta tag information from broadcast and/or the way you can look at your track information from onboard media is quite good not perfect there's some truncation but things are big enough to read without staring at it for too long now in terms of absent connectivity it's an interesting grab-bag everything from aha and other media apps like I mentioned to you assistance technology telematics the Wi-Fi hotspot function you can turn on in the car Sirius travel information which comes in by a satellite radio and here's yelp walk kind of all by itself because they didn't know where else to put it oh and notice what's missing under our media selection optical disc CD DVD not available on this head unit that's starting to be a trend now this row of buttons gives you a pretty good look into what is a large suite of driver-assistance tech on this car you have blind spot warning of course let me move on to parking assist this will work for parallel or perpendicular here's your lane departure defeat tells you've got lane departure tech you also get an indication here in the center LCD in the instrument panel this car has the best lane keep technology in the business period it's calibrated spot-on seemingly when my tires just touch the line it kicks in and then it has the most nuanced yet effective pushback via the electric steering rack puts me back in my lane and aiming straight nice work the rotary shifter is novel but that's about it I've never driven a car with one that I like it does nothing better than an ordinary shifter except free up a little console space but I find all of these to be imprecise and fussy this one to your forward collision technology it can also bring you to a full stop and do stop and go again depending on your traffic speed of course we have adaptive cruise control indicated here with your distance selector for the distance to maintain to the cars in front of you now on a 200 C the rear camera is standard it's got trajectory and then your distance is indicated by color bars and of course accompanies your automatic parking assistance technology there's not much missing here in terms of driver assistance considering its affordable price tag this is pretty aggressive at least on the optional basis now you don't build a trim little car like this with ample front seat room and a rakish sloping roof without somebody paying the piper and that somebody is gonna be your lower back if you sit in the rear notice you pull that door open and it's just all obstructed it's more of an aperture than a door opening because first your thigh hits this wheel arch pretty badly and then your head hits the roof and then you try and get through there this is kind of like getting in a submarine I guess I'll push to get in it's not easy once you get in it's not bad but wow this opening it's like an SAT test for your spine I'm actually kind of disappointed that we have the big engine I'm more interested in the high-tech little motors these days we don't have that the base engine will be a 2.4 liter inline-4 what they call a multi air engine this is the v6 it is the more desirable it's a 3.6 liter it's got direct injection but no turbos or superchargers relatively common by today's standards output is 295 horsepower 262 pound-feet of torque always through a 9 speed automatic that's your only choice however front wheel drive or all-wheel drive available now that all-wheel drive system is geared for efficiency it has a freewheeling technology so when you're not actually sending power to the rear wheels it's going to D couple the drive shaft as well as that whole rear end 19:32 is your front wheel drive mpg 18:29 for the all-wheel drive not stellar but not bad now you know me I like cars that are of a whole it looked like they drive and drive like they look that's not really going on here it's not a bad car to drive by any stretch this v6 of course has plenty of power and it comes on in a nice unassisted way the transmission it's a nine-speed ear engagements tend to be a little soft it's not bad same for the suspension it's not bad and as good ride quality it's not much fun to plow through twisty roads at the one I'm on today it's sort of you get a bit of ocean liner wallow and front-end Wow but the power comes on very nicely once you get into it it's a car that likes to be revved and keeping these revs up with the shifter it's not gonna help your mpg in sport mode is interesting when you kick it over there you get higher held rpm I don't detect faster ship but I do notice this it doesn't turn traction control down your traction control off that's unusual in most cars I'm not sure of legal signed off on that now visibility is an interesting story out to the front you lose a semi in this a pillar it's absolutely massive that is not much fun in the back though the rear quarter visibility is not bad it carved out some very useful little quarter windows back there and manage the thickness of those seat pillars in all a pleasant driver but not as sporty as the outside promises all right you want to pick up a 200 see here's how the pricing breaks out seen that style first of all little under 27,000 base for the seat rim you're already well into the good stuff but here's how we load it up for $4,200 you can get all-wheel drive that sounds steep doesn't it but that includes the upgrade to the v6 powertrain if you want the v6 only in front-wheel drive just at 1950 the navigation and improved sound package is 1395 1300 more for safety tech which is the whole basket of driver assist technology can last about it's $800 but it's required if you get safety tech all in about thirty two five four what is absolutely one of the best looking cars in its class if not the best it's not the most inspiring driver at least not in this configuration but it's no slouch and most importantly you can pick one of these up bring it home and nobody will think you bought a resold rental car