Rental Review: Dodge Charger

"whoarder is tellurium" (whoarder)
06/07/2016 at 01:56 • Filed to: dodge, rental car

I’m back home now, but this thing was a great Alaska road trip car. I picked it up with 387 or so miles and returned it with over 1400. My relatives in Alaska absolutely loved it too.

( Forgive me if the garbage below is unreadable. I’m up late and dealing with time change.)

The Vehicle : Current year Dodge Charger SXT AWD. Equipped with a Pentastar 3.6 V6 w/VVT hooked to an 8 speed Torqueflite (ZF) automatic.

Engine : The power was adequate for the weight of the vehicle (4,188 lbs). This was my first experience with the Pentastar 3.6 outside of my brief time with a VW Routan (lol). It seemed to have OK mid-range but overall it is not a particularly memorable engine. When cold, I noticed it sounds quite coarse and emits a characteristic airy/dry howl. Every Pentastar V6 I’ve heard sounds exactly the same way and I assume it is emissions related.

Transmission : The 8 speed transmission tuning was a let down. It often went “day dreaming” and hated to do anything else as it settled into 8th gear. However, I would note that shifts were acceptably quick when floored from a stop.

AWD Bro ? It does work. Although, I could still manage to get some rear wheel spin and a dash of oppo before stability/traction and AWD kicked in late. The car even has a speshul vehicle info screen which shows the status of the system. One particularly rainy day, the AWD system stayed active (after sensing slip) until I restarted the car. Interesting.

Fuel economy ? I managed 27-30 mpg. I was thoroughly impressed with the range I could get out of this thing. 450-500 miles on a 18.5 gal tank is easy.

Ride/Handling: Quiet and smooth for the most part. Not too boaty, considering the weight of the Charger.

Actually, it had respectable body control and I felt pretty confident on mountain roads. Most Alaska roads are a good test of NVH and the Charger did OK with very minor trim rattle. I may have gotten slightly airborne at one point too and it still held up for the rest of the trip.

Interior :

Large panels of weird perforated metallic bits and rubbermaid soft textures abound. Plenty of lingering new car smell too.

I wasn’t particularly pleased with the driving position or the hardness of the cloth seats, but my back never hurt nor did my legs ever go numb after a full day’s worth of driving.

The instruments were clear and very informative with separate vehicle info menus that lay out trip/fuel econ, oil temp, trans temp, coolant temp, and etc.

Uconnect 8.4 is pretty nice. Paired my HTC One M8 over bluetooth quickly and had good audio quality as well. I like the fact that it can read out text messages. Also noticed that the stock system had Alpine labeling on the tweeters.

Gauges straight out of the Daimler supplier parts bin.

Dat Audi-like shifter tho. THEY GOT THE SHIFT DIRECTION CORRECT TOO!

ETC :

A few times, I’m fairly certain there were other drivers that thought I was an unmarked police car. These types seem to purposely stay back and would not even attempt to pass. They’d actually hold up traffic behind me in some instances as well.

I also played support vehicle at one point as the left front brake caliper on my uncle’s RV had seized up on day 1. Oh, the joy of fixing stuff on the side of the road.

Overall : I’m no good at reviews, but this was a pleasant experience. I’ve been wanting to drive the newest Charger for a long time. This latest model felt less brick-like and more composed than the first gen LX platform cars. However, I believe this is the end of the current Charger/Challenger as we know it.

Bonus content:

Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum in Fairbanks, AK

DISCUSSION (8)

shop-teacher > whoarder is tellurium
06/07/2016 at 03:19

Good review!

NotUnlessRoundIsFunny > whoarder is tellurium
06/07/2016 at 03:53

Nicely written!

I need to follow your example and write a couple of reviews already.

BigBlock440 > whoarder is tellurium
06/07/2016 at 08:03

Maybe I’m just used to slower cars, but I rented a Town and Country a few weeks ago and was actually impressed with the pentastar. The exhaust note was pretty nice, especially for a minivan, it was quiet and docile under normal driving, and if you put you’r foot to the floor and let it rev, it was surprisingly quick. But unless you do rev it, you very well may come away with the feeling of it being underpowered.

hike > whoarder is tellurium
06/07/2016 at 08:10

Nice! Glad you liked the Charger! I'd agree with just about everything you said. One day I'll get around to reviewing my R/T

fintail > whoarder is tellurium
06/07/2016 at 10:18

Which company?

I had a Hertz Charger rental last year, I think it had literally zero options.

whoarder is tellurium > fintail
06/07/2016 at 11:10

Enterprise. May have been AWD just because of the region.

whoarder is tellurium > BigBlock440
06/07/2016 at 11:15

Pick up wasn’t bad at all. I did in fact make good use of the entire rev range. (That includes a few high speed runs)

I suppose a hemi equipped version would be too much for a rental/fleet car.

BigBlock440 > whoarder is tellurium
06/07/2016 at 11:27

Other than a specialty rental, yeah. And be glad it was the 3.6 and not the 2.7 that used to come in rental Chargers. That engine’s fine for a compact/mid-size, but I don’t want to imagine what it would(or wouldn’t) do in a full-size.