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Comments
I hope deleting the Walnut frees up your order rather than moving it to the end of the line.
I will feel partially responsible. On the other hand, with a "not in April, not in May", I guess you didn't have too much to lose, if you didn't have your heart set on the real wood trim.
The idea of walnut trim is nice. My father in law owned a house built in the 20's. It had fantastic walnut woodwork and built-ins you couldn't put in a house today if you tried.
However, the real wood trim I have seen in other current high end models is so lacquered up it looks like plastic anyway.
I have a car right now (2000 STS) with the wood steering wheel and shift knob, and like you say, it is lacquered to the point that you have to wonder whether it is worth hundreds $$$ to see shiny wood instead of shiny plastic.
stephen
problem all along was with the Tire Pressure Monitoring System. Evidently, they must have had a problem with it, as it was pulled from the 300 website, and the catalog states that the early vehicles won't have it. I think it may have been more a problem with engineering / reliability than with logistics, as there are other systems out there in use already, and Mopar could have tapped those easily for the 300.
Hey, for those of you that have already ordered, can we reasonably expect to pay American style purchase prices (like 2% over invoice), or is it still too new to negotiate a reasonable discount?
Thanks!
It hasn't been determined whether walnut was the holdup on my car. I'm just picking the one thing I could do without and deleting it.
stephen
I urge you to jump back to message #231, and follow through with all the posts that followed.
To make the story short I paid about 5.9% over invoice. An astute person can probably get that down further. The spread between invoice and MSRP is tighter than the competition, and became the main issue for me at the time of sale.
BTW I showed the brochure to a few guys and women at work and the reaction so far is 3 or 4 guys had enthusiastic reply, one thought it was hideous and several women thought it was beautiful.
I think, although unscientific, that will be the general response from the public.
After showing the brochure to one guy and describing the 300c features and my options I asked him to guess the price. He guessed $55k.
Once I buy the car I don't really care about resale or public opinion. I care that it performs as advertised. For the $35 I am paying I think its a great deal. Like you I keep my cars for a long time.
I will get the 100k extended warranty as I did with my 94 New Yorker now with 183,000 miles and drive it until I don't like any more.
can be a plus. It wouldn't make sense to cut corners on their high-end model.
I take it you're from the Tarrytown area??? I'm originally from Queens myself. Perhaps we can someday join a 2005 300C club and take one of those runs up to Brampton, as one 300M club did. Perhaps, I'll meet you then....
Originally from Portland Oregon moved here in 1988.
I drive the LIE to Lake Success (on the Queens border) every day.
In my younger days in PDX a nice Mercedes or BMW would impress me, but here I see dozens every day along with Jags, Porsches Lexus etc. etc. Now that I could afford one I have outgrown the notion that owning one of those will impress anyone.
Like the 300c I turned 50 this year, it should be a good fit.
http://www.rtl.de/videolounge/player.php?cat=17&lstart=30&- ;video_id=339&stream=rv_h
the V8 sounds excellent.
yeah, that was a pre production model. it looks like it has either 20 or 22 inch wheels and the lip on the top of the truck. none of these made it to production...
stephen
http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0403/22/a01-99238.htm
fastdriver
As the article in the Detroit News indicates, going to bigger rims will necessitate either smaller sidewalls (read: much harsher ride) or larger diameter and you're back at the chip re-programming again.
Why did Chrysler come up with this odd size with no real alternatives available?
mini-pickups for that "dropped" look. Some look so low-riding as to come close to scraping the bottom when driving upon a short incline, such as a driveway. As for these type of rims / tires on the 300, all I can say is Mopar is pushing the safety / handling / ride issue to the hilt from what I see. The article had it merits, but I think it was meant for those individuals that want to go from a conventional tire /rim to a low profile setup. As for Mopar knowing what it's doing, I wasn't too impressed with the Goodyear Eagles that came on my '94 LeBaron. Very good gas mileage, but it was like riding on hard plastic. I even did two loop-de-loops the first
winter season. I dumped them early on for Firesone Affintys and that solved the ride / stability problems, but the gas mileage suffered
somewhat. So, it remains to be seen how these tires react next winter. I also hope the new
Hemi is a good reliable starter in below zero climate.....Thinking here.....maybe that's why they're holding the 300's until April, they won't start in temps below 32 F otherwise!!! LOL
For example, a 225/75 15 is only about .4" smaller in overall diameter than a 245/55 18, and a 235/70 16 is just a tad bigger. I would think these would be a small enough change to keep the computer happy without programming changes.
-- Mark
You know what happens when you ASSUME! :-))
fastdriver
You have to be very careful when choosing wheels that are smaller than OEM equipment as well, just for different reasons.
As a point of reference, I remember reading somewhere that the 17" wheel size was the "Sweet Spot" where wheel/tire sizes are concerned. Using the 17s as a basis, everything larger (even assuming that the overall tire diameter stays the same) generates exponentially more unsprung weight, which was addressed in the article referenced in that link of a few posts ago. Wheel/tire combinations smaller than 17", once again assuming the overall diameter stays the same, generates exponentially more slop in the handling of the car. The 17" size seems to have most of the handling crispness of the larger sizes while retaining most of the lower weight of the smaller sizes.
So, with all of that said, what is the potential problem with reducing the wheel size on the 300C? Brake caliper clearance. My current cars' OEM wheels are 17x8.5 in size, and a quick call to TireRack.com (for a winter wheel/tire set) quickly revealed that there were only two different makers of 16" wheels and only four or five models in total that would clear my brakes.
One would assume that if the standard OEM wheels on a 300C are 18", DC would take advantage of the space inside the rims to mount rather large brakes. Assuming that is the case, one might find that "Minus Sizing" below 17" is impossible. Once again, I suspect that the folks at TireRack.com have (or will soon have) all of the necessary offset and clearance information to definitively answer the question of, "How small can you go?"
Best Regards,
Shipo
any car can be engineered and designed and validated with 20 inch rims and tires. the cars are run for hundreds of thousands of miles with the tire/rim package to ensure that the wheel bearings and other components in the suspension system can hold up and meet design specs. when you put an aftermarket wheel of ANY size on your car that is not oem approved...that's taking a chance....there is no way of knowing if the aftermarket rims meet mininum oem specs. jackg
-- Mark
what are u driving these days anyway? i know you weren't pleased with the 300m(tires) you had awhile back...r u thinking about a new 300?
Reprograming the computer for a different diameter wheels & tire should not be expensive nor difficult.
Best Regards,
Shipo
Just click on my name above and you'll see what I'm driving for now. Lease is up in September.
"r u thinking about a new 300?"
LOL, you CAN'T be serious. I vowed long ago that I would NEVER have another DC product in my driveway no matter what they looked like. If they were the last car company on earth, I'd buy a bike! I'll never go through what I did with DC, their "award-winng 5-STAR" dealers OR their factory reps! They DON'T care if you're driving a car that's $15,000 or $38,000. To them, you're just another sucker, er, I mean number!
fastdriver
Young Executive:
"Okay Dieter, here's the idea. We got G-unit and 50 Cent to feature the 300C in his video plus we originally had it set-up with "dubs" for that total bling-bling look which really has the kids noticing Chrysler for the first time ever. They're gonna love the Magnum when it comes out because it's already half-way to low-rider heaven and there is enough room in back for enough 12" Kicker's to blow out the glass. We gotta capitalize on this. Call the Durango engineers and tell them to re-skin it with the 300 grill and a phat new interior and we can really go up against the Escalades and the Navigators that all the rappers and gangbangers are scooping up at 30% margin! What do you think?"
Dieter Zeitsche:
"Vhat iz 'bling-bling'?"
You get the idea... Personally I think it's a logical progression of the brand.
BTW - most rapper and hip-hoppers love the style of the 1920's and 1930's because they see that era of prohibition as giving birth to the gangster lifestyle and image which they emulate. The 'Original Gangsta' if you will. They often use the zoot suits and flapper customs of the era in their videos and album covers.
stephen
sizes in the pictures on the Chrysler website,
and the actual wheel sizes people were starting
to see.
I have the unfortunate feeling that the wheels
that are currently being advertised on the
official Chrysler web site for the 300C,
will not be the wheels you get when the
300C finally arrives.
To illustrate my point here are two picture links.
The first one is to the official Chrysler 300C
picture, right from the Chrysler website.
http://www.chrysler.com/300series/img/enlarge_4.jpg
In that picture, the car looks great. The
wheels on that car, are the wheels that i expect
to see on the 300C when i walk into the
dealership.
However, I am afraid that the actual wheels you will get are seen in the next picture, which is
an obviously newer picture of the actual real
world car:
http://www.seriouswheels.com/2005-Chrysler-300C-RA-Trees-1280x960- .htm
You can very clearly tell that the wheels on that
car are not as large as the wheels in the
Chrysler picture.
Both cars, in both pictures, are 300Cs.
And as far as I can tell, all 300Cs come with the
18" wheels (the big ones).
Yes, yes, I know that larger wheels mean a
different ride quality, I have driven everything
from a Ford Explorer, to a Dodge Stealth RT TT, to my Jaguar S-Type V8. I don't care, I want
the wheels in the official pictures. (Same
thing I told the Jag dealership, and it cost
me $1500).
So, what does everyone think?
Is Chrysler playing a bit of a fast one? Showing
us cool pictures of 22" wheels, yet your actual
car will have 18"s?
In any case, even if they are different, it certainly is not out of the ordinary for promotion pictures to show a car that is not in final production form.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
If you venture back to the earlier posts, I posted a few comments about the use of two different tire sizes, asking how can one carry two spares in the trunk. I had assumed that they're doing the same thing on the 300 series that they did on the production Crossfires. (Two different sized tires)
sizes is that Chrysler doesn't say on it's
website that this is a picture of a pre-production
one off car. I would assume since the car is
pictured at their website, that you can buy that
exact car.
I mean really, you cannot get the car that
they have a picture of plastered on the
their front page. Is it just that the web guy
hasn't gotten around to swapping out the old pictures?
As far as being relaxed, I am perfectly relaxed.
I guess Chrysler knows more about wheels sizes
then I do, because apparently no one cares
that what has been being pushed for the
last few months, is not actually available.
They did the same thing to the Pacifica
to a certain extent. I was very excited about
the Pacifica when I saw the original concept
car. However, Chrysler went and put small wheels
and tires on it, and then proceeded to put plastic
gray parts across the bottom of the entire car.
Before: http://auto.consumerguide.com/images/auto/editorial/gallery/pacif- ica_lrg.jpg
After:
http://www.canadiandriver.com/previews/images/04pacifica4.jpg
It looked great at the shows, looks like a
mini van now.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Chrysler 300,
may just buy one, but I might also look into
getting different wheels.
"Please note: Images in the photo gallery show the Chrysler 300 Concept Vehicle."
Concept cars are, more often than not, about form over function. "make it look good and, if enough people like it, we'll figure out how to make it work later."
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
My new Harley was a disgrace until I put some pipes on it. Will the factory put silent sounding mufflers or grumbling ones on the 300c?
"Thanks"
LOL.. You're new here. When I say never, I mean never! Did you click on my name above and READ the soap opera? WHY would I EVER put myself through all that crap again?
The key here is "... effortlessly-maintained automobile?" They didn't make too many of those! You'll find out soon enough.
fastdriver