Auto critic quits due to his Chrysler 200 review alteration

[Merc63]

It's disingenuous to say the Sebring convertible was the same four door. They were quite different vehicles despite being on the same platform. The convertible still sucked, but it sucked a lot less and "cheap convertible" makes up for a lot. The four door just sucked, full stop. It was truly miserable.

The review cited by TTAC was the Sebring convertible. The 200 review was of the four door..

The 200 shares only the middle of the chassis with the 4 door Sebring. But the drivetrain, suspension interior, and front/rear of the car is entirely new. So, saying the 200 is rubbish because the old 4 door Sebring was is faulty logic at best.

 

[Spectre]

The 200 shares only the middle of the chassis with the 4 door Sebring. But the drivetrain, suspension interior, and front/rear of the car is entirely new. So, saying the 200 is rubbish because the old 4 door Sebring was is faulty logic at best.

That's not what anyone said.

TTAC said that the writer was indecisive or worse because he said in one review (of a Sebring) that he liked the car, yet in the 200 review he said that he hated the 200 and that it was good only in the sense that they'd improved it from the even more hated Sebring. Thing is, the Sebring review they were using as evidence is about the Sebring convertible, which is a rather different car than the Sebring four door. Saying that the Sebring four door was crap and that the 200 was an improvement in the 200 review does not invalidate his earlier review of the Sebring convertible or call into question his consistency.

 

[rickhamilton620]

I looked up some numbers and it's correct that Chrysler did 0.4% more profit than GM and Ford (excluding credit profits) in 1997. But as the article from Slate says, already in 1998 Chrysler didnt have any competitive passenger cars in their portfolio. Thirteen years later, they still don't.

Ahem:

I'm sure in Europe, there were better choices, but here....that was the best van you could buy at the time. Quest and Villager were too small. MPV, Previa and Odyssey too quirky, expensive, or small for American tastes. Windstar, while nice, quickly had the wind blown out of it sails with this generation of Chrysler minivan. A great interior, innovative features (Easy Out Seats, dual sliding doors, etc) and handsome styling with attractive pricing made them contenders. While the 1st Odyssey and Villager/Quest took the reigns for driving dynamics, this generation of Chrysler van was right up there. I still think that the understated styling on these make the overwrought designs like the current Quest and Odyssey look silly.

Granted, they weren't perfect. Chrysler came under fire for not installing Brake Shift Interlock, the continued woes of the UltraDrive transmission, and having inadequate front seatback recline latches that would fail in severe collisions, but overall....these were very good cars.

The "cloud" midsize cars (Cirrus, Breeze, and Stratus) were also praised for they're styling and driving dynamics. Only a lackluster interior and poor crash test results were the biggest qualms with them IIRC..

Yes and no. The LH cars were competitive for the era, and the Neons were doing well. There was another generation of cars under development at the time of the merger, which would have produced more competitive cars, but Mercedes killed most of those within two years and moved all development decisions to Stuttgart. Chrysler's weakness was in their mid-size cars (they sucked) and lack of a true top-end vehicle for the Chrysler brand.

That's not to say that Chrysler didn't make mistakes of its own, like the Aspen, but the supermajority of the blame for Chrysler's current woes can be laid at the doorstep of Mercedes and not at Chrysler HQ. Now, if you want to talk about American corporate stupidity, GM's right over there..... but Chrysler got screwed through really no fault of its own.

Indeed, truer words have never been spoken.

 

[tigger]

The cleaned-up article is definitely a vast improvement ... but to edit it at the behest of an advertiser, after it's already in print? Someone should be fired just for being that idiotic, nevermind their complete lack of ethics.

This just shows how tech behind mainstream media is, they just don't "get it."

:lol: No, it just shows how hard a few editors are willing to push it to keep an advertiser on.

 

[mpicco]

Chrysler wouldn't have gone bankrupt if Mercedes hadn't raided them for cash and then screwed them. They went from the most profitable car company in the world immediately pre-merger to the hollowed-out shell of a car company.

How dare Mercedes give them a solid platform to build the 300C and they fucking it up bringing out a dreadful car?!

 

[Labcoatguy]

How dare Mercedes give them a solid platform to build the 300C and they fucking it up bringing out a dreadful car?!

Mercedes gave them a transmission and some suspension bits, and that's it; by those standards, a Lotus Esprit is a Renault. The idea that the 300 was a warmed-over E-class is about as credible as the 350Z having a Renault engine. Clarksonisms have no place in the world of fact.

 

[mpicco]

Mercedes gave them a transmission and some suspension bits, and that's it. The idea that the 300 was a warmed-over E-class is about as credible as the 350Z having a Datsun engine. Clarksonisms have no place in the world of fact.

The 350Z is a Datsun

 

[Labcoatguy]

The 350Z is a Datsun

Typo, I meant Renault.

 

[mpicco]

Typo, I meant Renault.

I must have missed the episode where Clarkson said the 350z has a Renault engine... but ok.

 

[Hbriz]

In addition, Mercedes forced several models down Chrysler's throat that just didn't make any sense (Dodge Nitro, Jeep Compass).

Maybe for the US market, but here and I'm assuming European countries, things like the Nitro were the only way Chrysler could get sales, apart from Jeeps. The Nitro is easily the most common Dodge on the roads here. The reason for this is simple - it's ostentatious and blingy. Nobody who bought a Nitro cared that it was a complete pile of underengineered garbage. They liked the fact that it came standard with the most awful shiny wheels Chrysler could get their hands on, they liked the mini-Hummer looks, and they liked the seven tons of chrome that cover the hateful heap. It's almost as though they knew they couldn't make a competitive car in a booming market sector, so instead they offered something unique. Unique in a bad way to me, yes. But the people who bought them love them.

Also, the Lancia/Chrysler merger makes sense here. In this country, the most notorious car for catching fire spontaneously isn't anything Italian or French - its Jeeps. The Grand Cherokee especially, it was all over the media not long ago.

 

[GRtak]

Just a dealership? That newspaper's soul comes cheap.

That is a sign of how desperate print papers are.

 

[Labcoatguy]

I must have missed the episode where Clarkson said the 350z has a Renault engine... but ok.

Engine reference at 3:01. He says "Datsun with a Renault engine" in other episodes when he refers to the 350Z.

 

[Merc63]

That's not what anyone said.

I was responding to this, where you said:

The four door just sucked, full stop. It was truly miserable.

The review cited by TTAC was the Sebring convertible. The 200 review was of the four door.

The 200 review was NOT of that older 4 door (that admitedly sucked). Which is also why I disagreed with his 200 review, as it came with a typical modern car journalist's jaded perspective, as well as the incessant need to be insulting in order to one-up Clarkson types.

If you get out of a new car, or are used to driving a lot of newer or more expensive cars, you might not consider it competetive. Journalists will fall into that category because they are jaded. But if you look at it as a non-enthusiast getting out of ANY 5-10 year old daily driver, all the new cars in the category are so much better than what they have already that it comes down to if you like the style and the price. Even the worst new cars are actually pretty good cars compared to what a lot of us grew up with as new cars. They don't have to be the best in class to be good cars, or worth owning.

A lot of the assertions in threads like these are like the argument that so many magazine racers promote: when one car beats another by 2 tenths of a second in the quarter mile, that car KILLS the other, and the other is a total dog. And the truth is, most people won't notice that difference like we might. And the differences that are so glaringly obvious to you or a journalist (or magazine racer) will be less than important to the average buyer even if they drive the various competitors back to back. If an Accord is slightly better in terms of interior style and fitment, will it seem ENOUGH better to a person getting out of a '95 Anycar to justify it's higher price? Maybe, but very often not. And that's not a bad thing.

Some of us know that the vast majority of car buyers are not enthusiasts who have the same requirements in a car that we do, and not everyone is a princess that feels a sense of entitlement to have the absolute best car in class at any cost, even if it's only incrementally better. We know that the improvements made to the car are enough that when the average new car buyer is looking to trade in their 5-10 year old car, it WILL look and feel competitive to other cars costing more. It may not actually BE the best in class, but it WILL (unlike the last one) be more than good enough for the price to get people to buy it, in greater numbers than the penalty box it replaced. Would *I* buy one? No. I have no need of one. But I can't fault anyone for purchasing one and liking it.

 

[AiR]

I got the first ad campaign from Fiat Group Automotive advertising Chryslers in the morning newspaper today and the Grand Cherokee with a 3.6 petrol engine and an AT5 box starts at 509.900. But that only applies if you buy one of the lot. If you order one today the starting price is 529.900. Over 130 000 more than the previous model, that came with a 3.0 liter diesel and the same five speed auto.

529 900 is waay too expensive for a Jeep. A Mercedes GLK with a 7-speed automatic and a V6 diesel is only 452 900. And that comes with a star. If Fiat wants ChryslerCo to compete here, they'll need to adjust their prices down, not up.

 

[ninjacoco]

The critic did a Q&A for Jalopnik, he wouldn't comment on the Jalopnik redesign. :lol:

Well, neither will Jalopnik aside from "zomg haven't we shoved this POS redesign far enough down your throats yet?!"

The lack of concern for usability's pretty much convinced me to procrastinate elsewhere (or on the ca.jalop version that IS the old layout that actually worked).