Our "own" car reviews

Conclusion
'Avenger' is quite a name. The only other machine I (and probably Dodge's most stalwart supporters) can connect it to is the TBM Avenger torpedo bomber from WWII. The car and plane share a common origin: designed under the threat of terrible things if it failed. But the plane actually met some success in avenging Pearl Harbor. The only thing the car avenges are imagined compliments directed at the UAW. Which is a damn shame; with design tweaks and better materials, the Avenger could have been a good car. Not a recommendable car, certainly not a class-leader like the Civic, but a car that isn't a shameful mark on the company. Instead, the Avenger is a car that has a shrine to its sister Journey in its bedroom and actively tries to be horrible. The sooner it dies or is completely redesigned from the ground up, the better Dodge will be.
It used to be even worse, this is actually the improved version. This is kind of why I say this particular car can't be saved and is still pretty much the worst car I get to drive in rental. This and its sibling the 200 have pretty much no positive points in their favour, even the trunk is rendered useless when the opening is too small for decent sized luggage.

But at least the 200 looks somewhat decent. :p
It looks better than the stylistically challenged Sebring but no the 200 doesn't look decent. When even the Camry shows more effort in styling, decent is no longer an acceptable term.
 
Gypsy Danger: Chrysler Town & Country

I've been responsible for too many of the recent reviews here...

I still have at least one service visit, and therefore one rental, left. But that won't be for a while. The last rental I got as my Dart was in the shop was this, a 2013 bottom-trim Chrysler Town & Country:

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Unlike the Avenger before it, I'm going into the review assuming the mindset of the average minivan buyer: performance and the 'thrill' of the drive don't matter as much as its practicality and utilitarianism for suburban runarounds taking the kids to various events they must attend. Which will be bloody impossible as I have no kids and live in the city, land of tight street parking, lack of space between lots, and a lack of uncultivated nature.

Exterior

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It's a minivan. It's massive, and it's not meant to be avant-garde in its design, and it certainly takes second to its function. So what we have here is a big box with some creases on it that have been deemed by committee to be as inoffensive as possible to the average American mother and father. It's not exactly a looker even with the edge-winged chrome grille and trim bits. Were it to have a title role in media, it would best be credited as 'Indistinct Box Vehicle #2'.

Interior

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Just like the exterior, it's styled minimally and sacrifices itself to function, keeping only Chrysler's standard analog clock as a nice flourish. The dashboard is straight, the instrument cluster is an organized pair of circles with a small LCD screen between them, the center console island between the front seats is four cupholders and a little table area that wound up being useful for holding my phone. (It also has two separate cavernous bins on the inside and can slide backwards to shift two of the cupholders for the two seats in the second row, but I never used that functionality.) Under the console buttons was a small cubby and a pull-out drawer for two more cupholders and a coin slot for quarters. Two more cupholders were in the door pockets. So for those of you keeping track, the driver and front passenger have a maximum of eight cupholders at their disposal. The hell are suburban moms drinking? It does have a big plus: it's massive and roomy. I had enough headroom I could probably get away with wearing a top hat, all the shoulder room, and space everywhere else, even the footbox.

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The radio, sat-nav option, and multimedia options are all consolidated at the top of the center console, in a touch screen with buttons on either side. This is actually a royal pain to use since the only knob is for volume; tuning the radio must be accomplished either with the switch behind the steering wheel, speaking it out to voice recognition, or trying to type it in on the small touchscreen. The safest option is the slowest, the fastest option has one hand off the wheel punching small keys, and the middle ground is unreliable. I mean, really, this is a massive design oversight. Some engineer either had way too much faith in VR or figured there would always be a passenger to tune the radio.

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Under that mess though it was actually pretty nice. Triple zone auto climate control meant just dialing in a temperature and letting the van sort the rest out. I've never had that in a car, and it was appreciated. You could also do it manually, sync all zones, and lockout the rear climate controls. There was also a traction control off button that did nothing and a 'Fuel Economy' button that seemed to add at best 1 mpg. Buttons were big enough I could keep my eyes on the road.

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Two gloveboxes! Two man! The world is mad! Also, self-opening sliding doors. Neato.

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Second row had nearly the same seats as the front with the exception of flimsier headrests. They had to be thinner though, since this was a 'Stow-n-Go' van, so with the front seats moved up and the floor cover opened, one lever pull on the side of the seats started a Goldberg-esque flipping motion that smoothly folded the headrest down, folded the seatback forward, and pulled the seat up and forward, so all I had to do was push the seat down into the floor and close the floor cover. End result was a flat load floor. Very neat. And huge. The space it opened up was huge.

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Rear seats were a full row as opposed to the split seating in the second row. Looked a bit tight, but still livable for short trips (for adults anyways).

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The cargo area with all seats up actually was sunken into the floor, which was ok. The rear seats fold into that space with four numbered strap pulls, which creates a completely flat load floor from the tailgate to the front row seatbacks if the second row is also folded down (sorry no pics of that). My girlfriend and I made use of this to transport many bags of stuff to Goodwill to finally clear our apartment a bit. And I could honestly see making use of such a van in the function of a covered compact pickup truck for in-home items; the carpet kind of precludes its use for mulch, salt, and other outdoor items unless one doesn't mind cleaning that mess.

Driving

Imagine, if you will, autocrossing the Titanic. Something as big as a van is really meant for one task: hauling a bunch of living crap that demands comfort. As such, everything is geared towards comfort and not towards great driving performance, so the suspension was soft enough to lean this tower over quite a bit in turns. Go fast enough in a bend and you could swear the outside tire was about to fold under the van. It did have one benefit for me, though: since it was meant to haul, it had an awful lot of power that my unladen DD use of it allowed to just rocket away from lights. Seriously, I chirped the tires turning out of a Sheetz because I pressed the pedal more than a quarter of the way down. Although the ride down the speedometer was not quite up to the same task. It was just average stopping all that heft, and I do think if it was fully loaded brake fade would be a serious concern in any driving regimen. Overall, though, I would give it a B-, for giving it fun in the 'go' direction while unladen and being average everywhere else.

Conclusion

There's one theme I've been going over all this review: this minivan is massive. And comfortable. I very quickly got the feeling of it being a livable movable home addition. And that's a bloody dangerous thought. At one point, my girlfriend and I were discussing the van and came to the conclusion that it's an okay vehicle to simply leave everything behind, pack it full of crap, and use it as a mini-RV. It sacrifices plenty to the gods of comfort, such as: compact dimensions, fun driving dynamics, any sense of fuel economy, etc etc. The end result is a vehicle that, while average in most respects, lets you forget about it while you tend to other things in your life (or the screaming sex trophies in the second and third row). And if that doesn't thoroughly explain and help me understand why I avoid other minivans on the road, I don't know what would.
 
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Great review! In black limited trim the current T&C is a great looking van IMO. The Odyssey is also surprisingly sharp in Touring Elite trim with black exterior.
 
I was plenty surprised. Picking it up, I thought I lucked out and got a higher trim version because it had comfortable seats, soft touch plastics, and satellite radio, along with little touches everywhere (the center roof console that houses the DVD player screens has light tape that gently lights the roof blue at night). Then I went online and found out this van was the bottom trim. I can only imagine the comfort of a Limited.
 
That's one of the weirdest transmission i have ever seen. Was it actually comfortable to use ?
 
Yep, never seen that one before too. That's a strange place. - The moment you stick it in the uppermost position probably looks to the people outside like you give them the fist. :lol:

Good review btw.
 
It's actually not bad. It gets a little weird when you try to use the manu-matic feature.

Yeah, I had one as a rental a little while back. Wasn't bad, it's just that I wouldn't buy one myself.
 
That's one of the weirdest transmission i have ever seen. Was it actually comfortable to use ?

Yep, never seen that one before too. That's a strange place. - The moment you stick it in the uppermost position probably looks to the people outside like you give them the fist. :lol:

Good review btw.

It's actually not bad. It gets a little weird when you try to use the manu-matic feature.

Yeah, I had one as a rental a little while back. Wasn't bad, it's just that I wouldn't buy one myself.

It was fine, actually. Given that it's an automatic, you're really only shifting out of park to D or R and then to the other one. Like Leadfoot said, it did have a manumatic option which was actually well-placed: D was at the bottom of the pattern, with + to the right and - to the left. So while in D, you could very quickly slap it to the right with your hand and place it in manumatic mode, then quickly move your hand to select the gear. I didn't really test its limits, but it seemed to act as a limiter, letting it downshift if needed but not upshift past the selected gear. I used it extensively while DD'ing since my commute takes me down a 1.5-2 mile hill in 20mph or less traffic, so the engine braking kept me from using the brakes except when actually stopping. Then to put it back in D, you just hold it in + for a second and it'll go back to full auto (or you could slap it to + if it was already holding 6th).

Not a bad placement for it, actually. Putting it there is also what allowed the console to be so roomy.
 
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My brother just got a 1999 Jaguar XJ8 Vanden Plas ^Just like the one in the picture above. Our first British car, and lowest mileage car as of right now in the family (23k miles).

The Exterior: When you see the car online, the car looks huge (in terms of length), but in person it really isn't that bad. However, the height of the car does seem way shorter than its competitors back in the day (E38, W140, LS400). In my opinion the car isn't really an eye catcher, it's very subtle, and not very in your face like the flagship luxury cars of today.

The Interior:

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An array of wood and leather, with some cheapo Ford buttons for the window buttons (same ones from my friend's Explorer). The center console looked like they had softer feeling buttons, but surprised to find the buttons to be hard and cheap feeling. The seats on the other hand were absolutely amazing, the perfect car for traffic, but not enough side bolstering (but the car wasn't really meant for sporty driving). The backseat was the best part actually, being in the back made me feel like royalty, I mean can BMW and Mercedes say they had wooden tables in the back as well as soft lambskin carpets? Plus, the backseats were heated as well (something we have never had before in our other cars). Negatives: Cupholders are flimsy, and the center compartment would never close right when you opened it.

Driving: It is pretty powerful when first hitting the throttle, but not the best car for passing power (lots of delay, but it is a big car so I expected that). Steering was numb, and the car floated over anything. Car was comfortable on the bright side though!
 
Driving: It is pretty powerful when first hitting the throttle, but not the best car for passing power (lots of delay, but it is a big car so I expected that). Steering was numb, and the car floated over anything. Car was comfortable on the bright side though!

Was it in sport mode ("S" button just behind the shifter)? That'll make it more responsive to kick down when booting it.
 
Not a bad placement for it, actually. Putting it there is also what allowed the console to be so roomy.

:yes: The Chrysler minivans always had a column shifter and this one is almost the same except it's a more modern design.
 
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My brother just got a 1999 Jaguar XJ8 Vanden Plas ^Just like the one in the picture above. Our first British car, and lowest mileage car as of right now in the family (23k miles).

The Exterior: When you see the car online, the car looks huge (in terms of length), but in person it really isn't that bad. However, the height of the car does seem way shorter than its competitors back in the day (E38, W140, LS400). In my opinion the car isn't really an eye catcher, it's very subtle, and not very in your face like the flagship luxury cars of today.

The Interior:

images


An array of wood and leather, with some cheapo Ford buttons for the window buttons (same ones from my friend's Explorer). The center console looked like they had softer feeling buttons, but surprised to find the buttons to be hard and cheap feeling. The seats on the other hand were absolutely amazing, the perfect car for traffic, but not enough side bolstering (but the car wasn't really meant for sporty driving). The backseat was the best part actually, being in the back made me feel like royalty, I mean can BMW and Mercedes say they had wooden tables in the back as well as soft lambskin carpets? Plus, the backseats were heated as well (something we have never had before in our other cars). Negatives: Cupholders are flimsy, and the center compartment would never close right when you opened it.

Driving: It is pretty powerful when first hitting the throttle, but not the best car for passing power (lots of delay, but it is a big car so I expected that). Steering was numb, and the car floated over anything. Car was comfortable on the bright side though!

Has the engine in it been replaced yet?

Also, the Vanden Plas is the cushier variant of the X308 and is tuned softer (in all respects) than any of the other variants. Including the steering.

There is an updated cupholder assembly for it that's a bit sturdier and the console latch has an updated part available for it as well.

Also, you might want to lube the switches on the doors. First, they're not the ones out of the Explorer (I was looking at those for spares, and they're definitely not). Second, they're supposed to be low-effort switches, not hard.

Yes, the car is actually shorter than any of its contemporaries.

The slow transmission kickdown may be due to prior owner's lack of doing so - it's got a learning transmission controller. If it is not shifting down like it should, use the J-gate.
 
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Has the engine in it been replaced yet?

Also, the Vanden Plas is the cushier variant of the X308 and is tuned softer (in all respects) than any of the other variants. Including the steering.

There is an updated cupholder assembly for it that's a bit sturdier and the console latch has an updated part available for it as well.

Also, you might want to lube the switches on the doors. First, they're not the ones out of the Explorer (I was looking at those for spares, and they're definitely not). Second, they're supposed to be low-effort switches, not hard.

Yes, the car is actually shorter than any of its contemporaries.

The slow transmission kickdown may be due to prior owner's lack of doing so - it's got a learning transmission controller. If it is not shifting down like it should, use the J-gate.

The engine has not been replaced yet, not to my knowledge, there has only been one previous owner. Should my brother be worried about anything?
 
Nikasil and plastic timing chain tensioners were two potential issues for those early-generation engines. Don't have links on hand but at the very least they need attention from someone who knows what they're doing.
 
BMW M6 (F12) '13

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I ended up having a F12 generation BMW M6 overnight on the other day. My task was to photograph it, but naturally I also took it for a spin. Interesting car and it raised more questions than it gave answers.

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Power. Yes. The twin turbo V8 definitely has power. On dry tarmac the 295 wide Pilot Supersports just simply gave up and turned to smoke and two wide stripes of rubber all the way up to 130km/h. That is incidentally already 10km/h over the highest speed limit in Finland. It made the M6 feel quite a wild ride, even though it was totally controllable at least when the ESC was left in M Dynamic Mode.

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As you probably all know, in addition to different stability control modes you can adjust gear change speed, steering, suspension? etc. Even though there is a great shortcut on the steering wheel, the famous M-button, it makes the M6 feel a bit deliberately complex. It really doesn't try to hide it's cleverness.

Despite all the possible user selectable combinations etc, it's really easy car to cruise around. Not much different than a 116i, thanks to all parking sensors and cameras which help you to navigate the large body through tighter spaces. Naturally the well working transmission and endless amount of torque help here too.

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So, a great cruiser just as a posh German coup? should be. After relaxing cruise on the highway I found myself driving along my favorite country road. A bit too twisty for an M6 maybe, but at least with excellent view and not much traffic around. And with a push of a button the mighty German cruiser turned into a tiny, agile and eager sportscar. Right? Well...

You can't deny the pace of the M6. But how clever all the systems might be, they can't hide all the weight. It does have very high limits, which you're never supposed to reach on a public road. That means you don't get much feel when you're driving spiritedly, but still only using fraction of the performance on the corners. And on the straights? Well, with 0-200km/h going under 13 seconds, you can guess how long you can play with the right pedal.

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I wasn't expecting the M6 to be a tossable sportscar, but I was a bit surprised how unengaging it felt. Surely it was out of it's element, but it's still a car wearing the legendary M-badge in almost every single panel and part. Awesome Autobahnstormer it might be, that I can't deny. It definitely can do awesome powerslides around the corner, but with somebody else's tires and close to 300k euros of value I didn't want to drive it in a way I handle my MX-5.

I tried to reconstruct why it left me a bit cold. First, I'm sure I would've liked it more after few weeks of driving, as it was great when I was just cruising around and provided sensation of endless power on occasional highway ramps.

Another really important factor is the lack of sound. I rode shotgun in the M5 sister last year and I recalled it had pretty good soundtrack despite of all the talk about synthetical sound. Maybe the M5 had some kind of a sports exhaust, I don't know, but the M6 was never anything but forgettable. There was power, but it didn't have soul. It didn't have music or depth. It wasn't rich. It kind of sounded like cars in racing games, you get the same tone at certain revs, no matter how much throttle you give. Yes, it sounded synthetic.

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It's hard to sum up a car like the M6. The fact that it left me a bit cold is more down to the incompatibility of the our road network and fast cars than actual flaws of the car itself. I'd love to feel the endless acceleration it unquestionably provides on the Autobahn. I'd love to test how it words as a cruiser, or even as a daily driver. Yet the cold reality is, that there is a single country in the whole world where you can enjoy the full power of the turbo charged G?tterd?mmerung build under the hood: it's home, Germany. So why do we have so many cars with so much performance, as only a tiny amount of customers can actually use it. We are not talking about supercars here, but merely a family car in a pretty dress. How much power is really necessary? I don't know, but apparently power does sell cars.

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And how an M BMW should be like today? Gone are the race homologations of the past, so I'm sure BMW has spent a lot of time optimizing the product to an actual customer instead of a race track. But from enthusiasts point of view, how should the M-version differentiate from the ordinary cousin with a number instead of a name? It definitely needs more power. More aggressive looks. And apparently more M-badges. Most of them all, it should have more soul, more character.

And that's where the M6 fails to deliver for me. It is the current crown jewel of the Motorsport department. A genuine ///M product that should stir my soul even when I open the taps a tiny bit. No matter how high limits, I'd like it to feel alive in semi-legal speeds. Now it is an truly astonishing car, but it has too much technology over soul. I can't ignore it's ability, but I can't love it's soul either.
 
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The Problem with the M6 is (IMHO, never having driven one) simply that it is based on the 6 series. The 6 series is a big cruiser for wealthy older people. The changes they make to turn this into an M6 are still too little in order to make this a sportscar. This car just cannot deny its roots. But looking like it does, you expect (or wish for) more than straigh-line speed, do you? And having an M6 over a 650i? The M6 despite having 110hp more than the 650i, it only loses 0.4 of a second of the 650i?s 0- 100 time ... and gains 35000? on it?s base price.
 
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I've recently read a review of the M5 sister with a similar conclusion, the car seems to be most at home on the autobahn. But if you want an autobahn express train and not a sportscar, you might as well get a 640d, which costs EUR 45k less and you won't have to stop every 500km to fill up the empty 80l tank.
 
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