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Automotive News & Views Daimler's abuse of the Dodge Charger legacy.
659 messages, Last post on Jun 21, 2006 at 2:03 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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| I've looked under many German car's hoods, as part of my job - the Japanese copied the Germans, now the Germans are using shrouds in their domestic vehicles... | |
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But, it is kinda hard to shroud a straight 6! I don't like them, because it makes it difficult to do a quick visual check fro problems (leaks, loose wire, whatever). Of course, these days I don't even know what most of the stuff is, but I can still tell if it is leaking! |
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Any thoughts on the infamous ADM (Adjusted Dealer Mark-up)? Do any of you feel the Dodge dealers are going to do the same thing the Chrysler guys did when the PT came out? And mimic the Pontiac dealers with the new-gto, with their $5 - $8K markups. I remember seeing one dealer advertise base PTs going for $27K while they had two 1 yr.-old demo 300Ms going for $22 - $24K! The higher level PTs where going for mid-$30K. Just wondering how much the gouge is going to be and if there will be some dealers that will not. As a side note, those who bought the new-gto 6spd dodged the $1000 gas-guzzler tax that was tacked on for the automatic. But I believe they had to pay $695 to get the Tremec 6spd as it was optional, may be wrong though. |
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with the Charger. The PT Cruiser was a hot little number when it first came out, so it was only natural that the dealers would tack on a bunch of fees. IIRC, the Chrysler 300 was going for sticker price for awhile too, and some of them were selling with markups when they first came out. It's hard to say with the Charger, though. Back in September, I got enticed down to the dealer, where they were giving away barbeque tool kits free with a Magnum test drive. I drove a mid-level SXT that had a sticker price of around $26,500. Salesman right off the bat said I could probably get it for about $24K. They also had an SXT in the color I really love, Magnesium, with leather. It was a bit over $27K, but had a few thousand miles on it. He said I could get that one even cheaper. So evidently, they're willing to deal on a lot of these cars now. The Charger will probably get marked up, at first, but it'll come back down to Earth before too long! |
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on many of these situations, but I was raised dirt poor, so I've never had to have the latest and greatest. Some dealer groups use ADM stickers on all their vehicles, others just on hot sellers. The more comical ones, in recent memory, were the Lincoln Blackwood, which sold at $10k over sticker, then sold at invoice minus a $10k rebate 6 months later; another is the Thunderbird, same deal, same money over sticker, now they're invoice minus a $4k rebate... People absolutely FLOCKED to these things, especially the T-bird, and now have lost their collective butts when comparing a nearly $20k difference in what you paid for a T-bird when they first came out versus what you could pay now... Comical, I tell you, but that's the price you pay for having to have the neatest, fastest, coolest new thing... I bought my 2003 PT GT new in January 2003, paying invoice minus a $3500 rebate. Of course, when I traded it, they hit me at $3k back of book because they aren;t hot anymore - I really didn't get hurt in it, buying it for $18,500, putting on 59,000 miles, and getting $10,500 in trade just under 2 years later. To think that my braggart brother, older than I, paid $600 in 1979 money ($2500 now?) for a HUGE Panasonic Beta VCR. Only one on his block at the time, along with his new microwave oven, but now you can get a DVD/VCR combo for less than $60. Same for a decent microwave. Ironic, poetic justice.
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did very many people...actually pay all that money for the Blackwoods and T-birds? Or were they more like the GTO where they just sat on the lot until the dealers begged you to take them off their hands? There's a dealer around here that will occasionally put ADMU stickers of $995, $1000, and occasionally, when they're feeling really ballsy, $1995 on every car on the lot. Even if it was a Cavalier, Malibu, or base Impala! They also offered these Cavalier and Impala "SS"es, which amounted to little more than a graphics package and a $2995 or so dealer markup. The Cav coupe "SS" actually looked pretty sharp in blue and silver, but the Impala was a sham. Aftermarket leather and ribs and wings, and a few SS badges. And often, not even an alloy wheel...usually they'd just have the base plastic hubcap! |
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needs a car guy calling the shots and not a beancounter. I had a guy trade in a 1992 Suburban 1500 4x4 "SS" back in 1994. He swore up and down it was Chevy package - I explained that it didn't exist and was just stickers and stuff, and he got mad that he paid $4995 over MSRP, plus paying MSRP, for a 4x4 in Wyoming...4x4s are needed there, so they're not rare. He was $12k upside down, still traded it, used a bunch of cash and a rebate, and swallowed his pride. We took off the silly stickers that any GM fan would know don't belong. I've already seen a few 300Cs done up with bling-bling wheels and roadster tops, so I'm sure a few Chargers will end up that way, but maybe not so bad. The dolled up 300C looks like a Cadillac or similar car, whereas the Charger won't exude "luxury" and should draw the drug dealer crowd. I'm looking forward to see some tuned versions of the Charger, though - should be interesting with 18 or 20" tuner wheels and coil-over suspension... |
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has a 300 Touring, and he blinged it up a bit. It's still not TOO bad, though. He put a spoiler on the trunk, and those window guards that let you roll down the windows a bit in the rain. Inside though, the greatest travesty he did was buying a wood kit for it. When I saw it I made a comment along the lines of him setting the premium American sedan back 25 years. Or "suddenly its 1979", or something like that! Although to be fair, his 300 is Cool Vanilla with a light colored interior, and he picked a light wood color, so it's really not too far off from the "cashmere/driftwood" interior of my '79 NYer, and I think it wears it pretty well. |
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I may turn out to be favorably impressed with the Charger, but as the Inside Line story says, time will tell! Danger Lurks for Dodge Charger's Comeback as a Sedan PF Flyer Host Pickups & News & Views Message Boards The SUBARU CREW Chat is on tonight. Hope to see YOU there! Check out the schedule |
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...I always thought those cashmere/driftwood interiors on the 1979 R-body New Yorker weren't bad looking. That color combination would be a nice change from the mouse-fur gray that 90 percent of today's vehicles feature! As for the Thunderbird and Blackwood - I don't know about the Blackwood (didn't Lincoln sell fewer than 5,000 overall?), but I do believe that more than a few people did pay well over sticker for the Thunderbird. |
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