Dodge Magnum R/T:

[lemming]

anyone here drive one?

am looking for insights and comments before i go to drive one. hate the sedan styling, love the hearse-wagen.

[FC]

I don't care for the looks all that much and my wife hates it, so it has never remotely crossed my mind. Is it even all that roomy?

[ff]

Drove a rental Magnum, and pretty sure it was the base engine. Cheap interior. Bouncy handling. Pretty unremarkable. The R/T might be different, though.

[lemming]

there are various ways that i approach this car.

1. it 'can' get 25mpg on the highway for long trips

2. it has 72 cubic feet of space

3. it can come with AWD

4. it is based on the last gen E class, so it's a 4matic wannabe on the cheap

5. unfortunately, it's an automatic

6. it can come in the R/T or SRT8 versions

:dunno:

i need something like this rather soon.

[blee]

From a practicality standpoint, it's kind of an odd situation. There's a good amount of cargo room shaped into a long, short box. You won't be stuffing television sets into it, that's for sure.

Still, I like the idea of the car quite a bit. I'd definitely test drive one if you need something like it.

[clyde]

We were supposed to rent a Magnum for the NAIAS trip last January but wound up with a Charger which is basically the same car. It too was a base model with the small V6. All of the following is said with the caveat that impressions of a car that are based on fleet sale rentals should always be taken with a grain of salt. Every fleet rental car that I've ever driven has been noticably worse in every possible area than the same cars produced for retail sale.

The interior is nothing special, but it's not objectionable. The higher end models are better, though. It's a big, heavy car tuned for regular people, but the handling is better than what you'd expect given that scenario. Where it really got interesting was doing 90 or more in heavy wind. The front end gets light and lane changes become less voluntary. Without the wind, it behaved better than I would have expected from a soft, large, two ton car. The R/T and SRT versions should be better.

Nick rode in the back seat both ways and had no complaints other than the lack of rear cupholders (not something you'd expect would be a problem in an American car.

[FC]

From a practicality standpoint, it's kind of an odd situation. There's a good amount of cargo room shaped into a long, short box. You won't be stuffing television sets into it, that's for sure.

That's my beef. Seats-down cargo is sometimes rather meaningless. The shape matters a lot (here's where SUV's have a big advantage). I go more by rear seats up cargo than seats down.

[BahnBaum]

Nick rode in the back seat both ways and had no complaints other than the lack of rear cupholders (not something you'd expect would be a problem in an American car.

IIRC, he complained about the music.

Alex

[clyde]

IIRC, he complained about the music.

Alex
I meant about the rear seating area. Unless he was complaining about the volume. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention to him.

[BahnBaum]

I wasn't paying attention to him.

How could you not pay attention to someone listening to his ipod wearing headphones the size of saucepans?

Alex

[lemming]

thanks, fellas.

am going to have to make sure i see if the cargo space is useful enough, i guess. them is tall dawgs.

[clyde]

How could you not pay attention to someone listening to his ipod wearing headphones the size of saucepans?

Alex
wtf?!

[ZBB]

I had a Charger R/T rental about a month ago. Picked it up in Seattle, drove up to BC and back over a weekend.

Observations:
1) Me likely the power of the V8
2) Me no likey the numb, over assisted stearing
3) Overall, it was a very comfortable to drive and a very stable, even though the suspension settings are a bit soft.
4) Its a HUGE vehicle (at least compared with my E39)
5) Gas milage sucks. ~90% of the mileage I put on was highway with cruise control set ~75-80. We averaged around 23-24MPG (calculated after 2 fillups).

If they could do 4 things to it, it could take it from an excellent car to a great car:
1) improve dash materials (mostly a look and feel of the texture thing)
2) add a sport suspension option
3) fix the steering (way too light).
4) add an optional manual transmission...

[clyde]

2) add a sport suspension option

They have that. Two, actually.

[lemming]

They have that. Two, actually.

believe it or not, if i could get the RWD version (R/T) and get anything close to 25mpg, that would be a step up for me, plus the bonus of the added space.

i'll just have to see how happy i'd be giving up the manual on a daily basis.

[lupinsea]

25 mpg? Coming from my Jeep and Miata that is damn good milage and on par milage respectively.

The Jeep gets ~15mpg on the hwy and less in town. So anything better than that and I'm a happy camper.

The Mita got ~25 mpg with my driving. Tootling along the highway it would get 28-29 mpg. . . for a 2400 lb. 4 cyl. car I thought this was pretty poor.

If the big V8 powered Magnum manages to get the same milage hauling around an extra 3/4 ton I figure it's doing ok.

[Rob]

I missed this thread, b/c I was in Alaska I suspect, so this is probably a moot point by now, but . . .

The cargo room for the Magnum is the same as for our V70. It is not, howver, nearly as useful.

The seats in the back are towards the back of the car significantly more in the Magnum. That's great for back seat room, but it eats into the "seats up" storage area significantly. So significantly that I didn't think we could comfortably fit our two shepherds in the back of the car for hour long trips.

The back seats fold over and the void created by their moving forward is covered by a piece of cloth attached to the back deck with velcro. The bottom of the seats don't fold up and out of the way, so the folded down seats do not provide a flat cargo area and the base of the cargo area is compromised by that cloth with velcro support.

The snaky lines of the outside of the car cut into the interior storage area significantly. The car also has big plastic "things" that intrude into the cargo area to cover the wheels and, for some unkown reason, extend the length of the cargo area so they are always in the way instead of only mostly in the way.

:dunno:

We checked them out b/c I thought Kelley should drive a V8 wagon with rwd when they came out instead of the fwd underpowered behemoth that she drives now. She was making noises about wanting an automatic with the baby in the car, so . . . we looked. We didn't buy one.

[ZBB]

believe it or not, if i could get the RWD version (R/T) and get anything close to 25mpg...

Well, we averaged 23-24 in highway driving with the rental we had... I'd guess it would struggle to average 20 with a high city mix...

[lemming]

I missed this thread, b/c I was in Alaska I suspect, so this is probably a moot point by now, but . . .

The cargo room for the Magnum is the same as for our V70. It is not, howver, nearly as useful.

The seats in the back are towards the back of the car significantly more in the Magnum. That's great for back seat room, but it eats into the "seats up" storage area significantly. So significantly that I didn't think we could comfortably fit our two shepherds in the back of the car for hour long trips.

The back seats fold over and the void created by their moving forward is covered by a piece of cloth attached to the back deck with velcro. The bottom of the seats don't fold up and out of the way, so the folded down seats do not provide a flat cargo area and the base of the cargo area is compromised by that cloth with velcro support.

The snaky lines of the outside of the car cut into the interior storage area significantly. The car also has big plastic "things" that intrude into the cargo area to cover the wheels and, for some unkown reason, extend the length of the cargo area so they are always in the way instead of only mostly in the way.

:dunno:

We checked them out b/c I thought Kelley should drive a V8 wagon with rwd when they came out instead of the fwd underpowered behemoth that she drives now. She was making noises about wanting an automatic with the baby in the car, so . . . we looked. We didn't buy one.

hiya R.

thanks for the input.

still haven't gotten to drive one yet. have since sat in one --the hassle to get one to drive was higher than my tolerance the other day. i will have to go back when i don't have more pressing errands to run. i should have known better. it always takes awhile at dealerships.

[Rob]

You may notice that I didn't mention driving characteristics. Since cargo (dogs, mostly, along with overnight gear for baby and parents) was our primary concern and the car wouldn't cut it, I didn't bother to drive one.