Renting 300C, Magnum or Charger

How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and,
yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest
of the vehicle I'm interested in.

Want to know which agencies rent them, and how to maximize my chances
of getting one of those three instead of a substitute.

Thank you kindly.

John Bartley wrote:

> How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and,
> yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest
> of the vehicle I'm interested in.
>
> Want to know which agencies rent them, and how to maximize my chances
> of getting one of those three instead of a substitute.
>
> Thank you kindly.
>


I've gotten Magnums from Dollar Rent-a-Car, one was a nice 3.5-powered
one, the other was a pathetic 2.7 powered one. Dollar is a
mostly-Chrysler fleet. Thrifty has a pretty high percentage of Chryslers
as well.

I rented a Magnum from Thrifty at Edmonton Airport.
Dreadful Car, very poor visibility, bad road holding and gulped gas.
Glad I rented rather than bought.
Keith
"John Bartley" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and,
> yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest
> of the vehicle I'm interested in.
>
> Want to know which agencies rent them, and how to maximize my chances
> of getting one of those three instead of a substitute.
>
> Thank you kindly.
>

Keith Phillips wrote:

> I rented a Magnum from Thrifty at Edmonton Airport.
> Dreadful Car, very poor visibility, bad road holding and gulped gas.
> Glad I rented rather than bought.


Not my impression at all. The 2.7 powered one I had was HIDEOUSLY
underpowered, but got good mileage. The 3.5 had plenty of power for most
uses, though I'd buy a 5.7 Hemi with MDS to get the acceptable mileage
and >300 horsepower. Both of them handled superbly in spite of having
the smaller wheels than the Hemi version gets. Rear visibility isn't
great, but it sin't terrible either. The windows are small, but well
placed. If I do get a new car within the next couple of years, it WILL
be a Magnum. My biggest complaints are that the interior is fairly
spartan, and I'm not sure the A/C system is adequate for my climate. It
seemed to take a long time to cool down, and the temps were only in the
high 90s when I had the 2.7 rental. Neither had auto climate control, so
maybe the full ATC climate control system has more cooling power.

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:41:36 -0800, John Bartley wrote:

> How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and,
> yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest
> of the vehicle I'm interested in.
>
> Want to know which agencies rent them, and how to maximize my chances
> of getting one of those three instead of a substitute.
>
> Thank you kindly.

You'll have to call the rental agency directly to guarantee that they'll
hold a 300C for you. Making a reservation on a website won't do it. Do a
Google search for Chrysler 300C Rental to find out who rents them.

BTW renting a vanilla 300 is pointless. The Hemi is what makes the 300C.
The performance of the C makes up for the deficiencies of the 300. I
have the 300C AWD and I love it but if I had a 300 I'm sure I'd hate it.
The car has awful visibility because of it's tiny windows. The Nav system
has a poor user interface and a terrible data base. And the trunk is
smaller then you would expect on a car this size (although it's still
fairly large). However it's handling is great, the acceleration is
breathtaking, and it can stop on a dime. The handling and stopping
features are tied to the C packages so if you get a 6 cylinder 300 all you
would have is an ordinary car with bad visibility and a small trunk.

Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre engine?

It seems that particularly NAs love big engines (who wouldn't) but also
wonder about fuel consumption.

If the price of petrol were to double tomorrow you'd be singing a different
tune.

Small wonder that most cars in Europe are 2 litres or less.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
---

"Keith Phillips" > wrote in message
.. .

>I rented a Magnum from Thrifty at Edmonton Airport.
> Dreadful Car, very poor visibility, bad road holding and gulped gas.
> Glad I rented rather than bought.
> Keith
[...]

Dori A Schmetterling wrote:

> Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre engine?

You might be surprised. When my mother had to give up driving last year I
bought her Buick with a 3.8 l engine. I was amazed at its gas mileage, 39 mpg
on the highway, much better than a lot of small cars. My Honda Civic, which is
about half the weight and has less than half the power, gets only a little
better than that.

Dori A Schmetterling wrote:

> > "Keith Phillips" wrote
> >
> > I rented a Magnum from Thrifty at Edmonton Airport.
> > ... and gulped gas

With what engine? 3.5 or 5.2?

> Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre
> engine? NAs love big engines

LOL. You think 3.5 is a large engine?

You guys in the UK have mostly engines under 2.5L because
(historically) you were taxed an insane amount based on engine
displacement, even engine bore, and also you tax automatic trannies
because your gov't thinks they're evil. If it wasn't for that, you'd
have more 3 and 4L engines in cars.

We also love out automatic transmissions too - but I think that most
people under 40 (here in USA/Canada) at this point who grew up as
teenagers driving/owning ****-box 4-cylinders (like VW's) with manual
trannys tend to also look for manual trannys in new cars they buy
now. People over 40 are more likely to have had only
automatic-transmission cars at home while they were growing up, and
tend to not have ever learned how to drive a stick.

> but also wonder about fuel consumption.

People with large vehicles justify it because of the friggin kiddies
(they need the back seat, or the 2 back seats, the baby ****, the
perception of saftey in their land slugs. They buy a $40k vehicle so
they can shlep $300 worth of kid-**** to the cottage or the grand
parents place for the weekend.

They need 4 and 5L engines to move those 4500 lb vehicles around.

"John Bartley" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> How do I rent a 300C, Magnum or Charger? Want to test drive... and,
> yes, I know, fleet vehicles are anemically powered, but it's the rest
> of the vehicle I'm interested in.
>
> Want to know which agencies rent them, and how to maximize my chances
> of getting one of those three instead of a substitute.
>
> Thank you kindly.
>

most dealers will let you rent one for 24-48 hours.. usually for free.. i
just did that with the Dodge Ram 2500

Having visited London for a couple of weeks last year, I'd hate to see you
guys driving around with faster cars. You make NY taxi's look like careful
drivers. By the way you are driving on the wrong side of the street
although it is convenient for mailmen.


"Dori A Schmetterling" > wrote in message
...
> Of course it "gulped gas". What do you expect from a 3.5-litre engine?
>
> It seems that particularly NAs love big engines (who wouldn't) but also
> wonder about fuel consumption.
>
> If the price of petrol were to double tomorrow you'd be singing a
> different tune.
>
> Small wonder that most cars in Europe are 2 litres or less.
>
> DAS
>
> For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
> ---
>
> "Keith Phillips" > wrote in message
> .. .
>
>>I rented a Magnum from Thrifty at Edmonton Airport.
>> Dreadful Car, very poor visibility, bad road holding and gulped gas.
>> Glad I rented rather than bought.
>> Keith
> [...]
>
>