I've been mulling over adding a 3rd car to our fleet as my wife has her car and all I have to drive is the SRT6. I got my eyes set on the Caliber SRT4. First of all I love hatchbacks (previous owner of a Mazdapseed3, Toyota Matrix, and Protege5) and they pay dividends towards the kind of work I do (lugging lots of camera gear).
Anyway my intention was to ADD the SRT4 to our fleet- not replace the 6. However many of you may relate- my wife wasn't happy about the whole ordeal considering we are trying to save in order to sell our house and start new construction on a new one in a few years.
Anyway I knew the most economical way to own the SRT4 was to replace the 6 with it but I heard horror stories about the trade-in value dealers offer for it. I asked them to give me an appraisal...just to "see". They came back with....are you ready for this- 13.5k. lol Of course trading was out of the question at that point. There's no way I'd take that little for it-it's almost insulting.
Fast forward about 45 minutes as we are talking numbers etc, I see the general manager and about 3-4 employees go out to the parking lot and look at my car. He comes back in and says if I change my mind about trading he'll give me 16k for it. I was surprised- from the stories I heard this actually isn't bad. I explained I wanted to at least remove the manis and CAI which would require another trip up and back the following day which I wasn't looking forward to (the dealership was over 2 hours away). He said if I left those on he'd give me 16.5 for the trade. Granted those parts used on the forum would net much more than $500 however I wanted to be done and and not face another 4 hours in the car the following day not to mention finding a rid the following day.
Needless to say with some coaxing from my wife I traded up. Granted my wife KNOWS how much I love the 6 but was really upset about the concept of adding a 3rd car payment to our already mounting dept. So I was able to put another 2.5k of positive equity into the SRT4 and ended up walking away financing only 16k on a brand new, left-over, with only 54 miles on it.
Certainly I will miss the 6- for the obvious reason, the sheer acceleration of the thing! Not to mention I'll be embarassed if I hit the track with Chris (distantpulse) in this thing. I'll be lucky to get into the 13's stock (w/o slicks).
However on the bright-side there were some things I noted on my 2 hour drive home late last night that I favor over the 6. It seems to be geared better- in 6th at 80mph the RPMS are so low the car feels like it's sleepwalking. My 6- even with stock exhaust had a bit of a drone at that speed on the highway.
The steering in the SRT4 is worlds better than the SRT6. I think this is one of the little mentioned weak-points of the 6. It has a sloppy disconnected feeling. You don't notice it if you drive it all the time but if you get out of a car that has a close ratio steering (SRT4, S2000, Mini Cooper) then into the 6 you'll certainly feel the difference.
Lastly comfort. I was always comfortable in my 6, don't get me wrong- but the SRT4 is amazingly comfortable. The seats are so heavily bolstered they feel like being cradled in a leather glove. Road/wind noise is considerably less too.
On the down-side (obviously) there is less power and a fwd drivetrain that is supposed to field all 280hp/265ft. Not the best drivetrain for big power. Taking off quickly is difficult when it feels like the car is literally trying to tear the tires off the front rims. lol However they are QUITE fast on the freeway. Good ol' SRT4 roll-racing for ya...
Anyway I'm sure most of you won't understand or approve of the decision to trade the 6 but the way I see it is I can always pick one up in the future and slap the same ol' tried and true mods to make it a rocket (intake, pulley, tune).
If you guys have any meets locally I'll try and still make them- so long as I'm not treated ENTIRELY like the red-headed stepchild.
Besides if I decide to go crazy I can get this car into the 11's via RealTune stage upgrade but then it starts affecting the daily drivability at that level. Btw, have you heard their Caliber is in the 11's but trapping 128!
I'll still be lurking around the forum here- I still frequent several car forums for cars I've previously owned just because I still am an enthusiast and enjoy the community. Here's a nice farwell photo- I was at Atco Raceway staged up against a Z06 (which I beat) and I never realized till today you could see Chris (distantpulse) right behind me in my side mirror. I thought it was cool- couldn't have been staged better...
PS If you are interested I'll post some pics of the new ride.