Originally Posted by oyster_gold
I don't work for Chrysler, or sell their products. I've owned dozens of them however and will probably own many more in the future. You, I suspect have never owned any other than a XF and based on your comments and attitude probably will never consider one again. You're the perfect example of someone who should have bought a Mercedes instead of a Mercedes powered Chrysler. I do take exception to people who drive Crossfires and continually demean the company that designed and sold the car! You never mentioned if you have actually driven a Sebring. I'm going to bet that you haven't. No biggy...but you certainty have a jaded opinion about the lineup, even the new version without it even being produced yet!! LOL!!!!!
You are actually are somewhat incorrect with your assumption that I wouldn't buy another Chrysler. That's not true. I would buy any car I found appealling. I'd LOVE to have a CTS-V coupe for example. And if it wasn't for the fact that the 300 SRT8 only came with an automatic, I'd consider one of those for sure if I was looking for a beastly sedan. I would also buy Ram pickup over any other fullsize pickup.
Secondly, why would I want to buy a Mercedes? The best part of the XF is that it is badged a Chrysler. I bought mine brand new for a price that I would never be able to buy a mercedes-badged product for and I have a limited lifetime warranty, which would also never be found on a M-B product. I don't demean the company at all--I demean the product. The Chrysler CORPORATION has some fantastic products. The sebring is certainly not one of them. Chevy also has some awesome products, but the Impala (for example) is definitely not one of them. I can only surmise by what you wrote and the way you wrote it that, to use a popular internet term, you are a chrysler fanboy. If you can't see that every manufacturer has products that are good and some that aren't then you are very much disillusioned. I bought the XF because Chrysler was a bit daring with it, I liked the looks, and it was a good price. If I can afford to reward what I consider as unique, I will. And with the XF, I did. However, the sebring is a whole other animal.
Daimler never had a clear vision of what to do with Chrysler, they ran the company into the ground and were paranoid that any Chrysler product would over shadow or out sell their Mercedes line. Why do you think the Crossfire got a 6 year old platform in the R170!! LOL!!
I don't at all doubt any of this. I know it's true. However, another additional factor that you are missing is cost. It costs far less to tool up using parts that are readily available than to use newer, more expensive pieces. IMO, the crossfire would have been absolutely perfect if it used the 3.5L MB V6 and the rack-in-pinion steering setup of the newer MB products.
Already we are seeing a tremendous improvement in fit and finish, design and build quality since the merge with Fiat, with the 2011 lineup. Sergio Marchionne (head of Fiat group) has been incredibly supportive of the brand and if the rumors are to be believed, really good stuff is coming.
I also agree with this. The Jeep GC is fantastic looking, both inside and out. I just wished they would re-introduce a diesel into the vehicle. But I'd probably be the only one who would buy it.
I'm probably one of the few Crossfire owners (for some strange reason) that dislikes the fact it's built on a 12 year old Mercedes platform. I would have much preferred the Chrysler 3.5. It would have been less expensive to build, easier to modify, less expensive and easier to maintain. I guess there's that resale thing, but considering your 2008 XF with its $32K sticker price is worth about $13K today...I guess that's out the window too.
The only problem with using the old platform is the exlcusion of newer technology. Where is my adjustable intermittant wipers for example? I have programmable intermittant wipers on my 1994 VW! I also don;t care much for the 3.2L in the crossfire. It is very harsh, especially for a meredes product. Having said all of that, it is my firm belief that at the current time a mediocre (outdated in this case) mercedes is better than an outdated/mediocre chrysler product. You can't really argue that the standards for a MB-badged product aren't higher than your typical chrysler corporation product. If Chrysler took the same general approach to their cars like they do the flagship Viper, things may be different (including price!).
Oh, and there wasn't any 200 concept car that I 've ever seen. There was a concept car for a 200C...which looks almost identical to the 2011 Sebring but was a full electric car.
Seriously? That's your arguement? So a 300 and 300c are different cars? Give me a break. The 200c concept was deemed to be the replacement for the sebring from the very beginning. There were several threads on this topic in the now defunct Chrysler owners forum and we were told that the production 200 would look very similar to the concept. The bottom line here is that a warmed over sebring, now badged 200 (similar to say a chevy cavalier and chevy cobalt), is nothing like the concept. Have you not seen the profile picture on the site you linked us to? You can't mistake that for anything other than a sebring. Give me a 2011 Kia Optima 2.0t any and all day over the 200 with the 280ish hp v6. Chrysler needs to do better here. But I also understand that revamping an entire line of cars takes more money than most companies have at hand at any single time, so they need to take baby steps and focus their money on sectors that have the biggest profit potential first. So I am cautiously optimistic that chrysler products will continue in an upward manner--however, the slope of that upward line isn't as steep as I'd like.