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.

 

Btw, I'll have some SRT6 badges for sale and a full set of SRT6 wheels (WITH TPMS!), plus some stock parts: stock airbox, stock heat exchanger, stock crank pulley.

 

Can't see all of your post cuz you have that BIG @SS picture there. Can you down size it or remove it for us?

 

Nooooo.... you should have told me. I would have taken some things off your hands. Like your dual intake. If you can get a hold of your dual intake from the dealer I will make it worth your trouble.

Which dealer? I wonder if it's two hours towards me. Warnock?

 

post deleted.

Glen re-sized the picture better.

 

Gottcha- sorry!

 

I doubt they will let me- after all he gave me a whole $500 for those. I have a feeling the general manager was personally interested in the car.

It was Autoland in Springfield NJ- maybe 25 minutes from Jersey City.

 

Well Glen daddy, I am both sad and happy for you!! I hate to see you leave the 6 and the group, but I know you are doing it for the right reasons. I can't say I blame you. Like we talked about, the 6 isn't really a great "all year round" daily driver and if you can only have one car, I think you made the right choice. Wish you the best with the 4! We will have to hit the track up when the weather breaks.


BTW - That is a great pic!! You never showed that to me!

 

Well you know I'm down for that. Should be picking up my DRs first of March.

 

Absolutely! I need to address the fueling issue still and get my tune in order.

 

Tony will be in VA for tuning on 3/6. I don't know if he has any free space on the dyno for the day, but I am trying to get him to come up to NJ after that to hang out. maybe we can head over to Krazy House one day and do the installs and get the tune in order.

 

That would be sweet if he could! I'd be in for sure.

 

sorry to hear ya sold the srt6, sometime ya just have to in order for more cargo room. im sure you will enjoy the caliber srt4. we did one up for a local customer and with only a few mods the car really woke up and turned into a monster to drive let me knwo if you decide to do some tweaks to the caliber

 

Oh ya Glenn, you just stepped into Rob's wheelhouse with the 4. mmmm...nice.

 

Sorry to see you go, but if you end up on the dragon get out of our way

I guess technically you're not leaving, and I'd put money down on you purchasing another SRT6 in the future. Good luck with your Dodge.

 

Just looked at a Dodge Caliper SRT4 and they are suprisingly sharp looking cars!! congrats

 

Hey I'm not "leaving" the community there are a few members that don't have SRT6s yet that post. One of them is an CSRT4 owner.

It should be fun trying to launch this thing at Atco- but I'd like to go get it dyno'd as a baseline before I start moding. I've never done that- I'm always so impulsive and mod right away and never know what my car was stock. This is a fresh start!

 

Yeah Rob- I'm already ahead of you there. lol- my entire tax return went to you last year. It would be the same this year but it was my first year in business full time. I was to have enough deductions to not OWE the government tens of thousands of dollars!

I'm going to do some serious researching. There is actually a pretty healthy aftermarket with lots of variety. Something I'm not used to with the 6. I'll have to call you soon and pick your brain about some mod paths to take.

Thank you for all the excellent customer service Rob. Your (and Woody's) products are great and you are an absolute class act. Thank you for everything!

 

Hey now...


Maybe by then I'll have the mods to be putting down near 400hp at the wheels which means from a roll I may be able to walk away on the freeway as the 6's lean out.

Seriously though I wouldn't hesitate to attend a 6 meet with you guys so long as I was even welcome!

 

Thanks- here are a few shots from today...

"Inferno Red Pearl" paint




19"s with 13.5" discs