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She's two months old now. When I was making up my mind earlier this year it was a toss-up between this, an S7 or a GS-F. The GS-F was too expensive for what you got (at the time) and everything I read about the Hellcat said that you can let your Mom drive it and she wouldn't know the difference between a regular car.
I've owned a SC GS400 that I built up, an IS-F, a GMC Typhoon, Pontiac Firehawk, Mercury Maruader etc... I like American muscle but appreciate some luxury too.
Things I love:
The exhaust is just music. Hammer it in track mode and the exhaust makes all kinds of glorious sounds followed by pops and burbles as you let off. Put it in default mode and you can cruise and have a normal conversation without problems.
The handling is great.... for a car of this mass. It's no Miata (or even GS-F) but my goodness who would think this car could handle this well especially since all the talk is almost always about straight line speed.
Speaking of which... Just silly. Hammer the throttle and you have not enough traction. Start in second gear or hammer it @ 40 and above and be amazed at how hard it pulls. Yeah the RS7 and Tesla will AWD slap it silly stop-light to stop-light and you know what... I don't care. :-p
I love the Sepia seats. Some think they are too much baseball glove color. I think it matches nicely with the exterior (I better, I spec'd the car the way I wanted it!)
The SRT performance pages are fun to play with. All the gauges you want like Oil pressure, IC temp, SC boost, IAT, real-time G forces and timing pages etc... etc... Don't use most of them but some are nice and handy
Things that are OK:
The HK radio is OK but not as good as others I've heard. Certainly not worth the $2K asking price. Surprisingly it sounds better on Sirius than I would have expected. Not bad but not great.
For all the praise the U-Connect system gets it's a bit slow to bring up some pages/apps, takes up more screen real estate in some modes that makes the screen feel smaller than it needs to be and the Nav system looks a generation behind my old 2010 MKS one. It works OK functionally but it's just ugly IMO.
Things that suck:
Umm.... fuel economy is bad when you're in boost. Duh... But cruising on the Highway in 8th gear nets you anywhere from 25-28 MPG (unless you are downhill, behind a truck or hugging 55 MPH).
The brakes dust more than my AP racing 6 piston Pagid pad system I had on my built GS400. Just terrible. Even with black wheels I can see this will be a PITA to keep anywhere near clean.
It wakes the neighbors if I start it early in the AM?!
Below are some pictures from when I first got it and then after putting some PPF on the front end (full front) and 22PLE coating on everything afterwards. The paint is generally a hit or miss item on these cars as the paint shop at the plant is ancient in automotive terms but I got a lucky one and the paint was in pretty good shape from the factory. FWIW... the 22PLE makes the cleaning of the car much, much easier.
Overall I'm delighted with it and definitely now wouldn't change my choice given what I now know.
A spot most of my cars have had their picture taken at.
Did you have to pay over list for it? Dodge dealers are known for price-gouging on the Hellcat models..
Thanks! No, it took a while to find a decent dealer that had both an allocation and would sell for MSRP but I was able to do that in January given that supplies are starting catch up with demand (especially here in the midwest).
Congrats, she's beautiful and mean looking at same time.
How's the insurance for this cat?
Not bad at all given it's fully insured. Full coverage right around $1K/year
Originally Posted by bitkahuna
congrats.
What's suntek ppf?
They used to call them clear bra's. It's a paint protection film (ppf) and it's one of the "major" players along with XPEL. My installer prefers it over the XPEL for the ease of install and clarity of the film. Did a full front end (both to hide any sign of lines as much as to protect more of the car) but I'm very happy with the look. Even the door cup line where they cut is basically invisible on my color unless you feel for it.
06-03-16, 03:19 PM
Two month old kitty cat...
congrats.
