Test Drive Chrysler Pt Cruiser 2000 - 2006 Minivan

Borge-conductor

The more all cars will be like each other, the greater popularity will be conquer those who do not look like anyone. Visual example - Chrysler Pt Cruiser.
In fact: engineers of some autocontrace can be killed because of the extra 20 hp Which will give a forced engine, achieve a fuel consumption of 3 l per 100 km or invent the airbag for a dog ... And everything is in vain, for the same or almost the same appears or already has a competitor. But it is worth paying the priority to designers, and the world seems to go crazy - still not having time to find out about the driving and operational characteristics of the car, the public is built into multi-month queues. In the case of PT Cruiser, everything happened this way: they fell in love with the car, just seeing it in the picture. Today, the plant in the Mexican Toluka no longer copes with the number of orders, and the Daimlerchrysler concern is in a hurry to deploy additional production in Austria.
We ask for landing. For some reason, it is assumed that Chrysleraovsky NEW - the answer to the popular VW New Beetle in America. In fact, Chrysler always knew how to combine ultra-modern design with retro motives: it is enough to remember such hits of recent times, like Dodge Viper, Plimouth ProWler or older Jeep Wrangler.
A huge air intake grill, crowned with a Chryslera winged emblem. Convex wings. Predatory diagonal headlights. The abundance of chromium. Nothing like, shooting the roof. Cool feed. Bumpers, like a truck ... Describe the appearance of PT Cruiser is an ungrateful occupation. Estete will see Art Deco here, the elderly American - the car uncle, which he shipped the family and home Skarb, going to move into the next state, where he had to pay $ 10 a week more.
Inside the same retro-taught: a steering wheel with four thin knitting needles, round analog appliances - speedometer, tachometer and temperature sensor, stubcounted in deep cylindrical niches. The dashboard is painted in the color of the car body.
Do not smoke, fasten the belts. Of course, no ashtons, and instead of the cigarette lighter - the outlet 12V. In total, there are three of them in the car. One more accommodated next to the required minutes: it is convenient to connect the phone here, and the phone itself is to throw in a niche under the central console. The third is in the luggage compartment: it can be powered by a automotive refrigerator, for example.
Retractable boxes, pockets, mesh - however, this is not surprised by this today. A decent radio tape recorder with six speakers, from where ZZ-TOP sounds especially well. Before the gear gear selector, five recesses for coins of different diameters: The manufacturer claims that all European monetary units are taken into account. This is doubtful, but the Russian user is hardly embarrassed - we do not leave money in the car, for the glass can be broken even because of a cigarette pack.
But the volume inside the cabin really amazes. It is designed to emphasize the decoration of the cabin: two color options are light gray and beige - create a feeling of space. Places enough for feet and for hands - True, only the driver's seat is equipped with a folding armrest. The same can be said about the backseat: we went on it four of them. It is close, of course, but try to do this trick in another car segment C. The seat itself is located quite high enough, so you do not have to pull the knees to the chin. Above the head of the air as much as other limousine does not let. Plus wide doors opening almost direct angle, providing a comfortable landing-disembarkation. One thing: lovers ride, putting a brush hands on the window opening, waiting for disappointment - the rear window here goes out only two-thirds, and if in other machines it can be explained by considerations of passive security - in order children did not fall out, - here this glass Just go down to nowhere, it hurts the wheel arch.
In the way you will be offered breakfast. All advertising booklets PT Cruiser are necessarily equipped with a beautiful picture: the rear shelf is transformed in a table serviced by the table, protruding from the opening of the back door and under-the folding caliper. By the number of transformations of the salon with PT Cruiser, it is hardly able to argue some other car. The same shelf, in addition to the usual position hiding the contents of the cargo compartment, can be in the tipped backs of the rear and front passenger seats, forming truly a huge space - in the cabin you can take a stepladder two and a half meters long. Not like: the rear seats themselves, divided in the proportion of 65:35, can be easily dismantled and pumped out on the rollers in the store until PT Cruiser will not push the cargo in the passenger car again.
Turbulence zone. Eyes captured by trigger PT Cruiser, are involuntarily looking for a nameplate V8, but under the hood - only inline four. In the near future, PT Cruiser will be supplied to the market with a 1.6 liter gasoline engine, as well as a modification with turbodiesel. Today, the most popular version in Europe has a two-liter 16-valve engine with a double top camshaft with a capacity of 140 hp. It is equipped with a five-speed gearbox, however, as an option provides automatic transmission.
We just happened to try an instance with a machine gun. Smooth acceleration and switching - the tachometer arrow is practically not stirred, the electronic brains optimally adapt the transfers to the conditions of movement, including when traveling along the mountainous area. If the accelerator is used correctly, then you can save enough torque to accelerate when overtaking.
Probably, everything should be so, however, drivers who had ever had a case with CHRYSLER products, this time would definitely say: not going. True, a model with a 2.4 liter engine is produced for the American market, however, extra 400 ml is added with only 10 hp, which is hardly affected by the dynamics. Similar strength units are basic for Voyager minivans, and their binding to PT Cruiser has rather related to the reduction of noise and vibration, and not with increasing power.
Sobship, by the way, is considered one of the trumps Pt Cruiser. Smooth engine operation, precise calibration of suspension, sealing of door openings and other seams of body plus availability of Chrysler hardly not the best in the world of the aerodynamic pipe gave a good result: the engine suits only when you lower the transmission to a strong pressing of the gas pedal, almost not heard and rustle Wheels on asphalt. But the wind whistles so that it will not seem little. Maybe all the case in the roofs on the roof, which was equipped with the car taken by us to the test? And further. If you open the same, the rear window that does not open up to the end, then in the cabin is not that it is difficult to talk, you can simply be squeezed. And even at relatively low speed.
Please stay in places. But the suspension deserves all silence. The front, MacPherson systems, equipped with a shock absorber and has a special core, allowing a sufficiently high car not to rush in a cool turn. The transverse traverse of the rear suspension is also promoted, which makes the wheels remain in a vertical position relative to the road. If you have to try and enter the rotation at high speed, the center of gravity will shift to the roof of the car rather smoothly, and only with the most extreme blurry PT Cruiser will be asked to the driver with a sharp impetus that it would not be bad to reduce the speed.
A significant role in the sustainability of the car was also played by the fact that the front wheels turn to relatively small degrees, which is certainly safe when driving at speed, but creates certain inconvenience when maneuvers in urban sustrocker, parking, etc. Judge for yourself: Chrysler Neon, on the platform of which is built Pt Cruiser, having 50 mm more wheelbase, unfolds with a radius of 10.8 m, while the Chrysler's novelty is equal to 12 m.
Bashes Pt Cruiser without complaints. For a fee, rear drum brakes can be replaced with disk, as well as equip the car with an anti-lock and thrust control system at low speeds. However, with the above-mentioned dynamic and speed characteristics, it will be reinsurance.
HAVE A GOOD TRIP. It is always more difficult than seemingly. And therefore, those who bought on the brown design of Pt Cruiser and expected to detect the sick-nicious hot-genus in it, will probably be a little disappointed. And completely in vain. After all, PT is decrypted not as Power Turbo, but just like Personal Transport. And one to whom such personal transport is not to taste can use any other. For example, a social, where the design means little, because you are not the owner, but only a random passenger.
Text Dmitry Gronsky, photo Dmitry Novokreshchenov
 

A source: "Autopilot"