2020 Chrysler 300 Limited AWD Review

So a couple of interesting things have happened since i brought this new 2020 chrysler 300 home one of them was a neighbor asking me why i was driving an older car this week look you can’t blame the neighbor okay the chrysler 300 is i mean it dates back to the 2005 model year the car was introduced in 2004 and the visual links between the two cars are absolutely

Evident this is the quote-unquote second generation car which was introduced for 2011 and the last facelift was back in 2015. so why i’m driving an older car this week i mean it’s not a completely invalid question but the interesting thing the more interesting thing in my my opinion is that just the following day another neighbor well she said that this car is

Beautiful and in fact in reality it absolutely is i mean it’s far and you know what it is i mean it’s it’s a large handsome american sedan like ford chrysler and gm used to know how to do and at this point while only fca knows how to build these things because ford is abandoning cars all together and gm is well on its way to doing that so that leaves the charge

Charger and this the chrysler 300 and what is it i mean it’s the proportions the width the length uh the the combination of bright work and this beautiful velvet red color the long flat hood the medium-sized overhangs if you will everything about this car it’s still it’s like it’s already retro but and it’s not that old and the best angle i think is right here

In the back and i love absolutely love these throwback kind of wings on the rear quarter panels at the top what it is a beautiful car absolutely so let’s get right into pricing base price for 2020 touring in canada is forty thousand ninety dollars in the us same car thirty thousand forty dollars now my opinion that’s a heck of a lot of money for one of these

But fear not to just go on the website and you’ll see discounts of four to five thousand dollars just for visiting chrysler.ca or chrysler.com whatever at the very other end of the spectrum there is the chrysler 300c yes with the hemi v8 it starts with 53 at 53 890 dollars in canada 41 995 in the us the v8 is optional on the s but i won’t talk about that because i

Want to talk about this car this is a limited so the top trim v6 model uh it’s quite loaded i mean cool heated seats leather or apple carplay android auto 8.4 inch uconnect uh this specific car actually has a few options no doubt all-wheel drive being one of them um it’s got the uconnect four with the navigation panoramic sunroof blah blah blah so safety equipment

And stuff for a grand total of 55 500 ouch that’s a lot of money for this car but it’s beautiful still looks elegant but it’s i don’t know let’s do the usual tour all right so uh the trunk opens up a trunk lid opens up to 16.3 cubic feet of trunk space 460 liters which is disappointingly small for the overall size of the car um but it’ll serve it’ll surf i mean

You can’t stick like nine bodies in there you have to buy a second one anyway i digress as usual now oh yeah so i said velvet red mocha leather interior beautiful combination and you can see right away there’s tons of room for my son’s legs that are growing in length every day this is a full-size sedan obviously and you could squeeze in an adult between the two

Seats loads of room now what bugs me about this car going forward are some details that i mean i haven’t driven one of these in like six years and there’s some aspects that i’d forgotten or i don’t know what’s going on but look at this panels are not lining up some of the gaps are not great i mean the materials look lovely the textures are nice it’s soft but

It gets worse in the front and it really really bugs me look right here you can see the maser i mean sorry fca okay i did that again i i digress i’m just gonna slide right in it’s just a lot simpler to show you what i’m trying to get on the starter up as usual now look at this look at this one spot right behind the steering wheel look at the gap nothing really

Lines up it’s a big opening here it doesn’t it doesn’t work down here either the gap is different and some of the material oh this car is brand new it kind of looks worn and washed out maybe it’s sun i don’t know again it this doesn’t line up it’s not completely flush with each other i i’m was not expecting this look i’ll just write it away address visibility

The mirrors are actually fairly small the base of the pillar for the size of the car is not that bad so visibility is generally good fit and finish right so i touched on that well there’s your 8.4 inch uconnect 4 screen which is as brilliant as always all your apps are there everything is touch screen accessible you have redundance hvac controls here which are

Fantastic um that it works storage is decent um this is a fairly okay size i mean if i reach down here and remove that pretty good door bins are okay and the seats are comfortable i i’m honestly still now like three days after i noticed the fit and finish in this thing i’m still very disappointed especially since they’ve been building the car for so many years

Um but thankfully that might very well be that in the pricing be the only issues with this car so uh let’s take your first spin so all right like i said it had been about six years since i last drove a chrysler 300 so in fact it’s the first time i drive the facelifted version um and on that front contrary to the fit and finish some of the plastics down here too on

The center console or i mean they don’t line up again the gaps are huge and besides that everything else is essentially exactly as i remember it being all those years ago when i first drove a chrysler 300 seat and going as far back as 2015. um there is one downside i suppose i’ll start with that um this is as i’ve said an older car now although the platform itself

Is an evolved slightly older mercedes-benz platform it’s still really really good however its age cannot be completely hidden and what the giveaway is that although this car is still very smooth smooth very relaxed on the road uh refined comfortable and all that there is an edge um how can i explain this you get to the limits or to the crossing of the dampers

Compensating for the structure relatively quickly and on this relatively smooth road i can sense it i can feel it not sense and feel it um and that’s when the dampers kind of get through that initial travel dedicated to comfort and then get into the portion where it’s actually absorbing excess vibrations and whatnot due to the oops to the age of the platform but

Even so and i’m repeating myself the ride quality is still really good and the handling is quite nice as well now fca’s 3.6 liter engine has won numerous awards and it remains an excellent engine right even after a number of years blah blah blah whatever it still fits right in with the automotive landscape in 2021 let’s fast forward a few months why not with

292 horsepower and 260 pound-feet of torque it’s still plenty powerful to get the large sedan up and running and as as often as the case with eight speed automatic transmissions that is the magic number my friends uh this eight speed has everything going for it now as i mentioned this model has all-wheel drive which is a 2500 option for some versions uh 300c

Does not get all-wheel drive with v8 um is actually quite efficient i mean i’ve driven other products with all-wheel drive in the past and it’s it’s constant torque variation front to back and all that gives you plenty of traction i mean that might be my only regret oh and also the v6 still kinda sounds good kinda sounds good what else can i say i mean brakes

Feel great uh steering is nice for for the application for the type of car it is everything is just about perfectly sorted yes it could use an extra mild dose of dampening or comfort springiness or plushness i should say not springiness uh but overall this is still an extremely competent car segment which is about this big i mean if you include uh geez if you

Buy you could probably still find a buick regal or two uh nissan maxima toyota avalon and i mean at least it’s twin dodge charger i mean still one of the best in the bunch i mean at one point it was the only one available with all-wheel drive now that the avalon is available with all-wheel drive i mean it was the best overall this was definitely the second best

Overall and i think that still remains if you want something comfortable elegance ah yes i know the maxima is like a four-door sports car blah blah blah i don’t necessarily believe that but anyhow this is still a very competent car and to be quite honest and i will end on this there is no reason why you should ever pay full retail for one of these when they’re brand new that’s it

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2020 Chrysler 300 Limited AWD Review By Motor Illustrated