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Review 1 of 469
Price Paid:
$14500.00
from Pembina Chrysler, Wi Year / Model Reviewed:
2005 Dodge Neon Strengths:
Outstanding value, large interior and "peppy" performance, engineered CHEAP upkeep (simple transmission, designed to burn poor gas, intentional inexpensive spark plugs, etc). Outstanding Winter performance .. 2" high ground clearance then Civic, wonderful heater, etc). Weaknesses:
DEPRECIATION was enormous ... but was largely due to Chrysler's pricing practice of inflating MSRP to cover the cost of often "0%" financing. My 2005 MSRP was $20,000 but I paid $14,500 cash -- so I had learned to essentially pocket the depreciation by not using the Chrysler financing. Summary:
I have had three Dodge Neons .. 1995, 2001, and 2005 (called Dodge SX 2.0). All have been just terrific cars; as we all know, until 1997 the headgaskets went constantly; so my 1995 was a really nice driving car, it has some issues.
However my 2001 and 2005 have virtually been trouble free. J D Power -- contrary to popular belief -- rated the Neon slighty ABOVE the Honda Civic for durability (both cars were not highly rated -- again something people are surprised to hear).
The Neon has was heavily made sport of by Toyota and Honda buyers because of it's cabforward styling -- which gave it a large interior, but made the hood short.
Today, both the Corolla and Honda Civic are strongly cabforward designs and the Civic adapted away from the double-wishbone suspension, to being MacPherson Stuts -- just like the Neon. The Corolla redesign was almost spec to spec identical to the 2nd generation Neon -- including the engine being approx 132hp.
Although the Neon never receive the "major" redo that was actually planned for 2000 -- it was stil competitive until the Mazda 3 came out, and the most recent Civic redesign -- both of which surpassed the Neon in being clearly superior designs.
Until then, the Neon did very well in Quantitative assessment, and poorly in Qualitative assessment (like consumers magazine) -- in comparison to other cars of similiar size and cost. Similar Products Used:
Drove a Civic for several years, before happenstance .. uh forced .. me into Dodge products. I was amazed how my views were incorrect on domestic cars -- granted you have to do far better research to get good domestic cars.
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