PT cruiser buying decision help

Hi,

I am leaving in northern california and I was considering buying a used
car (to use a a second commute car) around $8000 untilI found this ad
for brand new 2006 PT cruisers at $13000.
Of course it is $5000 more dollars but it's a new car.

I do not know anything about cars and actually do not really want to
know but I would appreciate having any advice about this PT cruiser.

Any known issue with the 2006 edition justifying why they sell it at
this price?
Any major known major cons with the PT cruiser?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Charles

 

The PT Cruiser is the base model in the Chrysler line and serves as the loss
leader. With incentives, they can be purchased relatively inexpensively.

One of the factors influencing the cost of the car is the amount of
decontenting which has been done with it. In 2002 (my model year) even the
base model came nicely equipped. Air conditioning, power windows and the
radio/cd player were all standard. Now some of the past standard items such
as a/c are extra cost options.

Historically, the PT Cruiser has been fairly reliable, both my wifes and
mine have been very reliable and we are pleased with them. If you are
planning to use the car as a commuting vehicle, be prepared for the gas
cost, mileage on the PT Cruiser is poor, a factor of the heavy weight and
large frontal area of the car. The PT is about as aerodynamic as a brick.
If you were planning for commuting and didn't want your budget eaten up by
fuel costs, you might want to consider another vehicle.

That said, I love mine. It has lots of room for a small car and gets
reasonably good highway mileage. We just took a trip to Western NC and
averaged about 28-30 mpg.

 

A base PT Cruiser with air and auto is $13,000 employee cost. I know I
bought one 2 months ago before the employee price was given to everyone (my
father is a retired Mopar employee). The car is great for the money- I get
around 21mpg in mixed city/hwy. It is quiet and the interior is pretty
upscale for a base model. They only downer for the base PT is that you
cannot get cruise control for the base model. It is a fantastic car- much
better than the Caliber IMHO (with the exception of mpg). It is a lot more
refined.

Scott

 

The non smooth sides with 30s era fenders are a big aerodynamic problem.
The VW new Beetle has a similar design, resulting in poor mileage for
it's size.

 

Do you have any Cd figures to back up this claim?

Matt

 

I have a 1940 Chrysler Royal coupe with the big fenders and I get
around 20-22mpg. That is the whole point of the PT's styling. My
wife has a 2005 PT Convertible and it is getting around 21 around town
and has gotten 32 on the road here in South Florida using 87 regular
gas, it is the 180 turbo model.

 

The CD for the PT Cruiser is .38, for comparison the CD for a Ford Focus is
..32

 

Folks, not everyone knows as much about this stuff as you guys. What is
"CD"?

Bud

 

That is hardly a huge difference. I wonder what that computes to in
mileage difference? I'll bet it is small. I suspect the flat plate
area difference is more significant than Cd due to fenders and "non
smooth" sides.

Matt

Matt

 

Cd (the d is a subscript on the C) represents the coefficient of drag.
It is a dimensionless value that is related primarily to the shape of an
object and the influence of the shape on the drag of the object. To get
total drag you need a few other parameters such as the frontal area of
the object, etc.

For more than you'll ever probably want to know...

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/dragco.html

Matt

 

Going from a .32 Cd to .38 is an increase of almost 19%.
Also, remember that total drag is proportional to the SQUARE
of the velocity. Therefore, if you double the speed you
quadruple the drag. It's easy to see why the PT does not
get better mileage on the highway. It is pushing a lot of
air.

Al