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Chrysler has earned the reputation of having some of the shoddiest interiors in the business, a perception they’re working hard to address with their new products. Jack Baruth calls the new Grand Cherokee’s interior “class competitive,” and the new 300 will aspire to at least match that accolade. And though we won’t know just how good the 300 is until we fondle the materials, jiggle the dials and knock the dash, we do have a few pictures of the 300’s interior to pass snap judgment upon. Leaving aside details like whether the 300’s wood trim has ever seen a forest before, is the 300 shaping up to be a pleasant place to spend time behind the wheel?
48 Comments on “Inside The 300: Just Better, Or Actually Good Enough?...”
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Personally (and just from seeing pictures), I hate it.
However, it is nice to see that the wood from the Aspen SUV is being put to good use.
You mean “wood” with the quotes, don’t you? That was one of the most offensive parts of the Aspen’s interior. If this isn’t real wood, it’s gonna suck real bad.
As a two time 300 owner (V6 and SRT8), and member of 300C forums, I’d like to say that:
alja – I agree with you. I hate it, but, I do like the new technology, namely the Nav screen, and the integration of the seat controls for air conditioning and heating. I think the technology package is going to make this car stand out.
The interior is definitely higher quality than what we Chrysler owners have now, unfortunately, the older interior had more DIY charm and character despite feeling cheaper than a Toyota.
The real dissapointment is the exterior.
I absolutely love it. Fake or not, that shade of wood looks great with the tan leather, and I like the dark upper dash to break it up a little bit.
Something must be wrong with me that I’m drooling over a Chrysler interior… (the new JGC is pretty darn nice looking as well while were on it)
As far as technology goes, pretty much anything would be a major improvement over the old Chrysler nav system, which was easily the worst of any mainstream brand. Ford has taken the lead with infotainment/phone/nav technology in vehicles, at least with regards to capability and features, but a powerful yet simple system that might not do as much, but is easier to learn, could draw a fair number of buyers. Right now it takes a little over an hour to go over all of the technology features in a loaded up Ford or Lincoln at time of delivery to a new owner, and lot of the older customers have no desire to learn it all, and will probably never use 80% of it. I can see Chrysler doing well with a ‘just enough’ type of solution.
looks like a Jag. Not bad for a Chrysler.
It looks comeptitive with Cadillac, Lincoln and Buick at least. I also see a lot of new/shared corporate parts with the Jeep which I have had seat time in. If the Jeep is any indication it should be completely acceptable inside.
The application of the wood trim reminds me of those online Diego activities where your kid clicks on a section and it fills in that area with a colour. Never been a fan of it, but they clicked on a few too many sections. I’d say door trim, dash trim and shift gate deck trim would be acceptable. Adding it to the radio panel (should be black to balance out that silver trim) and steering wheel are just tragic to say the least.
Otherwise the shapes and contours are mildly pleasing but the arm rests on the doors look a bit clunky.
The worst thing Dodge inherited from Daimler was that zig-zaggedy shift gate. Awkward and annoying to use, ugly to look at and impossible to clean. Don’t they every wonder how come Merc has moved on to booted shifters?
They should just move back to the great american tradition of Column Shifters.
Or the great old Mopar tradition of pushbuttons!
I trust there is more room between the shift knob and the console faceplate than what the picture implies. Picture a gloved hand shifting it into Park but not getting it quite engaged. Think back to the ’60s when Ford hid Park in a morass of mush.
Hundreds of attorneys built very nice vacation homes off that one.
That’s a great shift gate pattern, except once they tried to adapt it for manumatic modes.
The springs always pull the shifter to the left, so as soon as you get it close enough up to Park, the shifter is pulled securely over in that gate with no possibility of “accidentally” disengaging park.
It is also very easy to use by feel, and intuitively protects from shifting between Drive and Reverse too quickly. You can push up from Drive to Neutral, but you have to then push right and up to reach Reverse.
The screwiest part of this pattern on 80s Benzes was the four speed that started in second gear, and the shifter only had D, S, and L. You could pull it down to L at a stop, which would get you the first gear start, but it wouldn’t upshift until you pushed up to S, which also allowed for third gear, so you had to pull back down to L to hold second, then back to S when you wanted third, and up to D for fourth.
I’ve used one of those shifters for the last 3+ years on two cars, and there’s not a thing wrong with it. I had no problems using it, or cleaning it. People rag on the most minor things when it comes to Chrysler bashing..
CarPerson’s comments about the finger-smasher shifter (think of all the pinkie rings that will be impaled on that wood trim!) made me look more closely at the console as a whole… and my eye was drawn to the slap-dash assembly of the wood panel around the HVAC controls, relative to the pleather surrounding it. That overflush gap at the corner — where it also meets the Testors-grade silver radio plate — reeks of poor assembly.
A minor flaw, sure… but panel fits kinda matter when you’re shelling out $40K on a car. Consider:
-This is presumably the carefully-vetted photo model. How much worse will those fits be in regular, mass-production, CAW-wrenched 300s? And —
-The fact this wears a Chrysler badge probably makes that last question rhetorical.
There are better pics on the web showing different wood trim and for you purists no wood trim.
I rode in a loaded Dodge Magnum yesterday. I would definitely take the old dashboard over this gin palace looking mess. The ergonomics appear to have been better on the old one too. Could anyone with legs longer than their arms hope to reach the infotainment system?
I have a general distaste for CURRENT Chyslers… with that said..
It still does NOTHING for me aesthetically, while (VERY) basically fulfilling a (personal) ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT not to have a totally BLACK interior..
Being that this is a D size car competitor…
I can only say.. it should have been this way.
The Charger should be more sporting than this.. and I don’t mean red trim and gauges.. either.
Looks like the inside of an american Jaguar. Its a lot better than the American Chrysler Interiors of the past few years.
It’s nicer than my (POS) 91 Dakota.
It’s beautiful. So sick of everyone bitching. This is a quantum leap for Chrysler.
Really don’t understand fake wood.
I guess a lot of people won’t know it’s fake.
At least silver plastic can be thought of as not pretending.
Agreed, I don’t understand it either. I have a deep and heartfelt hatred of the fake wood in my Suburban. It’s really the only thing about the interior that I dislike. But I also hated the fake wood in my last two Benzes, too, just in case somebody was warming up an anti-American missive. And I hated the real wood in my ’72 Benz, now that I think about it.
My biggest peeve, though, is the glare from high-gloss interior surfaces. Some of the fake wood in my Suburban is angled in such a way as to totally blind the driver at random times whenever the sunlight happens to strike it right. And inevitably, whatever item I fumble around and grab to block the glare slides right off, to be lost between the seat and the center console — at which point I am instantly blinded anew.
My biggest peeve, though, is the glare from high-gloss interior surfaces. Some of the fake wood in my Suburban is angled in such a way as to totally blind the driver at random times whenever the sunlight happens to strike it right. And inevitably, whatever item I fumble around and grab to block the glare slides right off, to be lost between the seat and the center console — at which point I am instantly blinded anew.
Sounds like a “Truth about..” investigation might be in order here. Does fake wood trim cause a greater number of accidents than standard trim?
I like it. As Craig Ferguson’s robot sidekick Geoff Peterson would say; “It’s sexy time!”
Giv’ me wood, fake or otherwise, any day over brushed aluminum, fake carbon-fiber crap. I want an Impala SS with the LTZ’s fake wood interior, that’s how I feel about wood.
There is a place (ie right kind of car) for aluminium interior trim, and a place for wood. Clearly the 300C is of the latter variety. But would you put a wood interior in an Audi TT, for example? I think not …
I believe there is always a place for wood, real or fake. In fact, one of my pet peeves for vehicle interior design is when the ‘sport package’ automatically deletes the wood in favor of metal or carbon fiber. Wood, at least to me, always looks classier and warmer.
Well, the dash is better than the Accord’s buttony techno-mess.
The retro-style protruding guages are in keeping with the exterior, but not with the rest of the interior.
It’s good that they left the bottom of the wheel open. Some automakers (like Honda) didn’t during some recent years, and that’s a show-stopper because that’s where I hold the wheel.
Overall it’s OK. Certainly not going to offend anyone, and it probably suits the 300’s target markets just fine.
Emulate Picasso or Salvador Dali for the lulz.
Is that hip enough to fit in with the youngunz?
Using “lulz,” that is?
Wanna’ build up my non-existent “street creds.”
Unwilling to relinquish my dumpster rights, though.
And my shanty’s dirt is still forbidden territory.
Scat!!!
Good to see them not following the new eurotrash trend of making mikey mouse ears out of the vents. Like that new Jaguar, for instance.
Even though they took away those great straight lines from the original, I am rooting for 300M to succeed for a long time. We need big rwd cars like that.
>>Giv’ me wood, fake or otherwise, any day over brushed aluminum, fake carbon-fiber crap.
Amen to that. Even if it’s not a fake carbon veneer. Carbon splinters are much nastier than wood in an accident.
A lot better than before – the old 300 looked like a taxicab inside. I wouldn’t pick maple-colored “wood” with tan, but I’d take a darker wood over fake carbon fiber. I wish premium cars would go back to having six gauges though.
It’s not too bad, but I hate the steering wheel. The current 300 has a nice four spoke wheel with spokes that are almost thin enough to wrap your hand around. The new one seems retrograde. The center part of it is tremendous. It looks like one of the ugly airbag steering wheels from 1990-91, when they were just figuring out how to package them. The spokes at 9 and 3 are also too thick. Maybe I’m a bad steering wheel user, but I like to grab the spokes when I’m cruising. The bottom spokes at a weirdly non-standard 5 and 7 are a total mystery.
Other than my constant gripe about useless, space-robbing, fun-with-partner preventing consoles when you could just put the automatic gear selector on the column or use push buttons, it;s really not too bad. Just give 1991 back their steering wheel.
I like the two tone, but they really missed it on the wood trim color with that. Should have used a darker wood. The lighter wood tone looks bad there.
Personally not to my taste, but compared to Chrysler’s old interiors a massive leap forward.
Nice, nice, nice. What an improvement! I’ll be sure to check one out. Now, if all the charcoal-colored areas aren’t hard plastic, that’ll be a plus, too.
It appears Chrysler may be on the right track.
BTW, I agree with Jedchev’s comment about the console and all. What’s wrong with a column shifter and no console? My Imp has the column shift and no console – very comfy and lots of knee-room to boot, too.
Also, regarding the brushed aluminum/painted plastic, I agree with that as well.
What is with those glowing blue gauges? They look as garish as the ones on the Fusion. I really hope this is not the beginning of a new trend …
I can’t really tell from the pictures how cheap the plastic parts will feel, or how they will sound when i tap my fingers on them, so I’ll just have to say it looks ok. We’ll know when it’s out on the streets.
My car has a genuine wood dash. It’s gorgeous, but I’m always concerned it will get nicked or scratched. The CD player has been in need of repair for a year. I took a look at the baboon in the radio shop and departed at high speed.
That wood looks like pressboard. Couldn’t they at least fake Luan plywood. You can get lots of it at the Home Depot.
Wood and/or fake wood has no place in a modern car.
Except this one (see point 2).
http://www.morgan-motor.co.uk/technical/faq.phtml
Rusted Source:
I specifically said “modern car”. Malvern’s cars are decidedly not modern … nor should they be.
Regards,
Dan
We’ll they’re still making them and Top Gear said it’s a hoot to drive so I don’t know how that doesn’t apply to modern.
@Rusted Source, I don’t think still being manufactured makes a car modern. Or would you still have called the original Beetle “modern” in 2003?
Or is “modern” defined by whether Top Gear thinks a car is a hoot to drive?
I would have to see it in person.
But there are few interior combinations that are nicer in terms of texture and smell than high quality burled walnut and Connolly leather.
If Chrysler put that in the 300 I bet the over-55 crowd would gladly open their wallets. Well, at least those who still have one.
Fugg the new interior.. when’s Chrysler gonna get with it and give the 300 electric power steering? They just had a big recall on the p/s hoses.
I actually came close to buying a 300c Hemi. On paper, it was exactly what I wanted from a car, and reasonably priced. But my two main issues were:
Chrysler quality. I owned a Dodge Dakota and the quality was about the worst of any car I ever owned. From everything I read, Consumer Reports also said it had a number of issues. Every survey shows Chrysler at he bottom of quality. Didn’t want to risk it.
It became the de facto “Douschebag/Jersey Shore” car in my area. The ridiculous rims and blinged out chrome grills just killed it for me.
As an owner of a 2006 the biggest problem with the current 300C is the cheap, crappy interior and this seems like a step in the right direction. The new V6 may make the V8 unnecessary but there’s nothing like a big rear wheel drive American car with 360 horsepower.
Having recently driven, for three months, an original 2005 300, I can say the center stack is a huge improvement. I’ll take the original instrument cluster with it’s crome bezeled white face and black numerals. It looks classier than the blue light fad instruments. The 2005 door arm rest needed more padding, but I’d prefer that over the newer one. The original seats were very comfortable, but I’d have to plant my tush in the new ones before passing judgement. The original dash was plain and needed something extra, but as has been said, too much wood, and too light in color. The steering wheel is so ugly, if I bought a 2011, I’d shell out $ to install the older wheel.