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2011 Chrysler 200 West Palm Beach

See Our New  Chrysler 200 West Palm Beach, Florida

2011 Chrysler 200 Design

The roof and doors of the Chrysler 200 came from the Sebring, but the entire nose, decklid, rear fascia, interior and chassis have been replaced with better and more modern stuff, the new car has very large, fully integrated halogen headlamp units that flow around the front corner into the fender, creating a line that goes up over the heavily bulging front fender like other Chryslers and then all the way to the rear of the car through the centerline of the body.

At the rear, there's a cross-car chrome bar between the new LED taillamps and another chrome bar down between the exhaust outlets that serve to widen the look of the car. All Chrysler models will have a new wing logo in brushed metal and blue paint to replace the old traditional wing logo and signify the birth of yet another version of Chrysler.

Inside the 2011 Chrysler 200

The three-spoke steering wheel has a nice, thick leather-wrapped rim and a thickly padded three-sided hub flanked by redundant switches for the sound system on the left and the cruise control system on the right

The instrument panel contains the usual three-round-gauge package, and is much more pleasing to the eye after the 2011 redesign, with gray-on-gray graphics and white accent lighting that is brilliantly legible at night when the display remains gray on gray. The center portion of the instrument panel has also been modernized and treated to just enough chrome accents, as has the console and shifter portion lower down than before. On some models, it is possible to have two USB ports, which can be quite handy for phone and laptop charging. The cheap rental-car interior has been banished forever.

2011 Chrysler Driving Impressions

The 283-horsepower V6 engine is a brand new design that will power many future products, and in this application, coupled to the 6-speed but working manually in third and fourth gears through the mountain two-laners, it showed class-leading power and acceleration, not something we ever have said about the Sebring's old engines. It generates almost 1.3 horsepower per cubic inch, and has every one of the latest technologies except for direct fuel injection. Chrysler says the new V6 generates more than 90 percent of its peak torque from 1600 up to 6400 rpm, and our mountain driving showed that it always had plenty of torque coming off of slow corners. The engine has a nice, powerful growl when it's working, and you can't hear it when it's not.

To make the car handle better, the engineers widened the rear track one inch, and retuned nearly every piece, part and system in the front and rear suspensions. They revalved all the shock absorbers, stiffened the front springs by 15 percent, added a rear stabilizer bar where there was none on the previous model, and stiffened the front and rear subframe mounts by 400 and 70 percent, respectively, and the front subframe about 200 percent vertically. The tires have been upgraded to the new quiet-running Michelin Primacy and upsized from 215 to 225 size. The 200 has much-improved noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) behavior, with a new acoustic windshield, laminated side glass, reshaped mirrors, and a retuned exhaust system.

2011 Chrysler 200 Lineup

The Chrysler 200 Limited upgrades from the Touring content with heated leather seats, a new touch-control AM/FM/CD satellite radio with a 30-gigabyte hard drive for music storage and record/rewind/replay capability of up to 44 minutes of satellite radio programming, music tracking, UConnect Bluetooth connectivity, 18-inch wheels and tires, fog lights.

The Chrysler 200 Touring upgrades with a 6-speed automatic, 17-inch alloy wheels, eight-way power seats, satellite radio, automatic temperature control, automatic headlights.

Options include a sunroof , a cold weather group consisting of heated front seats and remote starting, two different sound system upgrades, one including CD/DVD/MP3 and HDD music storage, and one that adds Garmin navigation (Touring only), something the Sebring did not offer. There's a six-speaker Boston Acoustics upgrade, the UConnect voice-operated phone system, remote starting, a block heater for cold climates, and a smoker's package. (All New Car Test Drive prices are Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Prices, which do not include destination charge and may change at any time without notice.)

Conclusion

We were genuinely surprised and pleased at the advancements made in the transition from Sebring to 200. It's prettier by far, the interior is more modern and the materials more luxurious, the cabin is quieter, the engine performance in the V6 is excellent, and the crisp, sharp handling was the biggest and most pleasant surprise of all, although a highway mileage rating of 29 mpg was a nice surprise, too.

Some information for this review was obtained from NewCarTestDrive.com