Dodge Neon SRT4 to be exact. What's your take on them? Great cars, great potential, shit boxes? Speak up!

 

to each their own... that being said:

They are just as glorious as any of its predecessors:

88 dodge shadow turbo:

88 dodge daytona turbo:

88 Chrysler Lebaron Turbo:

Just to name a few...

Just because it has a turbo in it, doesnt make it fast. Plus, once you modify the piss out of it, it still gets romped by other turbo cars of the same class or at time even smaller class.

There is one down the street from my shop. I can tell when the owner gets to work, goes to lunch and goes home... The same ricey rasp with the exposed turbo whine for attention...

Ill pass on these dodge in a diaper.

Last Turbo car with the dodge/chrysler logo on it worth a crap was the Chrysler Conquest... No, not the Stealth (freaking crappy heavy pig)

 

It's funny that you mention the Daytona. Back in the mid 90's my mom's boyfriend had a small car lot. His car of choice (other than his weekend car, the bad ass 72 Cadillac Eldorado- Orange exterior, white leather interior, 472 cubic inch V8 and FRONT wheel drive) was an 89 Chrysler Laser turbo (Daytona's twin). Car was pretty quick for its time. However that was about 17 years ago. Now they're pretty much junk, if running at all. He actually had another non turbo that he gave to my brother. Car was ok until it caught fire on the Skyway...
As for the Neon, I want to like the SRT4 but I just can't. I still respect them at the track as long as that track is straight. My problem with the owners is they refuse to acknowledge the fact that they drive a Neon. SRT4 is the trim level. No matter how you look at it you're still driving a Neon, so stop telling everyone you have an SRT. A Civic Si is still a Civic, an Evo is still a Lancer, so on and so forth.

 

evo is not a lancer.... But i have seen lancers modified to look like evos

 

I beg to differ. No matter how bad ass the Evo is, it's still Lancer Evolution. It probably shares nothing but maybe lug nuts with the Lancer, but the Evo is still based on and badged as a Lancer.

 

turbo any FWD grocery getter, you just have a fast turd.

 

Neon = Dodge low end car. SRT4 still a low end car with accesories
Lancer = Mitsubishi low end car. Evo still a low end car with accessories. I don't care what you call it it's still a lancer! There's one down the street from me that you'd swear was an Evo until he takes off...

Conclusion is you can polish a turd but it's still a piece of shit! And this coming from someone who bought a neon new in 04... Had it 1yr if that.

 

I voted "who cares get what you like" but I owned an 04 SRT-4 for 2 years. Electric Blue to be exact.























































What a fuckin shit box car. I got it in great condition. Seriously it was immaculate, it had 70K on the odometer and I was pleased with the power even though it was FWD. It had just a few mods, but nothing major. Every little thing that could break on the car..........Broke. Seriously. From the throw out bearing fork going bad, to the wheel bearing hub wearing out, to the electrical issues......Don't even get me started on the fucking vacuum leaks. Not to mention on the LAST DAY I owned the fuckin shit box neon, I was driving it home to be parked for the evening before I drove it to the dealership to get traded in, and the fucking axle broke while doing 50mph on the road. I couldn't trade that thing in fast enough. Seriously.

 

They got a lot of flack when they came out but it seemed like they were really easy to make fast.

Now when I see one on the road, it looks like every other 6-8 year old Neon; dirty, busted, and just, well...."old Dodge" look and sound to it.
They had potential, but even the well done cars still looked like Neons.

The Conquest/Starion and the Eclipse/Talon were the last true good pseudo-Dodge cars around, and even they were not the most put together cars out there, but they were damn fast.

 

To be fair, for a 4 cylinder car, the SRT4's sounded nasty when done right, which wasn't hard. Open downpipe sounded like ass and made you look like a broke fucker. However if you had a nice 3 inch out the side or back, they sounded mean and angry. Mine was an off brand exhaust that exited out the back, it really helped cabin noise and sounded much more deep and angry than raspy and retarded.

However you're right about the "falling apart look". They just literally start to go to shit with every little thing. Don't get me wrong, the car was quick and a lot of fun to drive when it worked, but that wasn't as often as I would like. Not to mention getting 18mpg in the city and only 23 on the highway sucked dick. Nothing worse than getting only 210 miles on a 9.5 gallon tank of gas.