White Dodge Sprinter Cargo Van Built By Mercedes Benz 2500 144" Wheel Base on 2040-cars

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2013 Dodge Challenger V6 recalled for fire risk, owners asked not to drive

Chrysler has issued a recall for the V6 version of the 2013 Dodge Challenger (as pictured above in 2012MY) over the possibility of a wiring harness that could short circuit and lead to a fire. Owners of these V6 Challengers built from November 2012 through January 2013 are being urged to contact dealers immediately and, in the meantime, not to drive their cars or park in or near any buildings.
Chrysler estimates around 2,500 potentially affected Challengers are in owners' hands, while another 1,900 are still sitting on dealer lots. The total number of recalled vehicles is 4,459.
So far, Chrysler says that seven fires have been reported - none resulting in injuries. The company is instructing vehicle owners to contact their dealer to find out if their vehicle is included in the recall, but owners can also find the build date information of their vehicle by checking the label in the driver's door jamb.

FCA's large, LX-based RWD cars will stick around until 2020

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles plans to stick with the Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger, and Chrysler 300 until at least 2020, reports Automotive News. The information comes from two unnamed sources and was loosely confirmed by details in the automaker's new labor contract with Unifor, Canada's auto union. The plan, according to two anonymous sources, is to lightly refresh the Challenger, Charger, and 300 until the vehicles make the switch to FCA's new Giorgio platform. The refresh, as Automotive News points out, will happen in 2018. The Giorgio platform currently underpins the Alfa Romeo Giulia and is expected to find its way to two of the three large American vehicles for the 2021 model year. At that time, FCA will discontinue either the Charger or the 300, claim AN's unnamed sources. If one of the vehicles were to go, it would most likely be the 300. The 300's LX platform would be approximately 15 years old in 2020 and the vehicle doesn't draw in as many sales as the Challenger or the Charger. The Charger made the switch from the LX platform in 2010 with the current model utilizing the mildly updated LD platform, while the Challenger recently moved from the LC platform to the LA platform last year. All of those rear-wheel-drive platforms are closely related. Automotive News points out that FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne stated that the new platform could be utilized across various applications in a conference call with analysts last month. The plan, according to the report, is to stretch and widen the Giorgio platform for the next-gen Challenger and Charger. The new platform is also rigid enough to allow the automaker to add a convertible to its lineup, which could lend further credence to rumors of an upcoming Barracuda. Hopefully, the move to the new Giorgio platform doesn't delay the all-wheel-drive Challenger GT AWD or the wide-body, Hellcat-powered Challenger ADR. We'll just have to wait and see. Related Video: News Source: Automotive News - sub. req. Chrysler Dodge Coupe Performance Sedan FCA fiat chrysler automobiles

Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.