You either love the styling of the 300 or you hate it. I wouldn't buy any car I considered ugly, I'm puzzled why you would consider a car you think is so ugly. BTW, my 300C does not require premium gas, only mid-grade. Are you sure the 300C AWD requires premium? As for having AWD in New England, that's a wise decision on your part. I kept the 300C in the garage here on Long Island after the first time I drove it in the snow.
I have two reasons for considering the 300C even though I don't like the styling. 1st I've been happy with Chryslers, I had a LeBaron GTS Turbo in the 80s and it was a decent car for the money. I'm currently driving a 94 Concord 3.5L which was a wonderful car in it's youth. It's on it's last legs now, it needs a complete brake job, probably shocks, the engine has gotten rough, the air conditioning is dead, and I've just had the transmission rebuilt for the second time (the first rebuild lasted two months). I'm not going to throw anymore money into it.
The most important reason why I haven't been able to reject the 300C is the driving experience. I've now driven all of the Japanese cars in it's price range and higher (the RL is 49K and the M35 is 51K, the sticker on the AWD 300C that I test drove was 40K). There is simply no comparison between the way the 300C behaves and the Japanese cars. The TL, RL, M35 and Avalon were all competent. Their handling was decent and their acceleration was respectable. But the 300C stuck to the road like glue and it was glass smooth. I touched the pedal on the 300C and it was at 100 and I wouldn't have known it without looking at speedometer. The Japanese cars were all working hard at 80 even though the power to weight ratio is similar for the TL and the RL. On the other hand the NAV system is extremely important to me and the user interface of the Acura system is much better than the 300C's. The 300C uses a joy stick which sucks. I'm not sure if it has voice recognition, that's something I need to check on, but without it the system will be fairly unusable when the car is in motion. The Acura TL has a touch screen and voice recognition, it's beautifully engineered. It also comes with bluetooth standard but I can order that option on the 300C.
You should also check to see what Chyrsler puts on their navigation system. I was in the UK last year and a guy with a brand new Chrysler minivan told me it was crap. I think he said it was missing hotels and the like and since he was a driver who picked up people at hotels it was worthless. He said his cheap hand held portatable system was far superior.
The few times I've relied on the NAV system to get me to a hotel or restaurant, it worked fine taking me right to where I wanted to be. I've not had a NAV system in any other car and actually always thought that I would never find it useful. After using it I don't ever want to buy another car without one.
note - "few times"
It's a toy, like the stereo system with 11 speakers and 300 watts (the last time I had a CD in my 300m's 4-CD changer was a few years ago).
If you like GPS, then get a hand-held unit. At least you can take it with you. I take my Geko when I travel. Shove it between the dashboard and windshield of the rental car, push a few buttons, bring up the way-point I'm going to that I programmed into it ahead of time (terraserver.microsoft.com) and follow the compass.
If you want fancy, then hook your hand-held up to your laptop running something like MS Map-point. Will show you where you are in real time on a detailed street map. Map-point Europe too.
Took my Geko to Germany a few months ago. Worked great.
I'd never choose a car based on whether or not it had built-in nav system.
Give me ventilated seating first. That's what I'd be looking for. Then laminated side glass. AND very important -> glass that doesn't block radar signals enough to render radar detectors useless.
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do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
do you know anyone lookin for a integra motor 92 low miliage please email me at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
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