2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser Review & Road Test at Automotive.com

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2007 Chrysler PT Cruiser Convertible

Below is a review of the 2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser written by the automotive experts at Automobile Magazine. A full evaluation of the driving experience, price, equipment, and specs are here in a structured, easy-to-navigate format from journalists with a wealth of experience.

2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser Safety Features

2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser Costs of Ownership

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IntelliChoice Value Rating

The chart above shows the purchase price versus ownership cost for each car from a specific vehicle class. The cars with better than average ownership cost/purchase price correlations are the best values, and these best value cars are represented by the dots below the curve. (i.e. the cars that have a lower ownership cost compared to its purchase price.) Those cars, which are worse than average or poor values, appear above the curve.

One way to view the graph is to draw a vertical line through any purchase price. You may see several dots that fall on this line - each of which is a car with a similar purchase price. However, notice the difference in ownership costs of each car represented by the vertical position of the dot. Two cars with the same purchase price can have thousands of dollars difference in ownership costs. This is what separates "good value" cars from "poor value" cars.

What is a good car value?

A "good car value" is one whose cost to own and operate is less than expected. The lower the cost to own and operate a car compared to what is expected, the better the value of that car.

But how do we know a car's "expected cost"?

For each car in the class, IntelliChoice plots the car's purchase price against the total five-year cost to own and operate it as determined by IntelliChoice research. Each dot on the above chart represents a specific car. Generally, we find that as the purchase price of the car increases, the cost to own and operate that car increases. This is why the dots on the graph tend to rise upward and to the right. This phenomenon also makes intuitive sense - as the purchase price rises, financing costs tend to rise, as do insurance, depreciation, taxes, and most other car ownership costs.

This is an important concept. It's normal for car ownership costs to rise as purchase price rises. Therefore, we can't just establish one "average" ownership cost number for each class, since cars in the class have different purchase prices. (This is why the "Relative" shown on each chart is different for cars in the same car class.)

Using statistical techniques, IntelliChoice "connects the dots" to form a curve that defines, for this car class, the relationship between the car's purchase price and car's ownership costs. This curve is our "expected cost" curve. The curve defines, for any car in the class, the five-year ownership cost that we would expect to see at each possible purchase price. If every car in the class were an average value, then all the dots would fall exactly on the curve. However, it's rare that any dot is exactly on the curve. Some dots are a little higher or lower, and some are a lot higher or lower. The dots that are a little lower are better than average car values, while the dots that are a lot lower are excellent car values (A dot that is a lot lower than the curve has ownership costs much lower than expected for a car of its purchase price). Conversely, a dot a little higher than the curve is a poorer than average car value, while a dot that is much higher than the curve is a poor car value.

Value is a relative term, not an absolute term. It is performing better than the logical expectation.

So is a Mercedes-Benz E320 expensive to own and operate? Certainly in an absolute sense. Most other cars cost less. But, when its cost to own and operate is plotted against cars with comparable invoice prices, the E320 costs less. So the E320 is not expensive to own and operate - it is a good car value. The Mercedes does not have low ownership costs, but it has low ownership costs for its invoice price.

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Review From Automobile Magazine

2007 Chrysler PT Cruiser Convertible

By Jamie Kitman / Article provided by: Automobile Magazine

Cue the shot, drop the top. Chrysler, makers of America's best-selling convertible, the Sebring, adds a new open machine to its lineup: the long-awaited PT Cruiser convertible. Revealed as a design study at the New York auto show in 2001, it took a little longer than expected to materialize, but it's ready to hit the stage at last. It's late, but with PT Cruiser looks, a standard power top, a spacious back seat, and prices beginning at $19,995, you can be sure that there's an audience waiting.

Say what you like about the PT Cruiser, but as the last legacy of the pre-English-as-a-second-language Chrysler, it speaks of a company that did not have any apologizing to do in the creative thinking department. With more than 640,000 built since its spring 2000 introduction, this Neon-based retrovan was a fresh breeze that not only earned its keep in the budgetary scheme of things but also has inspired a fanatical following. Among those following is General Motors, with the upcoming 2006 Chevrolet HHR (for heritage high roof), designed by the PT Cruiser's designer himself, Bryan Nesbitt, who was hired away from Chrysler by GM.

Every car manufacturer struggles to keep sales interest piqued in a new model as the years following its introduction accumulate. This reality seems especially acute for the recent wave of retrostyled vehicles. With a self-selecting and quickly sated audience, new conquests are hard to find. At the same time, these cars are meant to have long life cycles, which leaves their makers time to answer the perplexing question: How do you update something deliberately made to look old?

The PT Cruiser, whose sales declined by more than 20 percent (to 107,759) in the United States in 2003, fell victim to the same malaise Volkswagen suffered a few years back with its retro New Beetle. And, as Volkswagen has found (also belatedly), convertibles can help restore lost volume.

You either like the Cruiser's mini-gangster styling or you don't. We do. As convertibles go, it's a good one for function, with significantly more luggage room and ten inches more rear legroom for its two rear-seat passengers than the open-topped VW, itself sporting more legroom than the Ford Mustang convertible, the PT's other close price competitor. With raised ("theater") seating, life for occupants of the rear seats--usually the most miserable people in any convertible--is less bleak but not perfect. There is a huge "sport bar" (so named by lawyers to minimize its responsibilities in a rollover) to contend with. It helps tie the body together, as well as providing a mooring for seatbelts, overhead lights, and the like. Chrysler says it directs air over passengers' heads when the top is down, but you could have fooled us. When the roof is up, the sport bar is completely encapsulated inside the car, making it seem as if there's a somewhat intrusive, freestanding object directly in front of you. Which there is. (Come to think of it, sports bars are always like that, especially around happy hour.)

The entry-level PT convertible comes packing 150 ponies and a five-speed transmission--a team hard-pressed to motivate the hardtop PT even before it gained the convertible's extra 280 pounds. Next up is the Touring model, with an available 180-horsepower turbo, at $22,900. It splits the difference between the slow and basic base model and the 220-horsepower, high-output GT, which, at $28,155, goes pretty fast but isn't so cheap anymore.

Chrysler has made numerous structural reinforcements in the name of safety, as well as improving ride and handling, in making their little van a convertible, but rough roads set the Cruiser positively aquiver with cowl shake. Faster models also suffer not insubstantially from torque steer.

Not that it really matters. People don't buy PT Cruisers for best-in-class dynamics. They want the style the open-air PT delivers. With the United States and more than thirty other countries in which to sell them, Chrysler's Toluca, Mexico, plant ought to find a home for every one it builds.