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2015 Chrysler 200C / 200S convertible, with self-parking demo and UConnect walk-through: car review
Feb 4, 2025
Chrysler Convertible Retrospective Car Review with Self Parking
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0:00
[Music]
0:01
hi this is Dave and I'm here to talk
0:03
about the Chrysler 200C which is a 200
0:06
convertible which is the old Sebring
0:09
convertible the Sebring redefined the
0:11
convertible it was engineered from the
0:13
ground up to be a convertible and it was
0:16
very well received it was a relatively
0:19
small car that had a lot of space
0:21
because they engineered in a spot for
0:24
the top to go rather than having to
0:25
figure it out later and it was built as
0:28
a convertible so it was was a more rigid
0:31
body it was designed from the start to
0:33
be convertible it wasn't just a sedan or
0:35
coup that somebody cut off the roof and
0:37
shoved on a fabric top Tu then Mercedes
0:40
came in or rather Daimler came in they
0:43
had bought Chrysler back in 1998 they
0:46
didn't like what they saw with the
0:48
Sebring convertible where the top was
0:51
made by ASC which had made all the
0:54
Sebring convertibles tops in such a way
0:56
that the tops were reliable they were
0:59
durable and at the last minute Mercedes
1:01
pulled their contract or rather Daimler
1:03
Chrysler pulled their contract away from
1:05
ASC and they gave it to Carmen there
1:08
were two problems with this one of them
1:10
is that ASC went bankrupt because they
1:12
had been expecting to have the next
1:15
generation of the Sebring convertible
1:17
and the second thing was that the tops
1:19
that Carmen made were really awful they
1:22
were unreliable the Press car top broke
1:25
and they kind of destroyed the whole
1:27
reputation of the Sebring convertible
1:30
and it didn't help that Jeremy Clarkson
1:31
came out later and said it was the worst
1:33
car ever made so they renamed it to the
1:35
200 and that's what we've got a 200s
1:38
which is a SP sort of sporty looking
1:40
edition of the 200C not called 200 CS
1:43
because that would make sense it's got
1:45
blackened headlights blackened Grill
1:47
special Wheels leather seats firmly
1:50
tuned suspension around town it felt
1:52
nice The Firm feel gave it a more sporty
1:54
character even though it weighed 4,000
1:56
lb or so which was rather heavy for
1:58
midsize car but inevitable for
2:01
convertible arguably they needed to
2:03
switch to Carmen to get the hard top
2:05
which was a major Improvement when
2:07
you're driving around with the top up
2:09
and there's a lot going on when you take
2:11
it down and lift it back up and when you
2:13
lift it up there's a point where the
2:15
roof clamps on and firmly attaches
2:17
itself and then a little bell goes off
2:19
to let you know if you keep your finger
2:21
on the knob all the windows rise up and
2:23
seal again which was great in terms of
2:25
features this was a great top but it was
2:27
not a reliable top overall
2:30
I thought that the 200 C and S edition
2:33
the 200s was a great car around town but
2:36
I'd rather have had a limited which is
2:38
the more luxury and options oriented car
2:41
its less firmly tuned suspension was
2:43
much better on the highway than the
2:45
jittery one of the 200s the amenities
2:48
and improved styling and much improved
2:50
seats of the 200 make it a much more
2:51
practical car to own than the Sebring
2:54
and both though were really good livable
2:56
convertibles but the 200 clearly was a
2:59
step up over the Sebring a lot of the
3:02
problems that vinyl Daimler influence
3:04
Sebring were addressed by the 200 you
3:07
can see that there is a lot of space and
3:09
that you can move the divider out of the
3:11
way and use the entire trunk while the
3:13
top is up and this gives you a little
3:14
more space and it's a nice practical
3:17
idea they're trying very hard to make
3:20
the Sebring convertible into a car that
3:22
you can own as your only
3:24
car so we're going to go and we're going
3:27
to automatically Park and we're going to
3:29
do it twice we're sort of driving down
3:31
and then we backwards and you can see
3:34
the steering wheel moving all by itself
3:35
and it moves very quickly
3:37
indeed got my hands right off the
3:39
steering wheel sort of see how we're
3:42
backing up this system Act is very nice
3:46
compared to the old Lexus system that we
3:48
used because it lets you get into
3:51
relatively small parking spaces and you
3:53
don't have to take up the whole street
3:55
to do it it lets you go up to 15 mil an
3:57
hour when you're searching for a parking
3:59
space which won't make you many friends
4:01
in a crowded City street but it's okay
4:03
for some
4:05
[Applause]
4:10
suburbs gives you pretty clear
4:12
instructions
4:13
it's pretty nicely set up now we're
4:17
going to do it again and we're going to
4:18
give you the perspective of the backup
4:20
camera this time now the second time it
4:22
was interesting because it was a lot
4:24
faster and more precise than the first
4:26
time the company says that the system
4:28
has to calibrate so I guess it the more
4:31
often you use it the better it gets the
4:34
first time we did some reverse forward
4:37
reverse forward this time we just did
4:39
reverse forward and it was done and we
4:41
were when it was done it was just an
4:43
inch away from the curve which is pretty
4:46
good now at this point we're just going
4:48
to go through some of the screen
4:50
settings and you can see here that
4:52
setting up the screens and what you see
4:54
is pretty easy and pretty fast it works
4:57
surprisingly well and it it's pretty
5:00
well designed pretty well engineered
5:02
it's not hard to use and they give you a
5:04
lot of choices on what you want in
5:10
there you can have the same thing
5:12
showing up in different parts of the
5:14
screen and that's fine you might as well
5:16
let the user make their own choices that
5:18
makes it easier to update things if you
5:20
want to it's very similar actually to
5:23
setting up an Apple Watch you notice
5:26
also that on the bottom you've got your
5:28
electronic uh
5:30
antifreeze temperature and fuel gauge
5:33
everything is very graphically oriented
5:36
but also the letters and numbers are
5:39
always big enough that you can read them
5:40
as a driver without any problems you've
5:43
got a full complement of gauges you can
5:45
only show them one at a time but they're
5:47
quite nice in the center you've got your
5:50
standard 8.4 in screen which we now all
5:53
very familiar with but which when this
5:56
car was new was also new
6:01
not that new because we have it in our
6:03
2013 Chrysler 300 but still it was
6:06
something that other manufacturers
6:08
didn't have as a standard feature
6:10
usually and as you can see you can set
6:12
the car's various preferences here and
6:15
some of them only are used in this
6:18
screen and some of them are used for the
6:20
entire car such as the automatic locking
6:22
and headlight controls this is the app
6:25
section again that was a big deal when
6:27
it was first released let you to
6:30
customize what showed up it didn't
6:32
really get all that many optional apps
6:34
as they expected it was all done on a
6:38
Heen form of BSD Unix by the way that
6:41
they bought from the company that used
6:42
to be black well that's it for me this
6:44
was Dave from motels doing this uh
6:47
classic video review or at least classic
6:50
for me uh by video review standards of
6:53
the Chrysler 200 convertible it was fun
6:56
doing it was fun revisiting it I hope
6:59
that you had a good time too and I'll
7:01
see you for the next one
#Classic Vehicles
#Motor Vehicles (By Type)
#Custom & Performance Vehicles
#Chrysler
#Jeep
#Convertibles
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