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2013 Dodge Dart—a 2024 retrospective on two rather different cars!
6K views
Feb 4, 2025
Looking back on our Rallye review and our stick-shift Aero turbo car... a video that took eleven years to make!
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0:00
sometimes it's hard for me to believe
0:02
that it's been more than 10 years since
0:04
the Dodge Dart came out that's the new
0:06
Dodge Dart not one of the old Dodge
0:08
Darts here I am in a video from 2013
0:12
introducing a Dodge Dart in header
0:14
orange which was one of the bright new
0:16
colors designed to spice up parking lots
0:19
that are today filled with gray and
0:22
black SUVs so first we'll look at my
0:25
then intro and then we'll go to now and
0:28
see what I think now so right now we've
0:30
got behind us this beautiful Dodge Dart
0:32
in Hit or orange it's a color that we
0:34
guarantee you will not come out in full
0:36
more on video but it looks a lot like
0:38
this orange you have to actually show
0:39
them the orange you were showing them
0:42
your hand yeah that doesn't
0:44
help so the color was great and the
0:46
color remains great uh for those who are
0:49
going to actually use it but the car
0:52
itself has faded somewhat in recent
0:54
memory partly with that self-fulfilling
0:56
prophecy where if sales aren't great
0:59
when it begins then the auto reviewers
1:01
all pile on to it thinking hey if we can
1:04
be proven right by the sales figures
1:06
later the reality is that the dart was
1:09
actually a very good buy with the 1.4 L
1:12
engine you got great mileage and with
1:14
the 2 L engine you got decent mileage
1:16
and good reliability it was a car that
1:19
handled well it was quite inside and it
1:21
was large
1:23
inside the 2 L engine with the automatic
1:26
or with the manual actually had pretty
1:28
decent pickup it wasn't any anything to
1:30
write home about but it was enough and
1:32
inside you had this basic dashboard
1:36
which was reasonable for the time or you
1:38
could get the really cool old digital
1:41
dashboard and actually while we're here
1:43
let's go through the old digital dark
1:46
dashboard this is the one in the car
1:47
that I actually bought the arrow needed
1:50
some enticement for people to buy it
1:52
because otherwise it was really not a
1:54
great package so here we are I just
1:57
turned the key on revving the engine a
1:59
little bit
2:00
and it's a really nice display that you
2:03
get although there's some sort of weird
2:05
shape uh cloudy shape behind the
2:08
speedometer I never quite figured out
2:11
what that was all
2:12
about the information that you can
2:14
display is quite extensive it shows you
2:17
more than one thing at a time which is
2:19
nice you can easily transform this car
2:23
into a Canadian friendly vehicle or
2:25
Mexican friendly vehicle for that matter
2:28
so it's a really Nazi dashboard and I
2:32
kind of miss that when I go to other
2:34
cars I hope that you like it as well you
2:38
can see that the gas mileage on it is
2:40
pretty good and if you stick to like 50
2:43
to 65 you can easily get that 41 m per
2:48
gallon that the EPA rates it at go up to
2:51
75 and the gas mileage drops down to
2:54
about 38 which is still good of them
2:56
were pretty user friendly and
2:58
well-designed overall
3:00
the 8in center uh screen used uh the UK
3:05
connect system which won many awards and
3:07
was widely seen as being the best
3:09
available I still think it was and
3:12
probably still is it's certainly better
3:14
than what some automakers still have
3:17
today even if you didn't subscribe to
3:19
the travel link which was optional after
3:21
the first I think 6 months or so so keep
3:24
in mind this is 2013 it was really
3:27
pretty impressive for that era and the
3:30
digital dash was even more so we'll take
3:32
a look at that in a minute now back to
3:34
2013 when I'm going to talk about the
3:37
Dual clutch automatic which didn't work
3:39
out so well lift up your foot off the
3:41
gas and the car crawls ever so slowly up
3:44
so a lot of this video focused on the
3:47
automated manual transmission the Dual
3:49
clutch automatic as they called it and
3:51
it did have an auto stick thing where
3:54
you put it over to the left and you go
3:55
up and down like I did just now well
3:58
that turned out to be an arrow bought it
4:00
used getting the arrow was a big mistake
4:02
because the arrow has a much stiffer
4:05
suspension and it also has thinner
4:07
windows but it does come with a nicer
4:10
electronic dashboard that looks a lot
4:12
higher class than this one and it comes
4:14
with some other nice features like the
4:17
backlit tail light all of them came with
4:20
a Nifty overhead sunglass case and uh
4:23
the lights that you just push on to
4:25
activate which are very handy the arrow
4:28
did not come with this handy seat
4:30
container which was in the rally and now
4:33
we're going to talk about my own Dodge
4:35
Dart a 2013 Arrow model with the 1.4 L
4:39
turbo engine you see here with no engine
4:41
cover because it didn't come with an
4:42
engine cover and with the manual
4:45
transmission a six-speed Fiat model my
4:48
Dart was a lot of fun when it was new
4:50
and I really liked it I still like the
4:52
handling but everything feels loose now
4:55
and it's only got about 50,000 Mi
4:58
admittedly it's 10 years old well 11
5:00
years old but the stick shift the clutch
5:04
Everything feels loose when this car was
5:06
new it felt fine but it seems like
5:08
everything's loosened up in the
5:10
powertrain there doesn't seem to be a
5:12
whole lot of low-end torque anymore yet
5:15
really rely on their turbocharger to do
5:17
everything anyway with that 1.4 L engine
5:21
and it doesn't help that the turbo
5:22
control which is integrated with the
5:24
turbocharger itself thank you
5:27
Fiat uh has been cutting in and out
5:30
unpredictably it was taken out and uh
5:34
cleaned off and that seemed to work but
5:36
we're not even at 50,000 Mi yet now the
5:40
arrow was poorly designed really because
5:43
it has very stiff suspension they
5:46
basically dropped it by half of an inch
5:48
but they didn't do it the proper way the
5:50
thing is if you get a regular non Arrow
5:53
Dart they're a lot nicer and if you get
5:55
the 2 L or the 2.4 L Chrysler engines
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you don't have near nearly the same
6:00
number of problems you still have that
6:02
weird Fiat clutch where the shift Point
6:05
seems to wander around unpredictably
6:07
unless you replace a little valve that
6:10
they've got in there to protect the car
6:12
from firsttime drivers or something and
6:15
it's a much nicer car with the American
6:17
engines it's a lot of fun with the Fiat
6:19
engine when the Fiat engine works and
6:21
you're on a nice country road it's not
6:23
quite as nice in the suburbs it's all
6:26
right on the
6:27
highway the car itself is much nicer
6:31
than a lot of people give it credit for
6:33
I still like the dart it's a very
6:35
practical
6:36
package the the trunk is huge the
6:39
interior is very
6:41
large the controls are all really quite
6:45
good I think that other than the push
6:47
button for temperature up down
6:50
everything else makes a lot of sense and
6:52
it's even got a great
6:54
stereo says here it is parked next to
6:57
its ancestor the Valiant the the two of
6:59
them really are completely unrelated in
7:02
just about every way other than Market
7:04
position which was the same for both
7:06
cars and maybe we'll do another video
7:09
comparing them later
7:11
[Music]
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