2009 Dodge Nitro R/T Review
Brian Cooley: It’s the smaller of Dodge's 2 SUV's but where does it fit, high
MPG, sprightly performance, high technology, or a scarcity there
of? Let's check it and find out in the 2009 Dodge Nitro RT.
Who am I? If you can get past the face, which I can't since it looks
too much like one of those Rock'em Sock'em robots when I was a
kid, the rest of the Nitro is clean, angular lines abound, definitely
not going to be mistaken for one of the dozens of other SUV's out
there with organic ovoid lines. And at least from the front it won't
even be mistaken for its platform mate the Jeep Liberty.
Now here in the office our Nitro RT is top of the line but not really
top of the line. I mean, gees it’s got that kind of cheesy cheap
plastic dash that Dodge does too often and what the hell is that,
that's orange, that's real orange. What is this the official car of the
Florida Grower's Association? Alright let's get past that and go to
the technology. This is a scorching value for a little over $2100.00
look what you get. First of all one of my favorite navigation
systems on a 6 and a half inch touch-screen, great large buttons, I
love the color icons. Things are really distinct. You can quickly
figure out, oh yeah that's the button I want.
Once you do get your destination running you'll have a really good
idea of what lies ahead because you've got Sirius Live Traffic in
here. Interesting quirk on this system, well I guess they'd call it a
feature is you can preview your route that takes you through a step
by step fly through of your route with audio prompts. Now because
we're hard drive based on this guy you do have some space to store
your own media so you can get that music in there from either a
USB drive and note, you can only import from USB. You can't
play natively from the thumb drive, kind of interesting, or of
course, you can rip a CD into the drive as well.
And of course, you've got a standard AUX jack here as well, no
HD radio, no iPod adapter available in the truest sense and, of
course, this package also includes UConnect Bluetooth hands-free,
microphone up here in the mirror. Oh, when you look at the web
configurator for this car the feature list says you can rip to the hard
drive from either a disk, a USB drive or even your Auxiliary input,
not true.
And of course, whenever you're listening to on this upgraded
system also goes out through eight upgraded speakers and a
powered sub way better than the bass rig and I say bass for a
reason because this upgraded rig has lots of it.
Now part of what makes a Nitro RT an RT is this motor, a 4 liter
V6, nothing exotic about it, 260 horsepower, 265 foot pounds of
torque, 0 to 60 is kind of a leisurely ten-ish seconds. I'm more
concerned about the mileage, 16/21 are your EPA estimates.
Oh by the way, that's the number set on a two-wheel drive Nitro.
Our guy's all-wheel drive shaves one MPG off the highway
number. Your transmission's one choice only a five speed
automatic they call Autostick. When you're in drive you're already
in the shift gate slap it left or right for up-shifts and down-shifts. A
two-wheel drive Nitro RT is in the low 28's but you got to add
$3600.00 or so for all-wheel drive, $2145.00 gets you what they
call the UConnect GPS head unit with all the bells and whistles.
You must get this. It’s a great deal at that price normally you'd pay
that just for Nav.
There's a convenience group that has backup parking sensors,
remote start, Bluetooth hands-free, its Quasi-tech for $1350.00 and
the sunroof is about $900.00 more.
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