The Dodge Nitro

The boy-faced man behind the rental counter swallowed hard before hanging his finger out the window, almost ashamedly, toward the car that would be ours. It was ugly. An American-born mistake, this Dodge Caliber was all box angles, ready to kick your ass if you didn’t stop staring. We didn’t want it, and if appearances have meaning, it didn’t want us.

The driver of the shuttle between the Seattle airport and rental lot wasn’t paid to talk. “Just smile and drive,” I imagined his wiser, IQ 100 brother instructing him, “They don’t need to hear nothin’ accept ‘Thanks’ when they tip.” So when his grasping small talk happened upon “did you hear Chrysler went bankrupt today?”, he followed it with an involuntary gurgling, the sound of his trying to choke the stupidity out of himself and beginning a moment too late. When it came to cars produced by that bankrupt and ill-managed company, the lot the driver delivered us to had nothing but.

Sensing our discomfort with the car, the child at the counter offered an upgrade. “I’ve got an SUV with California plates,” he said, “It’s got to get back home sometime. It’s got power, ‘get you over the mountains, and all the space you need. Just 15 more dollars a day.”

We discussed it indecisively and settled on “No.”

“$10 a day.”

And we were sold. But the kid basically tricked us; when my fiancee stated a preference for something that drove like a smaller car, and when I asked if it was somewhat like a Honda CR-V, he said it was all these things. What it was instead was a Dodge Nitro.

I’ve never driven a tank, but I think I know what it’s like now. Sitting on high, peering down upon lesser SUVs, imagining monster trucking over the reasonably sized vehicles in your path, the Dodge Nitro is like what God would drive if he were an idiot. As I’ve twittered, it’s the wannabe Hummer of some army not quite as buff as the US. Maybe the Canadian? But we actually took the Nitro into Canada, and the funny accented man at the border didn’t seem thrilled to have this beast on his roads.

I kept finding things not to like about the Nitro. First of all, the stupidest thing about it, you know when you press the lock button on your key chain remote, one press locks your car, and another makes it honk? With the Nitro, the first press honks it too. It got so that I was wincing every time I had to use the lock. Passersby would stare and shake their heads, wondering if I’d forgotten I’d already locked it, or if I was a jerk. Nothing but embarrassment for both the car and the driver.

The next thing, I don’t think they tested the Nitro with anyone tall. The front seats have a pad that is headrest height for a smaller person, and uncomfortably mid-back on myself. It was somewhat subtle; it took a few hours driving to realize exactly why I disliked the seat so much. Once I diagnosed the problem, I started using a pillow to give my lower back the same cushioning my upper back was getting, and this worked out. But I imagined some poor tall fool actually buying this vehicle, and needed to use a pillow all the time. If I ever buy a car, I think I’ll need to test drive it on a road trip to check against ridiculous things like this.

Some minor points before I get to a major one: my fiancee kept triggering the car locks by using the armrest. Not sure if they were over-sensitive, or in the wrong place, or if it was just her, but we got to enjoy the sound of bolts flying every once in awhile. Pretty soon she just stopped putting her arm there. The Nitro doesn’t have to admit this is a design flaw exactly, but it makes certain it’s not designed for us. The other lesser point: on our 1000 mile trip from Seattle to Vancouver to San Francisco, we had no cruise control. It just didn’t exist, we checked the manual and everything. Maybe it’s a feature not included in our car and the rental company saved some money, but this thing was all ready for satellite radio and other crazy jazz, you’d think cruise would be standard.

Here’s the major issue. This “I’m a big man”, weapons-grade car, promised to kick ass over the mountains with its V6 and contempt for fuel effiency, it sucked at climbing mountains. The Nitro is just too heavy, it’s like driving a spacious brick. Even unimposing hills seemed to leave the engine out of breath. In the end it did the job, but the smaller cars passing us on inclines mocked us with their relative power.

One thing I did really like was the windshield wipers. The Nitro’s wipers have seven speed settings. That’s as insane as it sounds, and the first five are all degrees of almost never going. But there’s a payoff; you know when the rain is just drizzling, and using the wipers just grinds the windshield? With seven settings, there’s always a speed exactly suited to the amount of light rain confronting you. And the wipers go each time you adjust the setting, so it always feels like you just got it right.

On the same topic, the windshield cleaning feature is excellent. One pull of the wiper handle shoots a full spread of fluid across the windshield, like you just entered a car wash, then automatically wipes twice. Total effectiveness and convenience. The fluid seemed to be water, completely clear, but it got it done.

Hopefully a post-bankruptcy Chrysler can take what’s working about its windshield wiper design and rebuild the industry from there. Here’s my pro-tip for what any future vehicle called the Nitro needs: a nitro button. Just 30-seconds of Batmobile speed. That would sell, right? Detroit can have this idea for free.