Impressions of Rented 300 Touring

[rule62]

I'm in Austin, TX for business until Friday. I was able to talk the rental agency to upgrade me from a Pontiac G6 to a brand new 300 Touring for the same price. (Must be my charm... or my good looks ) It's cold and rainy here so I didn't check the build date, but the car only has 255 miles on it. Anyway... the reason for my post is that I notice some things in the new 300 that I've read about on the forum that, thankfully, I have not experienced in my Magnum sxt. Both cars have the 3.5 and NAG1 trans. I've recently had the "2AK" TCM flash performed on my car, but even before that, I did not notice the following things that I am experiencing with the 300...

Tremendous 1-2 shift lag. My Mag had the TCM replaced shortly after I bought it. The replaced part was "2AJ" which was recently updated to "2AK". Is it likely that this new 300 has an older TCM version? That must be the case.

Transmission hesitates when shifting from D to R and back. Of course I stopped fully for the gear change, but even so, when I pressed the accellerator, the car just kinda sat there for a bit then finally went. By this time I was really into it so I wound up spinning the tires (it's kinda rainy here) which must have pissed "HAL" off. My Mag is pretty quick to change directions D to R.

Auto-stick paddle hold to the left to select "best gear for accelleration" is kinda slow. I was explaining to my work partner how the auto-stick works on these vehicles. I tapped the stick and we watched the display change from D to 4 to 3 and back. Then I told him how instead of tapping the stick, you can hold it to the left under accelleration and it will select the best gear. When I demonstrated it, it just seemed like it took a while for the whole show to begin.

So that's it. Nothing really new, but at least I've now experienced for real, some of the things that I've read about here on the forum. Things that I "thought" I may have experienced in my Mag but really hadn't.

The bottom line may be that the 3.5 NAG1's really do benefit tremendously from the new "2AK" TCM flash.

Oh... and I like the analog clock on the 300!

Take care,