The Review: Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat

As I stepped into the cockpit of this behemoth of a muscle car, I was immediately struck by the abundance of features that make this vehicle a true indulgence. The climate control settings were intuitive and simple to use, with heated seats being a nice touch as well. However, it wasn't until I dove into the driving aspects of this car that I truly began to appreciate its capabilities.

The 8-speed automatic transmission was a mixed bag for me. While it wasn't super fast, it got the job done. In fact, putting it in sport mode didn't seem to quicken the shifts as much as some of my previous experiences with other Hellcat models. The Scat Pack and Road and Track versions of this car seemed to have quicker shift times, down to 0.25 seconds from 400 milliseconds or less. However, this particular model didn't quite live up to those expectations.

In fact, the shifts were somewhat delayed between changing gears, especially when shifting into lower ratios. At times, it was smooth, but at other times, it felt sluggish. Leaving it in automatic drive mode was a good solution, as the car's transmission seemed to do its job without issue. However, putting it in manual shift mode brought some of that lag back, making the shifts feel less responsive.

One area where this car truly shines is in its acceleration. The big naturally aspirated V8 engine is a force to be reckoned with. The second you put your foot down, the torque is immediate and comes on early. This creates a thrilling experience that's hard to match. I mean, just try to resist the urge to floor it – your head will snap back into its seat as the car rockets forward.

When cruising on the highway, this car is surprisingly comfortable. The ride is smooth, with low interior noise levels unless you put your foot down. And even then, the exhaust note is a nice accompaniment to the rush of adrenaline that comes with accelerating hard. Speaking of which, the steering effort is surprisingly low and easy, making it a joy to navigate twisty roads.

While I didn't experience as much body roll as I expected from a car this large and heavy, the ride was still comfortable and controlled. And when it came time to hit the brakes, they were sensitive at first but gradually became more progressive in their response. This made them easy to control, even under hard braking.

Finally, let's talk about the 0-60 times. I left this car in sport mode with traction control on, and it got there surprisingly quickly. However, leaving the transmission in automatic mode allowed me to focus on the task at hand – accelerating down a straight line. And what a rush it was. The car had just enough time to get into gear before hitting 60 mph.

Overall, this Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat is a surprisingly fun and comfortable ride. It may not be the most agile or responsive car in its class, but it's certainly one of the most indulgent. And with its powerful V8 engine, it's a blast to drive – even if it doesn't quite live up to some of my previous expectations.

As I pulled back into the garage after our test drive, I couldn't help but feel impressed by this car's capabilities. It may not be perfect, but it's certainly a unique and exciting driving experience. And who knows? Maybe with further refinement, we'll see an even better-performing Hellcat on the road.

If you have any questions or comments about our review of the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, feel free to leave them below!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome in this video we are checking out the 2016 Dodge Charger RT black top if you're of the philosophy that bigger is always better the Dodge Charger family is probably right up your alley stepping down two tiers from the top trim Hellcat the RT black top shown here in purple and black still boasts a mey 5.7 L V8 producing 370 horsepower and 395 lb feet of torque spring a little extra for the Scat Pack and you'll have the most horsepower in the US market for under $40,000 485 at the crank and 475 lb feet it'll come as no surprise that a car with a longer wheel based in a Cadillac Escalade and the Hefty V8 tips the scales on the heavy side at 4,280 lb now the Dodge Charger is without a doubt an emotional car purchase it's big it's spacious it's comfortable in here it's quiet um and you know there's a lot of things about it that are unnecessary such as a giant V8 uh but it looks awesome on the outside the purple color is sweet um and you know it's got a ton of power and so when you put your foot down even though it does have so much heft it's actually surprisingly quick it sounds great too as far as the interior you know the front windshield is a little bit narrow but that said I don't really have a problem with visibility out the front or to the sides checking your blind spot that's all fine and even looking out the back actually it's got a pretty big window back there so it's a large vehicle um you know parking is going to be more of a challenge but visibility is fine all the way around and you do have a reverse camera as well for backing up you've got the nice large touchcreen here with you connect you know connect your phone things like that um and actually the climate control settings all intuitive simple to use heated seats uh that's nice as well but getting into the driving aspects of it this has an 8-speed automatic transmission um and actually for the most part it's okay it's not super fast and when I did my Hellcat review a lot of people were saying oh like you know you didn't have it in the right mode this one I've actually put in sport mode um and I'm not sure if that actually quickens it in this model I know in the Scat Pack uh or the RT uh Road and track versions it'll actually Quicken the shifts from 400 milliseconds or0 4 seconds down to 0.25 seconds um and this one it doesn't seem to make a huge difference in the shift speed and a lot of people were saying you know the Hellcat actually does have really quick shifts I do believe that one does I just had it in the wrong mode when I was testing it this one on the other hand you know they're kind of delayed uh between changing gears uh so it's it's not even honestly that smooth I mean at times it is um but you know if you're not going for it uh so you really need to be at about 8/10 7/10 and then it seems to work okay and then below that you know it's it's going to be somewhat slow to shift um and it's not super smooth all the time it's okay and for the most part if you leave it in automatic drive mode totally fine and you're not going to really notice it uh it's just going to do its thing if you put it over into the manual shift mode that's where it's kind of been a little bit slower unless less responsive I think once you get into the higher trim models uh they've got a bit uh quicker Transmissions that do it a bit smoother but drop it down into second gear put your foot down fantastic throttle response there the torque is immediate uh and comes on early and you know really really great throttle response there big naturally aspirated V8 engine the second you've got your foot down slammed in your seat I mean you see that you can just see how my head just kind of gets thrown back if I try and not react to it I mean it snaps it's off I love that I love the punchiness to the acceleration uh when you want it it is without a doubt a super comfortable ride it's big it's heavy it's well damped very low interior noise levels unless you put your foot down you can hear the exhaust well but aside from that you know very comfortable in here a perfect Cruiser you get on the highway it's nice and quiet in here you can just coast along uh and it's a nice experience even the steering is on the comfortable side it's pretty easy to get it to turn in very low effort um you know and perhaps for a sport car you might want a little bit more effort but that said for a vehicle this heavy uh and as comfortable of a cruiser as it is the steering effort is very low and it kind of just you know it builds nicely in the corners but it's never really that much and so it's got a nice feel to it for a comfort standpoint not necessarily from a direct feedback standpoint coming into some Corners here of course there's body roll but it's actually less than I would have expected considering how heavy this car is and considering how well it absorbs bumps hard on the brakes initially they're a little sensitive for the first little bit of travel of the brakes uh then they get a nice kind of progressiveness to the build as you press down on them um so just a little initial hard bite and then after that they seem pretty easy to control certainly strong brakes considering the heft once again I think that's just kind of a nice summary of this vehicle is just given how large it is in size and how much it weighs It actually drives uh somewhat surprisingly Nimble it feels like you know it can handle its heft pretty well so we of course need to get a 0 to 60 in I'm going to leave it in sport mode uh I'm going to have the traction control on actually it seems to do a pretty nice job of not being too intrusive leave it in automatic shifting mode let it do all the work just going to put my foot on the brake and the gas and we're going to see how it does little bit of slip there it controls it and there's 60 so it does have two shifts to get there um that will take a little bit of time out from it but the shifts are actually pretty quick uh when you're going flat out like that so I think the time should be decent a surprisingly fun car thank you all for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them belowhello everyone and welcome in this video we are checking out the 2016 Dodge Charger RT black top if you're of the philosophy that bigger is always better the Dodge Charger family is probably right up your alley stepping down two tiers from the top trim Hellcat the RT black top shown here in purple and black still boasts a mey 5.7 L V8 producing 370 horsepower and 395 lb feet of torque spring a little extra for the Scat Pack and you'll have the most horsepower in the US market for under $40,000 485 at the crank and 475 lb feet it'll come as no surprise that a car with a longer wheel based in a Cadillac Escalade and the Hefty V8 tips the scales on the heavy side at 4,280 lb now the Dodge Charger is without a doubt an emotional car purchase it's big it's spacious it's comfortable in here it's quiet um and you know there's a lot of things about it that are unnecessary such as a giant V8 uh but it looks awesome on the outside the purple color is sweet um and you know it's got a ton of power and so when you put your foot down even though it does have so much heft it's actually surprisingly quick it sounds great too as far as the interior you know the front windshield is a little bit narrow but that said I don't really have a problem with visibility out the front or to the sides checking your blind spot that's all fine and even looking out the back actually it's got a pretty big window back there so it's a large vehicle um you know parking is going to be more of a challenge but visibility is fine all the way around and you do have a reverse camera as well for backing up you've got the nice large touchcreen here with you connect you know connect your phone things like that um and actually the climate control settings all intuitive simple to use heated seats uh that's nice as well but getting into the driving aspects of it this has an 8-speed automatic transmission um and actually for the most part it's okay it's not super fast and when I did my Hellcat review a lot of people were saying oh like you know you didn't have it in the right mode this one I've actually put in sport mode um and I'm not sure if that actually quickens it in this model I know in the Scat Pack uh or the RT uh Road and track versions it'll actually Quicken the shifts from 400 milliseconds or0 4 seconds down to 0.25 seconds um and this one it doesn't seem to make a huge difference in the shift speed and a lot of people were saying you know the Hellcat actually does have really quick shifts I do believe that one does I just had it in the wrong mode when I was testing it this one on the other hand you know they're kind of delayed uh between changing gears uh so it's it's not even honestly that smooth I mean at times it is um but you know if you're not going for it uh so you really need to be at about 8/10 7/10 and then it seems to work okay and then below that you know it's it's going to be somewhat slow to shift um and it's not super smooth all the time it's okay and for the most part if you leave it in automatic drive mode totally fine and you're not going to really notice it uh it's just going to do its thing if you put it over into the manual shift mode that's where it's kind of been a little bit slower unless less responsive I think once you get into the higher trim models uh they've got a bit uh quicker Transmissions that do it a bit smoother but drop it down into second gear put your foot down fantastic throttle response there the torque is immediate uh and comes on early and you know really really great throttle response there big naturally aspirated V8 engine the second you've got your foot down slammed in your seat I mean you see that you can just see how my head just kind of gets thrown back if I try and not react to it I mean it snaps it's off I love that I love the punchiness to the acceleration uh when you want it it is without a doubt a super comfortable ride it's big it's heavy it's well damped very low interior noise levels unless you put your foot down you can hear the exhaust well but aside from that you know very comfortable in here a perfect Cruiser you get on the highway it's nice and quiet in here you can just coast along uh and it's a nice experience even the steering is on the comfortable side it's pretty easy to get it to turn in very low effort um you know and perhaps for a sport car you might want a little bit more effort but that said for a vehicle this heavy uh and as comfortable of a cruiser as it is the steering effort is very low and it kind of just you know it builds nicely in the corners but it's never really that much and so it's got a nice feel to it for a comfort standpoint not necessarily from a direct feedback standpoint coming into some Corners here of course there's body roll but it's actually less than I would have expected considering how heavy this car is and considering how well it absorbs bumps hard on the brakes initially they're a little sensitive for the first little bit of travel of the brakes uh then they get a nice kind of progressiveness to the build as you press down on them um so just a little initial hard bite and then after that they seem pretty easy to control certainly strong brakes considering the heft once again I think that's just kind of a nice summary of this vehicle is just given how large it is in size and how much it weighs It actually drives uh somewhat surprisingly Nimble it feels like you know it can handle its heft pretty well so we of course need to get a 0 to 60 in I'm going to leave it in sport mode uh I'm going to have the traction control on actually it seems to do a pretty nice job of not being too intrusive leave it in automatic shifting mode let it do all the work just going to put my foot on the brake and the gas and we're going to see how it does little bit of slip there it controls it and there's 60 so it does have two shifts to get there um that will take a little bit of time out from it but the shifts are actually pretty quick uh when you're going flat out like that so I think the time should be decent a surprisingly fun car thank you all for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below\n"