My experience : I rented an '05 Dodge Neon SXT with automatic. The experience covered a mix of highway/parkway, stop & go, and residential driving.
POWER
Well, this was the SXT with an automatic, so it certainly didn't have the cheek-pulling acceleration or butt-flattening torque of the SRT-4 which is so oft used as the Neon's power benchmark. That said, though, it's not really a slouch. The specs read 132 hp and 130 lb-ft of torque. But it tends to feel like more because you really feel that punch in the lower rpms. Which is kind of surprising given the specs which show larger bore than stroke and so on.
In the mid-range around 3000 rpm, though, acceleration tends to feel a little bit flat. And the engine, of course, tends to get noisy right around that range. Where this especially becomes evident is when your goin on an uphill grade. It feels like the car is barely holding on even though your brain tells you otherwise. The same rpm range doesn't really show any acceleration issues on flat road, but it certainly doesn't accelerate with real conviction like you feel from slow speeds. In fact, even on an uphill grade, it accelerates just fine from a dead stop.
Regardless, power-wise, there's nothing really to complain about for a car this size and in thise price range. You just won't have anything to get the adrenaline pumping. If you really want serious power, obviously, the whole range of Neons gives you a few options for a few dollars more.
STEERING/HANDLING
This is definitely one chuckable car. It doesn't quite have the razor sharp steering a lot of compacts do because of the above-average length of the wheelbase, but it's definitely going to outsteer anything larger. The rack-and-pinion is quite effective. However, there is a distinct lack of feedback and the occasional loss of self-centering (which is more of a FWD characteristic than anything in particular about the car). Instead, you tend to get more feedback through the floor and seat.
In addition, the suspension, which provides you with a fairly plush ride, though not radically so (think Ford Focus ST), really fails to communicate much information.
The brakes also communicate very little, and don't seem to stop all too amazingly. I'm fairly sure that my rental unit didn't have ABS, which isn't a standard feature. The rear drum and front vented disc setup especially seem to be weak in hard braking. If you've read my
Drifting article, I mention a little bit about FWD drifting (aka "a**-dragging")... In this car, as I nearly missed a turn I was supposed to take, the rear just swung out because of the disproportionate performance of the two brake setups. In essence, I ended up power sliding without any real intention of doing so (and probably earned a few dirty looks in the process). While the nearly missed turn part was my fault, it really shouldn't be that easy to fishtail the rear end like that in a production car. My guess is that it also has a little something to do with the weight distribution. The Neon is very front-end biased in weight. Specs say 64/36, but it is probably even more so with a driver. Since the car's total weight is only in the 2600 lb range, the weight a 6-foot male driver can yield a pretty good fraction.
COMFORT
I've driven quite a few compact cars. My old Ford was a compact. I've rented all too many compacts because they're cheaper. I've frequently driven compacts owned by other family members. And among the top in terms of comfort is definitely this Neon. Among my most frequent complaints with compacts is how far the seat goes back. I'm not excessively tall or anything, but my legs are long, and I like to sit further back. Amazingly enough the Neon more than accomodates.
The actual support and depth of the seats and bolsters was nice, although they were a little on the firm side. Can't really say about the back seat though, as no one ever got in the car with me. I'm fairly certain that with the position I keep my driver's seat at, there would be some discomfort for a guy in the back. At least he'd have some knee room unlike the Kia Rio.
Tilt steering wheel is there, but not particularly great. The range of angles it covers is really small, and it has a kind of weird lock/unlock mechanism. The ergonomics of using the stereo and HVAC control were pretty straightforward with one or two exceptions. The controls on the wheel were not quite as obvious but they were all right.
As far as the stereo goes, it's nothing spectacular. It's frequency response was good overall, although the bass is rather underpowered. While you can feel the doors shake a little from the woofers, you don't really hear booming bass. The only real weakness was that it was rather on the noisy side. I suppose if you spring for the stereo upgrade, it would be a lot better, but hey, I had a rental car.
About the only little annoyance was that the key was symmetrical (or so it looked), and so it could be inserted right-side up or upside-down. The thing is that the car would usually start either way, but half the time, you can't even turn the key if it's in upside-down. It's pretty easy to remember to put the key in right-side up (only one side has the ram logo), but it's a pain that you can go both ways in the first place when it doesn't always work both ways. I'm hoping that was a quirk that I alone experienced (likely a key that wasn't quite milled right).
The fit and finish and overall refinement of the interior was pretty representative of American compacts. That is to say, decent, clearly better than it was a few years back, but still cheap-feeling compared to the likes of imports.
OVERALL
Well, I can't say much about reliability or anything I didn't get to experience as my miles covered was pretty few. This car is definitely a good first car for almost anybody. It's in the cheaper price range (starting around $15k), and gives you a reasonable range of options in a nicely usable package.
It does carry the stigma of the older Neons which were notoriously poor on reliability, but this is at least a long ways up. But that record, to say nothing of other Chrysler vehicle records, does reflect negatively on the Neon. Having had too short a time with the car to really comment, I'll have to leave that up to you the reader to find real life stories.
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