Good morning! Today’s Shitbox Showdown takes us to Memphis, Tennessee, where a fairly well-known singer once had a modest home. Before we head south and east, however, let’s see which Reno ride you picked yesterday:
The Jeep takes it, by a comfortable margin. I agree. This may not be the Holy Grail, but I still feel you have chosen wisely.
So… Off we go to Memphis. Or “Mimphis,” as the locals often pronounce it. One of a few American cities named after ancient Egyptian ones, along with Cairo, Illinois, which you would think is pronounced like the Egyptian city but in fact is pronounced “kay-ro.” However you want to say it, I’ve a reason to believe we all will be received if we arrive there in one of these two choice rides. Let’s check them out.
2008 Chevrolet Avalanche – $3,000
Engine/drivetrain: 5.3 liter overhead valve V8, four-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Memphis, TN
Odometer reading: 200,000 miles
Runs/drives? Yep
The Chevy Avalanche suffered from a bit of an identity crisis. It was essentially a crew-cab pickup with a one-piece body (as opposed to a separate cab and bed; it’s still body-on-frame) like an SUV, but its unique “midgate” allowed drivers to sacrifice the back seat temporarily to make a nearly-normal-sized pickup bed. It was a clever idea, and I always thought a pretty good-looking vehicle (especially the second-generation like this one), but it didn’t sell in nearly the numbers that ordinary crew-cab pickups did, and GM discontinued the Avalanche in 2013.
This is a pretty fancy Avalanche, with a leather interior that’s still in good condition. I’m reasonably sure, based on the ride height, that this is a two-wheel-drive model. Most Avalanches came with a 5.3 liter version of GM’s LS family of V8 engines, so that’s what I’m assuming is under the hood of this one as well. The ad is a little light on specifics.
It has been dinged in the right front, and had the fender and bumper skin replaced. They’re in flat-black primer instead of the nice burnt orange of the rest of the truck. It also has a bit of rust in the left rear wheel well. Apparently, bodywork and paint is too much of an expense for the seller, so they’re unloading it as-is.
The good news is that they say it runs well, and at 200,000 miles it should still have some life left in it. If you don’t mind the unintentional two-tone exterior, you could just drive it as is.
2005 Chrysler 300 Touring – $3,200
Engine/drivetrain: 3.5 liter overhead cam V6, four-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Memphis, TN
Odometer reading: 235,000 miles
Runs/drives? Indeed
Imagine it’s 1985. You’re standing in a Chrysler-Plymouth dealership, and someone tells you that in twenty years, Chrysler will introduce a new full-sized rear-wheel-drive sedan, with an available Hemi V8, based on Mercedes-Benz architecture, and not only that, it will remain in production for almost two decades, and gain a reasonable reputation for durability and reliability. You would take one look at the K- and E- cars littering the showroom, and laugh. And yet, here we are.
The LX/LD platform’s days are numbered, but the cars have been a success by any measure. They’re depreciating into our price range now, and surprisingly, examples like this still look like they’re worth having. This 300 Touring is well north of two hundred thousand miles, but it looks good, and the seller says it runs well. It’s equipped with a 3.5 liter V6 and Chrysler’s own “Ultradrive” four-speed automatic, which had some teething problems, but by this point was pretty reliable, as long as you kept the fluid clean.
The interior and exterior of this car look nice and clean. I’d like to be able to show a better overall photo of it, but the seller only seems to be able to take extreme close-ups (whoa!). But you all know what a Chrysler 300 looks like anyway, right?
It’s a far cry from an old K-car, that’s for sure. It ain’t perfect, but it has held up well.
So there you have it: two modern-ish rides from Elvis’s old stomping grounds. One cool but banged-up reconfigurable truck, and one clean example of what has turned out to be the last big rear-wheel-drive American sedan. What’ll it be?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
300 for me. That thing is rust-free and very clean for the age. Look at those flipping seats! They are either replacements, or some black magic has been employed to maintain them (or seat covers since new). I guess I’ll risk looking like a wannabe player. That Avalanche, on the other hand looks pretty ratty. There is most definitely more rust underneath (probably structural). Also, this thing suffered much more than a “ding” as evidenced by the different wheel/tire up front. I would not be surprised to find a lot of jacked-up steering/suspension pieces under there as well.
The bronze paint is a great stating point to cover it in leopard print and make the perfect southern cracker hauler.
UGH. Can I vote for the green Jeep again?
Nope, but the Greep Jeep is always on the table.
I always wanted an avalanche and it’s not a silver Chrysler product so funky truck it is.
The Mississippi Delta
Was shining like a national guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the Civil War
I’m going to Graceland, Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
I’m going to Graceland
Poor boys and pilgrims with families
And we are going to Graceland
–Paul Simon
We can go get a Huey’s Burger and then take a ride on the Zippin Pippin at Lbertyland; alas Libertyland is no more.
I know it was a very popular album, but I hate it with all of my heart. In grad school, I worked in a lab with a limited collection of CD’s and Graceland was played to the point I wished for the sweet embrace of deafness. Graceland can go straight to hell.
FYI, the 4L60E transmission in the Avalanche has an exactly 200,000 mile lifespan. So plan on that expense – it’s a certainty. Also, all the brake lines are rusted out and it’s one stomp away from total brake failure. Also a certainty. Brake lines are all sandwiched between the frame and the body. A real bear to replace.
That said, I kind of like this particular version of the Avalanche. It doesn’t look like an overgrown Aztek like the earlier ones.
Even as the incredibly happy owner of a Suburban from the same era, there’s something about that Avalanche that just scares me. Perhaps it’s the one mismatched wheel when getting a matching replacement would have been so, so easy. I just then wonder what other easy stuff has been neglected.
Meanwhile, I know the 300 isn’t sexy but I have driven a lot of them in rental car spec and have always found it to be competent, if unexciting. I can’t believe this, but I voted for the 300 – again, strictly because of the condition of the Chevy.
My brother owns an Avalanche of that model and has since it was new. Besides the transmission, he’s loved it. I agree with Mr.Asa on the front quarter though.
As an aside, it’s not really a good idea in Memphis to drive a 300 or a Charger though. The local thugs like to steal those models. I mean, a lot. One of my co-workers just had her’s stolen last week.
So prolly the Avalanche for me. Even if the suspension is messed up, I could easily fix it.
The Avalanche is in the good color, but holy shit. Look, if you aren’t a rust belt native, you don’t know. You just don’t know.
RUN, don’t walk, RUN AWAY from that Avalanche as fast as you can and then some. The Avalanche is an excellent truck. It’s the truck most ‘rawr, I gotta have a BIG PICKEMUP TRUCK for hauling KIDS IN THE BACK SEAT’ people should have. The drivetrain is commercial truck, so bulletproof and a half, with a typical 200k+ between rebuilds. Cargo is great, the gimmicks are useful, and it tows to boot.
But if the rust is through on those rear fenders, that means the lines and frame are fucked. GM’s rustproofing on these was a total joke. (The interior’s not good either; expect cracked dashes, busted plastic trim, and no labels on the knobs.) But you’re looking at major, major frame and corrosion repairs. Otherwise I’d be all over this.
But the 300 Touring? Oof. That’s… okay, the 3.5 EGG’s mostly fine. The 42RLE’s pretty much bulletproof with maintenance. But this is a post decontenting-spree and post-cheaping-the-fuck-out car. These generally felt cheaper than contemporary PT Cruisers. And as you can see by the condition of the headlights, they were built using cheaper materials. (Seriously. Go look at old PT Cruiser headlights. They cloud up, but nowhere near this badly.)
Knock $700 off the price though and you’ve got a perfectly cromulent shitbox though. Because this should never cost more than a PT Cruiser. (Which despite all the hate, is generally appreciating when it comes to excellent examples.)
This is a real dog’s dinner for choices.
The Chrysler 300 is overall a pretty solid, decent car. If you can overlook its permanent BHPH status and how that may or may not reflect upon you (which I wouldn’t really care, but that’s me) it’s a solid car that everyone likes to call a stealth E Class. Unfortunately, this example was “blessed” with the second worst engine choice and the worst possible transmission pairing.
Bear in mind, I’ve never cared for the design, or execution, of the Avalance et al, because I like big buttresses, flying style, on Renaissance architecture. Not on my truck. Normally a foolproof drivetrain, 4L60E is…fine…but comes burdened with an LY5 5.3, replete with the loathed AFM, which is a deal (and camshaft) breaker right there. And yet, despite being only capable of a one wheel peel, it’s still the better choice. For $200 less, you get to buy into the big hats and trucks lifestyle, a vehicle with lower mileage, get asked by your friends to help with all their moving even though your bed is the size of a postage stamp (pass through not withstanding), better resale value if it lasts that long, and, well, it’s a truck, so there’s that.
A shuddering, reluctant vote for the Avalanche.
I chose the Avalanche, mainly because the Chrysler is just too old to have the good stuff I would want in a V6 Chrysler 300, but not priced low enough to compensate for not getting what I really want.
The Chrysler 3.6 Pentastar found in 2011s and newer is so much better. The 4 speed automatic is just fine, but look at 2012s and later to get the 8-speed 845RE Chrysler Torqueflite automatic if you can. This is a really great combination of engine and transmission found all across the line in Chrysler products.
If you look for high mileage automobiles on the for sale sites, you’ll find a disproportionately large number of Pentastar V6s, and most of those come with ZF-licensed Chrysler 8 and 9 speed transmissions.
FINALLY, a place to vent about a truck named after a natural disaster. Why would you name a truck Avalanche? Best case is a destructive natural event roaring downhill, out of control. Worst is an event that kills some hapless skier or buries an Alpine town.
I know, there’s so many stupid car names, I know I know.
But you wouldn’t name it the Chevrolet Landslide, right? Flood? Wildfire? (Yeah, they would be tempted by Wildfire.) How about the Drought? Windstorm? (tempting again, but definitely not Sandstorm) Pandemic?
Cyclone, Syclone, Lightning, Huracan, Tornado, Toronado, Typhoon, Wildfire….
orange is a cool color, so I’ll take the Avalanche
Only poor boys and pilgrims would drive a car with 235,000 miles on it to Graceland.
So, basiclly anyone heading to Graceland then! J/K
I have never called it Mimphis, ever.
Being from Memphis myself, I agree that it’s kind of a rare local pronunciation. I do know people who will throw it out as an affectation for out of town guests, but it ain’t the main way most of us mispronounce the city’s name. The people I know here, are more likely to use a diminution of the second ‘m’ in the name, and hold the last ‘s’ a little longer, if they are emphasizing it. Sort of a “Me’phiss” thing.
I went Avalance for a bunch of reasons:
– I now dislike the looks of that iteration of the 300.
– I dislike the interior more.
– Chrysler Chwality
– Even if the 5.3 dies, LSs are everywhere.
– you can get your money out of that truck after driving it for a while. Even if it isn’t 4wd.
Yes, the front end may have issues. I am assuming it passes a PPI.
Couldn’t agree more. Add to it that I really like the Avalanche and have always wanted one, though I actually prefer the first gen.
I actually like the 300 and always have. They’re comfy, have timeless styling, and honestly they can be really good values if you find the right one. Naturally they depreciate like lead balloons…it’s not hard to find decent secondhand V8 ones in my area in the high 20s to mid 30s. I think at that price they’re a good buy to be honest. The car may be a dinosaur but there’s something timeless about a big, comfy, RWD V8. If I wind up needing a bigger car in a few years tracking down an SRT8 will probably be a move I consider.
As a result, I’m going with the 300 here…although these are two incredibly shitbox-ey shitboxes. If it was my money I’d skip both. But it isn’t…it’s The Autopian’s money. So gimme the luxobarge.
What I always tell folks is to avoid the SRT8s like the plague. Other than the 6.1L, they basically built a horrifically overstressed engine in a frantic pursuit of power, leading to MAJOR reliability issues to put it mildly. Even driven mildly. They took a very solid truck engine and slapped things on it till it made power. And the 5G-Tronic/NAG1, holy hell. Just no. Guaranteed failure and beyond expensive to repair. The 6.1 is brilliant though. Not the 6.4.
But the 5.7 with the 545RFE or 8HP45? They will go forever. Fantastic cores.
Which you then let me loose on to fix all of the Cerberus and Fiat-era fuckups. Because I also understand ‘big American sedan’ better than they ever will. Glide over bumps and potholes, silky smooth shifts, fast kickdown, and an infinite supply of naturally aspirated torque. (I don’t build a torque curve. I build a torque plane.) It’s one of those builds I genuinely want to do one of these days.
The 5.7 is a great and proven engine…and honestly if I were to get a Charger or Challenger (highly unlikely) the RT trim is probably the route I’d go. I know damn well that there’s a level of power that I shouldn’t be trusted with…hell I’ve gotten myself in trouble with my Kona N a few times by having too much trust in its cornering abilities and having it snap from traditional FWD under steer to instant oversteer mid corner. Fortunately their “sport” setting for the traction control is good enough to let me be an idiot but then jump in before I completely unsettle the car.
But the 5.7 300s are definitely appealing. It’s a more than adequate amount of grunt to have some fun with but it’s not so much that I’m going to wrap it around a tree in the grips of a MO POWAAAA BABY moment of mental fog when all the blood has left my brain to push my right foot down harder and fill my man area.
If (likely when) I need a bigger car I may consider one. I also find the IS500 to be pretty appealing but I have a feeling they’re never depreciating and $70,000 is a bit rich for my liking. A used M550 is always an option too but the combination of turbo BMW reliability and the sheer power of the damn thing make me concerned about longevity….both because of the fussy German nature and the fact that it’s probably more power than I should be trusted with.
The Chrysler is more my style… so that gets my vote.
Interesting choice. Would I rather have people assume I’m a drug dealer, or that my family tree has no branches?
That 3.5 V6 has to be close to end of life, check engine light on, and probably needs a timing belt. I’ll take the big orange thing with the LS
That’s a 3.5 EGG. The timing belt job on a 300 is trivial and it’s non-interference. Throw the belt and it doesn’t break. How trivial? Well, I’ll spell it out for you.
Remove upper radiator hose. Remove accessory belts and tensioners. Remove upper timing cover. Remove fan (4 bolts and one plug.) Remove crank pulley (it’s not a balancer.) Remove lower timing cover. Remove tensioner and belt. Remove water pump. Install water pump. Set timing by hand. Install timing belt. Install tensioner. That’s it.
Worst part on these is if the water pump has been seeping, it’s annoying to clean up.
It’s hilarious that the 300 was touted as some sort of premium vehicle. Those plastics man. Would it have killed them to pad the door armrests? An Elantra of that era was a nicer place to be.
That being said I voted for the 300, if only for the condition. I dig the Avalanche, but I’m skeptical that the midgate is still functional after surviving ownership that wasn’t interested in color-matching major body panels. Nevermind the mismatched wheels.
“But you all know what a Chrysler 300 looks like anyway, right?”
Yes, unfortunately.
Despite the mismatched bodywork (complete with bent hood) and mismatched wheels, I’m leaning toward the Avalanche. Even if it doesn’t look nice it can be used for truck stuff.
Both vehicles seem to be having rust issues. In addition to the left rear, the Avalanche has rust on both passenger doors and on the right rear quarter. The 300 is starting to have rust on the radiator support, which makes me wonder where else it might be.
Avalanche, please.
That was my turn off, rust/speed holes. Pretty much as new rear quarter panel, doors, etc. There may not be much metal left to repair. Drop the price a grand any maybe some boneyard, knock off parts, MMACO paint job.
Having worked on these very extensively?
If that’s the rust it shows, then it has no rust at all. None.
See, the geniuses at Dumber-Chrysler figured that to save money, they wouldn’t take any measures to protect the paint finish on the radiator support. So they always have rust there, from the factory, because the paint got scraped down to metal and burnt through during assembly. What you need to look at on these is the rear quarters and the shock towers. And you could eat off those shock towers, and the rears are dead factory “straight.” That tells me it’s a completely rust-free example with only surface corrosion.
The Avalanche? It’s rotted all the way through on the upper rears AND lower rears. I worked on those bastards too. Even after I stopped worrying about book time. And that frame is completely fucked. If it’s through on the sheet, then every single line is leaking through and the frame is already halfway gone if not completely rotted through. The frame and lines rot before the body on these.
It’s rare to see a 300 of this vintage that’s not completely roached out, but I can’t with the Bentley-via-JCWhitney grille. I’ll take the Avalanche in The Good Color.
I love the orange of the Avalanche, however one thing really concerns me.
The unpainted fender and unpainted bumper is over the only wheel that doesn’t match the rest of them.
There was a hit there. How bad it was is up in the air, but it was bad enough to take that wheel out as well as the fender and bumper.
I’d be leaning towards the Avalanche, but depending on what I saw when I looked underneath that corner would seal the deal.
That odd wheel is an excellent point. Gotta get a look under there before pulling the trigger.
The lighter leather in the Chrysler is a selling point for me, but the Avalanche is in the great orange. I could probably get that panel matched, and it would look a lot better to my eye than my white Silverado.
Avalanche gets my vote.