I'm a Mopar guy through and through so I don't hate Chrysler, but everything they make today is just bloated plastic junk--look at the 300--it's just a fat piece of cheap plastic. It doesn't look expensive, or classy. It looks like an overweight pig made of cheap plastic, just like the Durangos and anything else they've churned out).
The only plastic used on the exterior is on the sideskirts and the front and rear bumpers, like pretty much every other car on the market. The hood and trunk lids were made out of aluminum and were designed for weight savings, in fact the entire chassis itself weighs 900lbs, not bad for one of (if not THE) most rigid midsize car chassis on the market.
Now the interior is pretty much nothing but plastic. The dashboard and upper door panels use high-impact foam covered in vinyl, as most cars on the market do. Then there's those lower dash/door panels that are made out of the hard plastic that everyone bitches and moans about (also used by Toyota, Honda, etc).... also made out of plastic. And then there's the nylon carpet,
also made out of plastic duh (well, sorta).
The automatic transmission is a Mercedes 5 speed that was often used in the AMG cars for their durability (and high torque tolerances), although I've seen a lot of complaints about the adaptive programming on it. Ironically, that and the suspension components (clones of Mercedes designs - as forced by Diamler under the merger), are some of the most complained about things on the car.
I think what people hate about the car most are the unconventional aspects. Instead of the A-pillar smoothly flowing up from the fenders as it does on most midsize cars, the hoodlines flow into the beltline and the a-pillar starts higher up, with the mirrors mounted higher up. It's supposed to be an aggressive design stance (take a look at a corvette or any other fairly high end fast car, they tend to have a line that goes from the front to the back).
However, the style issues come with complaints, such as visibility. The side windows don't go as high, and since the side mirrors are mounted higher they get right into the path (which takes a while to get used to). The front end is also pretty low, so you can't run over a parking stop and keep pulling in until your car bounces off the curb, because you'd rip the front bumper off backing out.
I think all of the complaining is hyperbole. The charger and 300 outsell pretty much every competitor and haven't had any major changes in 5+ years, that's saying a lot. The 300 still outsales the Hyundai Genesis by a fair bit, and the Charger outsold the G8 by such a large margin that Pontiac took it off the market in the US.
Don't get me started with the likes of Acura. lol
Acura has terrible resale, usually worse than Hondas of the same class.
