Dodging The Insurance Bills

The Age

Wednesday July 4, 2007

Barry Park

SLAP some red lipstick on a full-grown ram and it's not going to look any prettier in the cold, hard light of day. But slap a bit of free comprehensive insurance on a Dodge - the car brand that bears the ram's head logo - and all of a sudden the marque's bold, muscular, square-shouldered line-up looks, well, slightly less clumsy.

Dodge is hoping the application of a bit of financial lippy will sway new-car buyers to its Caliber five-door hatch and Nitro mid-sized soft-roader, throwing in two years of insurance to buyers regardless of their driving history or address. And if it's stolen, Dodge will cough up for a hire car. If it's pranged, Dodge picks up the towing tab to the repairer of your choice. And if it's written off in the first two years, you'll get a new one.

The company reckons a male driver with a clean record could save up to $3600.

"We're looking at it as a value-added product," Dodge brand spokesman Jerry Stamoulis tells Drive. "There's a lot of competition out there, and Dodge is a young brand. At our price point, people under the age of 25 can afford to buy (Dodge cars), but the high cost of insurance may turn them off."

Mr Stamoulis says the free insurance offer will run for as long as it appears to be attracting people to the Dodge brand.

Meanwhile, the second vehicle to bear the reincarnated Dodge badge - the Nitro - will arrive in a few weeks, priced from $36,990 for the base-model SX and $39,990 for the SXT. Both are fitted standard with a 151 kW/314 Nm 3.7-litre V6 mated to a four-speed automatic transmission that ranges between a scary 17.5 L/100 km fuel use average around town to 9.0 L/100 km on the highway. A more economical 2.8-litre turbo-diesel engine is a $3500 option.

There are some practical touches across the range - switchable all-wheel-drive, a slide-out rear cargo platform, multimedia screen and a hard drive for storing music and photos - as well as a string of safety features, including electronic stability control.

The base-model SX gets such niceties as air-conditioning, power windows, cruise control and a full-sized spare wheel.

The upmarket SXT has massive 20-inch alloys, an auto dimming rear-vision mirror, powered driver's seat and more speakers.

? Small family car Dodge Caliber has received a four-star safety rating for both adult and child occupant protection in the latest round of European New Car Assessment Program crash tests. -- BARRY PARK

© 2007 The Age

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