Notes after my Dec 1, 2000 run to Chicago; This is a world-class touring car!
We drove up on a Friday night, through a pretty respectable little snowstorm. Dana did a little more than half the driving, but we still made good time. We left at 4:20 pm and arrived at 1:35 am, a shade over 9 hours. After about a 5 hour nap, we turned around and came back on Saturday morning.
It was clear as a bell, and son, I burned I-55 up! :-) I put my bail-bond card in the console pocket where it'd be handy, set the cruise control on 110 mph, and let 'er rip. ;-) I had a couple of guys try to hang with me; a Mercedes 560SEL and a BMW 6 or 7 series. Either could have kept up, but in the end neither one was packing enough cajones.. ];-) I was reading the traffic, and would sometimes get up to 120-125 if that would let me safely overtake slower motorists. There were a few stretches where the cruising speed dropped below 90.. but darned few!
So, how'd I do? Well, we clocked 564 miles on the way back, taking 7 hours and 23 minutes total. That's "only" a 76.4 mph average.. but, of course, to make up for fuel and rest stops you've got to fly to maintain that sort of average speed! This car feels so stable at 100+ mph speeds, it's a little scary. While 110 doesn't feel over-the-edge in this car.. and is not, provided you use discretion, it still requires a certain amount of skill and a warped sort of discipline to cover the miles at that class of speed. Perhaps a disclaimer is in order; I am not advocating breaking any speed laws! I'm A Professional. Don't Try This At Home, Kiddies. ;-)
We passed the 1000-mile point in our round trip at about 19-1/2 hours (don't forget the 5 hour nap!). We arrived home in the early afternoon, at 1:53 pm, so the entire 1126 mile round trip took well under 24 hours. This pointed up perhaps most impressive trait of the 300M; how comfortable and smoothly it covered those miles. On a bike, it'd have resulted in a severe case of monkey-butt.. even in the Neon, you'd be a wee bit saddle sore. But after this manic run in the 300M, I was fresh as a daisy!
Oh, a word about the impetus for the trip. As mentioned, it was to pick up my niece, Niki, who stayed with us for several months. The way Dana talked me into it shows just how tightly she's got me wrapped around her finger.. :-) She came to me and said "You know that ST1100 speed run you talk about on your web site? Well how about let's do a warm-up for it, tonight?" I hemmed and hawed, and she says "Oh, I see. So, it was, like, all talk." Less than an hour later, I was northbound with the hammer down. ];-) What can I say? I know she can play me like ringing a bell, but I really don't mind. It's usually great fun!
Notes after my Dec 23, 2000 run to Chicago; Well, I've lived with the 300M through 5,000 miles and 2 Memphis>Chicago runs, so I think it's time for an update. The Christmas run was a lot more liesurely, since we were travelling with a 10-week old puppy. My initial observations are still valid; this is by far the best touring car I've ever had the pleasure to drive. The only problems so far have been a blown high-beam headlight bulb and a broken right-rear door lock. Both were replaced under warranty, and I put the door locks's breaking down to the brutal temps in Illinois - 18 degrees below! And that's a true 18 below, the wind chills were in the 60 below range.
The trip also included one of the most frightening close-calls I've ever had.. :-( On I55 in St. Louis I had a bozo in a Buick in the adjacent lane decide that he had to occupy the same spot that my 300M currently was. I saw him start to change lanes, and reacted instantly.. reacted wrongly, as it turned out. Normally, swerving sharply to avoid him would have been fine, given the broad shoulder on I55. But with 6-8 inches of snow in the median, I started to get sucked in when my L wheels hit it. I should probably have hit the brake, given the road conditions. But then hindsight's 20-20...
Anyway, there I was, doing 80 mph with my LH wheels in 8 inches of snow, and the RH wheels on dry pavement. The car skidded a bit on entry into the snow, maybe 20 degrees. It recovered easily, but with the LH wheels still in the snow. I eased off the gas, avoided the brake like the plague, and started idly wondering if I was going to be able to get it back on the road before encountering that guardrail 100 yards up the pike.. :-/ As it turns out, it was no problem. The deep snow bled the speed off quickly, and at about 50 mph I was able to ease it back over with plenty of room to spare. It would have been one hellacious wreck had I not pulled it out, though.. and in a lesser car I might not have pulled it out. So, kudos to Mopar for designing in handling that you can use in the real world.
Notes after the first year of ownership; the mileage stands at 26,172, for a total of 20,203 miles accumulated during the first year. So many that, given that the standard warranty is 3 years / 36k miles, and I didn't purchase an extended warranty, I've consciously tried to cut back on driving it. Don't want to run out of miles too much before years...
I will say this, though - I've had more fun than a barrel full o' monkeys with those 20k miles! The car runs and handles better than ever, and remains an absolute joy to drive. I explained it to Dana like this; I view traffic, in the aggregate sense, as a school of fish. Its ebb and flow doesn't conform to any set pattern, yet its always similar. You need to be ready for anything. Therefore, I desire that whatever vehicle I drive be able to move through the traffic as a shark moves through a school of mackeral.. [smile]
'Most any big motorcycle will accomplish that, of course. For an automobile to achieve the same feel is an order of magnitude more difficult, however. Oh, a lesser auto can achieve approximately the same result if driven aggressively. But that's stressful and tiring, and nowhere near as safe as with a truly capable machine. No, I want an auto that's easy to drive fast. One that wraps me in quiet, comfortable, leather-lined 11-speaker Hi-Fi luxury while doing so. The 300M fills the bill perfectly, for me!
That said, the first year hasn't been totally trouble free. Aside from the aforementioned broken rear door lock, I also had the door weatherstripping replaced under warrantly. It pulled away from the frame on 3 of the 4 doors, creating a gap that resulted in unacceptable wind noise. And the front brakes have developed a slight 'shimmy' or vibration. It will require corrective action in the end, I imagine, but for now it is so subtle as to be inconsequential. You really have to pay attention, or you'd never notice it. And, of course, the brakes awesome stopping power is diminished not one iota. So, for now, I's a non-problem. And in any case I put it down to the fact that I have.. ahem, abused the brakes. Hey, what can I say? I've never owned an auto with brakes in this league, and I couldn't resist. [smile]
Without a doubt the most vexing problem, though, indeed the only one that really ticks me off at Ma Mopar, revealed itself when I got a flat tire on the way to visit my niece in Alabama last June. The 300M uses keyed lugnuts on every wheel stud, and the 'key' takes the form of a hexhead socket. The jack is also hex drive, but it turns out that the jack and lugnut-key socket use a different size hex! If the flat had happened anywhere other than where it did, in my niece's driveway, I'd have been dead in the water, with no way to remove the tire. I'd have been forced to try out Chrysler's 24-Hour Roadside Assistance program. 'twas easily fixed by stowing a 1/2"-drive breaker bar and appropriate socket in the spare tire well. But such an oversight is totally unacceptable in a $32k auto! You dropped the ball big-time on this one, Chrysler...
Nov. 2006 Update; OK, it's been nearly five years since I've posted an update on my 300M ownership experience. So I guess I'm overdue.. Hey, better late than never!
First, let me get it out of the way and just say flat out that I still love this car! 
With 89,753 miles on the clock, it still runs like a top. It hasn't
developed a plethora of rattles and squeeks as the new wore off, as
I've seen with some cars, the handling is still as tight as ever,
and all 256 ponies are present and accounted for. There have been
a few problems;
It's not bad enough that I feel the need to take action.. yet. But if
the past is any indication, I will sometime in the next 10 to 20K miles. I
dunno.. the brakes have not
been abused during this period! Perhaps my OEM rotors are simply
flawed. I didn't replace them at 50K, just had them resurfaced. But,
though there's enough meat to have them skinned one more time, I may
simply replace them with aftermarket rotors. We'll see...
Bad in that the battery is a titanic pain to R&R on the 300M. 
Now, I knew that battery was accessed by removing the R front
wheel, then the plastic access cover at the front of the wheel-well. So I didn't expect it to be easy, exactly.
I did not
expect to have to remove the air cleaner and misc. trim inside the
engine
bay! But that was the case - while the battery does indeed slide out
through the wheel-well, you've got to come in from the top to remove
the hold-down frame and cable connectors. All in all the most work I've
ever had to do for a simple battery swap! 
So there you go. I'll summarize simply, by saying that I'm looking forward to the nest 90,000 miles!