You might wonder who might be the ideal buyer for certain cars. Did you even know who was the kind of person who would buy a Smart Fortwo before I came around? I suppose it’s the same sort of deal with the Mitsubishi Mirage and the Dodge Dart.
You might have also wondered who was the kind of person to buy a Dodge Caliber. Admittedly, I loved the Caliber, even when they were new. So, the answer to that question is someone like me. Today, Thomas wrote about how the Caliber came with a video game where you flew a mosquito around the car. Clark B gives us a great story:
They also came with a fully digital owners manual, that operated a bit like a computer game. What’s funny is I’ve never liked the Caliber. As a new car it wasn’t a great deal given what you got. But when my father in law needed a car for $6k or less to replace his dying Volvo, it turned out to be the best option I could find.
My husband, his mom (my father in laws ex wife) and I all chipped in some money to surprise him with a car. He is a disabled veteran living in a retirement home, with almost no money left to his name after his stroke and a bad divorce with his second wife. He was driving a $200 Volvo S40 (T5!) that was so trashed I don’t think it would have even been good for parts. Anything would have been better. And I know someone is saying “just buy him a Corolla!” Have you seen what a $6k Corolla looks like? Every one looked rough and had at least 150k miles on it.
Then we saw the Caliber. A 2011, with only 80k miles. The interior was mint. The exterior was too, save for one scuff. It had four brand new Goodyear tires. The ride height was perfect for someone with limited mobility to slide right in and out. And this part is subjective, but I wanted him to have something that looked nice and wasn’t worn out. I can’t emphasize how mint the Caliber was. Someone clearly took good care of it.
We did the whole surprise thing, complete with a big red bow on the hood. He loves it! And honestly, it didn’t drive as bad as I thought it would. It was just An Car. For the 2k miles of around town driving my FIL does a year, it’s perfect. Fortunately we were spared the truly awful interior from earlier model years as well.
So yeah, that’s how I learned to respect one of my least favorite cars, and how a used one ended up being the perfect car for someone.
Today, Mark Tucker also gave us a Shitbox Showdown between a 1977 Mercedes-Benz 300D and a 2001 Ford Crown Victoria. Canopysaurus notes:
Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends are all corpses, here’s how the world ends.
If these are the end times your good book portends,
I’d rather die driving a Mercedes Benz.
This morning, Jason gave us a Cold Start featuring a crushed and rusted car. Brent Ozar has jokes:
Yes yes enough pics of the $800 NYC taxi you’re working on, but where’s the car you want us to identify?
Have a great evening, everyone!
CALIBER
AVENGER
MAGNUM
NITRO
Back when MEN were MEN and drove shoddy, oops I mean “world class manufactured” Chrysler products. Tuff-as-nails!
I wouldn’t trust the quality from that period much, either, but, boy, the Magnum was a cool wagon.
The slack we give a car for being bad is inversely proportional to its price.
It is why a very clean Caliber for a few grand should get much less hate than a $120k BWM with a bad ride and no steering feel.
Hey wow, I made COTD! Seriously though, the sub-$6k market around here is awful. And I stand by what I said, the Caliber is not as bad to drive as I thought it would be. [Raises blast shields] I think I actually preferred the driving experience over that of the mid/late-2000s Corollas I was cross shopping. The CVT is what it is, and the engine is coarse especially when getting up to merging speed. But once at highway speeds it feels stable and comfortable. Around town you hardly notice the CVT at all, and that’s all my FIL will be using it for. I can’t believe I’m defending a Caliber, of all things, but given all the hate it gets I was expecting it to be much worse.
My gripe with the Caliber was that Dodge introduced it as a replacement to the Neon. While the neon’s had some reliability issues initially, they were fun cars, fuel efficient and served me for many years as reliable transportation.
A friend had purchased a new Caliber R/T, 2.4 AWD all the options. We did a road trip and it got 24mpg hwy, at the drag strip it was consistently running low 18’s in the quarter mile. When a Neon R/T was getting in the mid 30’s for mpg and mid 16’s in the quarter the Caliber seemed like a huge step backwards.
It was also a product that came out before the trend of everything being a small suv. When fuel prices skyrocketed over $4 a gallon in 2008 most other car companies were still selling small sedans that offered much better fuel economy. I think the concept of it came out about 10 years before the market was ready for it.
I worked at a Rental car company that had the first year models with the CVT and they were awful. But, a close friend of mine searched CarMax nationwide for a 5speed later version of these and I was generally surprised. It became a quite enjoyable car.
I think the thinking behind the car was sound. There are some good ideas but some shoddy execution. ( typical of Dodge back then)
Yay! I was proud of that one.
No, there’s no redemption for Caliber or Avenger. Easily worst new cars I’ve ever driven.
I liked the looks of Caliber when it came out and even went to dealership to test it. Damn it was bad. I mean there was sharp a left over plastics from the mold in the hard center armrest?! And the rattle was epic with car that had less than 1000km in the meter. Not to mention shittiest engine transmission combo ever with the 2.4 gas and slushbox.
Avenger I had for rental on US work trip on ’10. I don’t think it had any shock absorbers as I almost crashed it in offramp as it started wallowing like a boat.
Well both Jeep and Dodge disappeared from Finland pretty much around ~08. I think there might be a one or two jeep dealerships in the whole country, but I haven’t seen new one for atleast 15 years. Few privately imported Chargers and Challengers can be seen during summer, but that’s about it.
I had a Chevy Matiz as a hire car once, that was the worst I’d driven. Somehow it had been designed and built, the transmission was completely wrong for the engine. Redline in 4th got you to 72mph, but 5th started at about 69mph, so a gust of wind when you tried to upshift would drop you too low in the rev range and you’d have to downshift again.
I guess if you are only going to drive the thing a couple K a year, even a Caliber won’t be too painful. The absolute worst car I ever had, a used up POS Volvo 245 Turbo that stranded me on multiple occasions worked GREAT for years as the car of a coworker’s grandfather (I literally gave it to him), because he only drove the thing to the store and back once a week. But the Caliber that my mother bought for my brother and sister-in-law for $12k was composed of compressed epic fail in every possible way, and there is simply no universe in which a $12K Toyota literally anything would not have been better in every possible way.
I don’t like Toyotas, AT ALL, but I respect the Hell out of them as transportation appliances. They generally just work, and work for a long, long time, even with a decent amount of benign neglect going on.
The problem is that at the time I was looking, I could actually find a <$10k Caliber. I researched every incarnation of Toyota (of similar size) and I couldn’t find anything for less than $15k. If I could have found a $10k Toyota RAV4 or something? Of course?! But that unicorn didn’t exist.
Yep, I ran into the same thing. Used RAV4s or CRVs at the same price had around 200k miles on them, across the board. The Toyota tax is real, even at the bottom end of the used market.
I can’t believe I missed a Caliber thread!
I owned three of them in series. Which yes, means that I wrecked two of them, (neither my fault) but that’s not the point. I owned a 2008 silver, then a 2010 silver, and last a 2012 black, all with the CVT. Each was bought between $8k-$10k.
I was a dirt poor grad student with two kids already (twins), and needed the space of a SUV/CUV, for as cheap as possible.
The Dodge Caliber was the answer.
Did I like those cars? No. Did they work? Yes.
In retrospect, they were great; they did exactly what they needed to do for the least money possible.
One of my friends had one and liked it until it ate the transmission (don’t tell the other commenter)
The one my brother had simply fell apart, including TWO transmissions in short order. And it’s not like it made up for the horrific reliability by being sexy and fun to drive. It’s just a miserable little turdmobile of a car, and my mother got robbed when she bought the thing for him and his wife. I could have killer her when I found out, and she dipped into her retirement funds in a really dumb way to do it. But far be it she ask her car guy son who has an accounting degree before doing crap like that back them.
Thankfully, lesson learned, and the next time she bought a car she did ask me, and loved the Prius V that I recommended that was a great for a long time until she and then my nephew wrecked the poor thing. Sigh.
I’m still paranoid that mine’s approaching 160,000 with all the stories of blown head gaskets before 200,000 or so. I got my EGR cleaned at 140,000 and I’m getting the water pump replaced soon, but who knows if that’s enough.
Never would have happened. Blatant misinformation.
So say we all.
Clark B, you did a good thing. Those calibers have fantastic transmissions too. Heartwarming story.
I’m not crying that’s just eye coolant
Blinker fluid?
Ye jest, but one of the main ingredients in many eye drops is ethylene glycol. Yep, antifreeze!
Eye drops use polyethylene glycol. It also helps you poop. I recommend not mixing up EG and PEG. They may sound similar, but the effects on a human body are very different.
Don’t give China any ideas!
COTD-ception