Hey everyone, I have been reading this forum for a few weeks now. Figure i would start to participate.
I am looking into buying a Caliber SXT 1.8 manual transmission with the music gate sound system up grade.
A lot of my friends are trying to talk me out of it, specifically one that owns a Neon. I was just wondering what kind of opinions the owners of such vehicles (Caliber) have. Or even other people like me out there that are still in the research phase.

Thanks for the good reading material

Blair J B

 

If you'd already browsed thorugh this forum, take a gander at caliberforums.com. That is another large Caliber cummunity.

I would also like to welcome you to the Caliber MTX club. There are very few Caliber owners so far that have opted for the 5-Speed tranny. I am still waiting on delivery of mine so I can not offer any opinions about power or handling, but there are more than enough resources between this forum and the other.

 

1 Don't buy one with a sunroof
2 Don't buy one that was made while the robot welders were going beserk. It would be a good idea to eyeball as many welds as you can see.
3 On your test drive, try hard cornering under acceleration to make sure it doesn't stall.

Overall, I'm more than happy with our R/T. I feel we were lucky with just the minor things that has gone wrong on ours compared to some of the other posters in this forum.
I'd recommend waiting for the fall models. Hopefully, many of our problems have been addressed.

 

I have had my 1.8 SXT with musicgate since June. Other than hitting a dear four days after I got it and the stall thing, That the new flash upgrade fixed I've had no problems.
And I am getting a constant 40+ miles per Canadian Gallon
As for power it is more than sufficient for daily driving to work on the Highway and around town.
The fly by wire throttle is a little touchy on takeoff ( easy to spin the 17 in. tires)
I would have preffered the diesel but this is great and I will probably keep it for quite some time.
Just have to see how it handles in the winter on ice and snow

 

We have had our R/T for about 2 months and 3000 miles, and we love the thing! The only glitch in ours has been a faulty sentry key immobilizer computer, which caused you to have to wait about an hour after you turned the car off to be able to start it again. This was the first time I had ever heard of anything like this, but it's fixed now, so oh well. We have the sunroof, musicgate, 6-disc cd/mp3, heated leather in grey, black exterior; and newly added chrome gas door, slush mats, and door sill gaurds. The look of that chromed gas door was well worth the xtra $90 or so. We would have gotten a manual tranny if you could get it with the all wheel drive. I am fine with front wheel drive in the winter, but we bought this car for my wife, and she's not as comfortable in the snow as I am. As for any of your concerns of winter driving with front wheel drive, I can't stress enough that you only need good tires, and don't treat the throttle like an on/off switch....be GENTLE! We are getting about 24 mpg, but you'll get better with the 1.8/manual. I would definitely buy one if I were you.

 

buy a truck

 

Some of us already have Dodge trucks