Because "Save The Sebrings" Just Doesn't Sound Right

It's always fun to pile on the Sebring - as it is truly bad - but there is a big difference between rental and the up-market models. Having driven the Sebring as a rental I can attest to it's plastic fantastic interior, the thrashy 2.4L 4 cyl engine that seemed to fight with the transmission, hard seats that dug onto your lower back,and a suspension that bobbed and weaved over every bump. Driving it made me feel like an anonymous lump and I detested it. A hateful, hateful car. But having said that my mother has the higher trim 2007 model and it's....okay I guess. It has the V6, 5 speed auto, and bigger tires so the speed, ride and cornering is.... better I suppose. The interior won't be mistaken for anything but a Chrysler, but they did use a better quality can of spray paint on the door trim so kudos to Chrysler on that. Instead of gun metal grey you have the higher end silver tin foil look, well worth the extra money if you ask me :}

I have the last year of the Stratus (2003) that still had a fair amount of content and soft-touch material in it before they went to town on the cost cutting in 2004. It's honestly not a bad car and has been reliable so far. I really wanted to like the Avenger since it is the replacment for my car and it offers the more powerful 3.5L (vs. my 2.7L) as the top engine. But between the interior and the handling, I just couldn't like this car. Both things could be fixed rather easily - the basic chassis isn't bad, it just needs better shock and steering tuning to improve the feel and handling, and the interior could easily be fixed as well. Since they've now dragged the Sebring and Avenger names through the dirt, maybe the answer is to fix the issues and rename them the Cirrus and Stratus?

After work today, I saw a late model Sebring with a fake convertible top, chrome wheels and whitewalls. It actually helped hide the fact that it was a Sebring, though that's not saying much.