#Caliber

We continue our 1990s-then-2000s series today, following up the last post that featured compact American two-doors from 1998. By the late 2000s, the Escort, Neon, and Cavalier were all dead. In their place were the Focus, Caliber, and Cobalt, and not all of those had a two-door variant. That means we focus on four-doors today. Let’s go.

John writes:

Hi Sajeev,

I’ve had a 2009 Dodge Caliber SRT4 for a few years and it’s coming up to its first all-around brake job at 50,000 miles / 80,000 km (I drive like a granny). I work at a dealership (different brand) but can get parts at a bit of a discount. Still, OEM brakes + pads on this thing are $980+tax Canadian. From what I’ve seen I can get aftermarket ones for a quarter of that. One of the mechanics here suggests I put on OEM pads and aftermarket discs.

You’d think with an owner by the name of Fiat, Chrysler would be knee-deep in small cars. Just the opposite is true. The Freep complains:

“Chrysler, for all of its recent improvements, is missing out on one of the biggest opportunities of the year: a chance to grab a larger slice of the small-car segment while Japanese automakers try to rebuild their car supplies after the March earthquake and tsunami that disrupted operations.”

My friend Ash Sutcliffe of China Car Times reports that Chrysler will be bringing the Dodge Caliber to China, for production at the Guangzhou Auto / Fiat joint venture.

The AP [via Google] reports that NHTSA’s investigation of the pedals manufactured by CTS that were behind Toyota’s recent unintended acceleration recall has widened to include 2007 model-year Dodge Calibers. Dodge built 161,000 Calibers in the 2007 model-year, but according to Chrysler Group complaints of sticking accelerators only cover about 10,000 vehicles built between March and April of 2006… even though all 2007 model-year vehicles were built with CTS pedals. So what’s the difference between vehicles made in that five-week period and the rest of the 2007 model-year? According to Chrysler spokesfolks:

We have data that is telling us that there were a certain amount of complaints during that time period

For a moment, turn away from the uncertain prospects of Chrysler’s Fiat-directed future and consider the subject of this review as nothing other than one entry in the popular five-door hatchback segment of the North American compact car market.

That’s what I had to do, anyway, in order to rationalize driving and writing about a vehicle that a lot of folks would justifiably consider to be a loser car from a loser car company. The question is, is it really?