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By all means, keep Sterling Heights Assembly Plant open . . . just use it to build something other than Sebrings. [via The Freep]
33 Comments on “Because “Save The Sebrings” Just Doesn’t Sound Right...”
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The Sebring will live on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Siber
What’s wrong with the Dodge Avenger?
AWD + 235hp V6 + Six Speed.
AWD + 235hp V6 + Six Speed.
Awd was dropped for 2009
Drive one and you will know what’s wrong.
I got an Avenger last Spring as a rental.
Never have I hated a car so much, so quickly.
I mean, before I left the rental lot.
Thankfully it was only a 3-day rental.
My thoughts on the Sebring? What would Frankenstein drive?
http://carportconfidential.blogspot.com/
“Drive one and you will know what’s wrong.”
Ok, what is wrong in your opinion?
“Never have I hated a car so much, so quickly.”
Why?
Daimler Chrysler really made a dog’s breakfast when putting together the Avenger/Sebring platform.
I’d bet dollars to donuts that the pace of production at Sterling Heights is no where near being profitable. The Avenger and Sebring are dead wood in the Camcordia forest.
I must be in the incredible, fringe minority, but I, too, had a Sebring rental, and found it absolutely no worse than a Camry ‘loaner’ my dealer recently gave me.
I can’t speak to reliability, but in terms of driving dynamics (where everything is relatively put), the Sebring was actually more engaging than that Camry.
“What’s wrong with the Dodge Avenger? AWD + 235hp V6 + Six Speed.”
Some bright spots on a spec sheet don’t make up for the rest of it being uninspired rental junk.
I actually have an ’04 Sebring. Have put over 100K miles on it, and it’s been dependable, and handles decently enough. It seems like Chrysler really screwed up with the latest generation Sebring, though. Too bad, as I like my older one fairly well. When I was car shopping, I found it was a much better value than anything GM was offering in a similar price range.
The Volga Siber, based on the last-generation Sebring, is probably a better car than the current Sebring.
I had a loaded’02 Seabring Coupe LXi and loved it. I miss that fun little car, of course it was built in my home town and shared the Eclipse platform which helped. I didn’t care for the minor update they did later and the current redesign is horrible looking. Whats up with that Crossfire inspired hood? Blech..
The rental-spec Sebrings aren’t great, but the fully equipped models are excellent.
I mean people complain about it being ‘plasticky’ , but there’s less hard plastic than there is in an Accord. It has a great MyGIG player, heated/cooled cup holder, and oh yes- is AWD!
“David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports’ auto testing department, which ranked the Avenger with a V-6 engine 38th out of 39 family sedans. The four-cylinder Sebring was dead last.”
What’s wrong with the Dodge Avenger?
Errr…
It’s not so much what’s wrong with it, it’s what’s right with, say, the Ford Fusion. Or any number of other cars in this class.
The rental-spec Sebrings aren’t great, but the fully equipped models are excellent.
Only if you willfully ignore just about every other car in the class. The interior plastics aren’t always as bad as they’re made out to be, but they’re really not that good. That said, the plastics aren’t the Sebring’s biggest problem: it’s just not a very good car.
About the only Sebring I can make a case for is the upper-trim convertible, and that’s because it’s in a class by itself now that the Solara and G6 are gone. It’s a real pity that the cruiser convertible market is pretty much gone.
The Sebring is a case of a basically decent platform being undercut by poor styling, lack of engineering polish, and poor quality materials.
Chrysler could make an immediate improvement with the current design with more sound deadening, a tighter suspension, and better quality interior materials. That’s stuff they can do fairly cheaply, and quickly.
Unfortunately, the other design-related flaws – the styling and wheezy motor – can’t be fixed quickly or cheaply.
rnc:
“David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports’ auto testing department, which ranked the Avenger with a V-6 engine 38th out of 39 family sedans. The four-cylinder Sebring was dead last.”
Consumer Reports disdain of Chrysler’s =
Car and Driver’s hard on for BMW’s.
That being said, the current Sebring/Avenger is a bad adaptation of the Mitsubishi Lancer platform foisted upon Chrysler by the wonderful folks at Daimler. The V6 6-speed won’t make you want to kill yourself, but there are many better cars. The 200c can’t come fast enough.
The first gerneration Sebring was the best. It was MT’s Car of the Year and was equal to the Accord of that day, this according to my wifes mother and grandmother who drove nothing but Accords. Mom-in-law was converted from Subaru in the early 90’s and Grand-mom from Chrysler/GM in the 80’s.
SHAP is fully modern flex plant. It would be a shame to close it but there is too much capacity and it’s current product is not selling. It has nothing to do with the plant itself or the workers.
segfault :
The Volga Siber, based on the last-generation Sebring, is probably a better car than the current Sebring.
Well, it’s a Volga so that makes it cool to begin with.
I mean honestly, compare the the AWD Avenger to an Audi A4. The interior of the Avenger is nicer (it will last longer for sure, features better gauges (Actual electroluminescence vs. the fake crap in the Audi), higher grade leather, better stitching, LED overhead lighting, a better stereo, better niceties (heated/chilled cup holder, etc.) It offers a better engine that will likely last longer and has higher horsepower. Both have AWD.
So the workers are losing their jobs b/c management made the wrong product choices?
Guess that is life.
FWIW I have driven a couple Sebrings and they were fine. On the other hand long term they did not age well. A friend recently bought one against the advice of a mechanic friend. Everything he warned about happened.
I drove a covnertible Sebring. Very cheap inside. Very cheap. The ride wasn’t horrible, but those interior plastics were nasty.
To this day, I can’t believe that the product planners at Chrysler green-lighted basically any product after 2003. Every single Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep in the past few years has a horrible, horrible interior.
On the flip side, gently used ones are incredibly cheap to buy. I’m waiting for my 2008 Grand Caravan at $8k or so. Maybe this winter…
@pgcooldad:
It looked awful. It felt cheap, as though each switch would break at my next touch. It handled horribly. I could go on, but suffice it to say it felt like crap when compared to my 24-year-old, 250,000 mile Volvo.
Maybe the people who are ok with it drove upmodel Sebrings, but aside from the weird noises and shuddering that happened in turns, and the vibration in the steering wheel when I hit the brakes, the car just shook all the time. My gps unit quivered whenever the car was in motion. It moved more driving down the highway in the Sebring than it did while offroading in a rental Wrangler…
Not to mention the piece of plastic on the center console that seemed to be designed to torture my right leg.
It’s the worst care being made in America. Period. And its from a brand with luxury aspirations. Yikes.
I drive a 2006 Chrysler PT Cruiser with that “awful plastic interior” and i really love the car and the plastic. Nearly indestructable, cleans easily and holds together well. I work for an Acura dealer on the preowned lot and the same vintage toyotas and hondas that come in with all that “soft touch” interiors are nice but do NOT cleanup nearly as well. Generally speaking the soft touch stuff seems to stain easier, some fade and are easily punctured or torn. Yes, Chrysler can improve the interiors of there cars, but I do like the durability aspect of the current grade of plastics used.
My family’s west coast vacation two summers ago involved an Avenger rental for a week, in the Lake Tahoe area; it had only a few thousand miles on it. Even with its smallish motor (which I think was one step up from the base motor then offered; this was during the first 6 months of production), the Avenger did just fine climbing from lake altitude (6200 ft) to our temporary condo (7500 ft) every day. The car was obtained in Sacramento in exchange for the Grand Marquis that had been given to us earlier that day in San Francisco (where the agent had called it a “grandma key”), so that comparison may have made us favor the Avenger more than we otherwise would. My main complaint was the almost nonexistent rear visibility, but a lot of currently popular cars have a similar problem too, such as the Ford Focus sedan (a more recent non-vacation rental).
Posters above keep mentioning the benefits of the AWD Avenger, but it’s no longer offered, as someone already noted; it’s as extinct as the Camry All-Trac sedan. And if the Avenger does have long-term durability problems, they will likely affect AWD cars even worse.
To all you Sebring defenders:
The recent Craptastic Interior cars (and that’s pretty much all the Chryslers sold in this century) sold so poorly that Chrysler went bankrupt. End of story.
You can’t argue against their plummeting sales, plummeting resale values, falling quality, and finally their bankruptcy. If you like those interiors, you are definitely in the minority.
Like eggsalad and others, I too have rented an Avenger. I can honestly say it was the worst car I have ever rented. I realize that rental units are not the equivalent of what I would buy, but just comparing it to other rentals it was awful. My employer has a contract with National, so I go to the ‘Emerald Aisle’ and take whatever is available, hopefully something I haven’t driven before. Since they’re all rentals at the same company, I think they’re comparable.
I hated the Avenger SE. About the only good thing about it was the price.
The Avenger R/T was okay. It compared alright to the Aura XE 3.5, Optima SX, and last-gen Fusion SEL.
However, the biggest problem I saw with the Avenger R/T was that a Charger SXT can be picked up for only like $300 more.
The Avenger R/T is a tick faster, but the I considered the Charger to be much more composed, more comfortable, and better looking. Plus, the Charger gets the same EPA combined mileage rating and has a lot more aftermarket support.
Even the sales guy had a hard time coming up with a good reason to get the Avenger R/T over the 3.5L Charger. The only pluses I saw with the Avenger was if you want FWD for winter traction or need a car with mid-side exterior dimensions.
So even on a Dodge lot, the Avenger losses.
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 :}
highrpm: “To this day, I can’t believe that the product planners at Chrysler green-lighted basically any product after 2003.”This can be explained with one word:
Daimler
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.