The Dodge Caliber, an odd hybrid of passenger car and crossover, was widely panned in the press, and sales were decidedly lackluster. It died a quiet death in 2011, but then resurfaced last year as the Subaru XV Crosstrek. It’s been widely praised, and Subaru is struggling to meet the demand for them.
Right shape? Wrong time? Sometimes it seems timing is everything…
I begin to wonder the same thing, it’s like the Chrysler Airflow story again…
You nailed it! Perfect analogy. Although the Caliber didn’t appeal to me originally like both generations of the Neon did, I now see it as kinda brilliant. A small crossover, or CUV, for people who need more space than the typical compact provides. Basically an alternative to the Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix. And, the SRT/4 version has huge appeal to me.
I’m going to go with wrong manufacturer. I knew several people who bought Chrysler products during this time – cheap interiors, lots of strange creaking noises, lots of oil usage in Pacifica’s – you would expect to use a quart of oil per 1000 miles on an older car, but not on a new car. There was also failure of parts that should not break after 30,000 miles – The rear diff on an awd Dodge Caliber. The looked and felt cobbled together. Daimler did Chrysler absolutely no favors.
The first year Caliber is a perfect example of innovative ideas in a half-baked final product. There are traces of engineering brilliance in the car, but the execution was way off. The interior showed obvious cost cutting and the CVT drone was horrible.
However, I have driven a 2011 Caliber with a proper 5speed manual and did find the car to be incredibly enjoyable. The interior redo is really remarkable compared to its original incarnation n(and limited Chrysler funds at the time)
A part of it is expectations and reputation. The configuration fits the Subaru brand. The initial advertising theme for the Caliber didn’t do it any favors either.
+1
Exactly. Subaru appeals to a whole different group of people. The Dodge lineup it all about 22″ Chrome Wheels and havin’ a Hemi in the Nitro Express Big Horn Power Wagon Mega Cab compensator package.
What perplexes me is that if you look at the Subaru lineup they have 3 very similar products in the CUV/AWD Wagon segment with the XV, Forester and Legacy based Outback that have a lot of overlap but they all sell well.
As long as you hit the sweet spot with the general concept I suppose it works. There are a lot of cars I like that have one or two aspects that I do NOT like. Having a very similar but different item available from the same manufacturer can probably seal the deal for a lot of people. Easier to walk across the showroom floor to a still familiar car than go to a different dealer and makes you happier in the long run than compromising.
That Crosstrek is even uglier than the Caliber. Look at that front overhang and the wheel openings. Awful.
The looks, handling, and mileage of a CUV, without that pesky cargo carrying ability.
To be contrary, I think the Caliber is one of the ugliest try-hard vehicles ever made.
+1
The Crosstrek is reasonably handsome. The Caliber looks like an oversize Tonka toy.
Dodge’s penchant for clunky, thuggish styling is lost on me.
It’s all in the eyes of the beholder, I think the Caliber is much better looking than the Crosstek.
+1. I’ve always said that years from now people will think that the Neon replaced the Caliber rather than what actually happened.
I thought the R/T version of the Caliber was okay, but it was sort of pricey and the SX4 AWD or Sportback had had it pretty well covered in everything but fuel tank size.
The other problem was that I felt the aged PT Cruiser Turbo and mechanically similar Jeep Patriot were better vehicles even under the same corporate umbrella.
The SRT4 Caliber was like some fantasy car that someone built in their garage, which I guess has some appeal.
The 2000lb towing capacity was a rare thing for this class of car.
The XV Crosstrek has more off-road potential (not that many will use it for this), and the both interior and exterior, while nothing really special, have a way of looking way better in terms of quality. The Caliber reeked of cheapness.
The Caliber was available with AWD. It shared platforms with the Jeep Patriot and Compass.
I knew it was on the same platform as the two Jeeps, but was actually unaware that AWD was available on the Caliber.
I still feel like most folks who are buying the Crosstrek wouldn’t have looked twice at a Caliber.
and the current Lancer is on that platform too I think
I’d enjoy a real off road & snow driving comparison test between a 2014 Cherokee and Forrester.
The Cherokee TrailHawk, in particular, *IS* trail rated. It’ll go off road.
The Crosstrek has a huge overhang in front, I could see where that could be trouble in the wrong circumstances.
Yup, front overhang is a killer on this thing.
I’m not actually sure what “off-road” means anymore as well-heeled 30-somethings in Crosstreks seem to be “off-roading” when I encounter them on roads that are simply unpaved.
The Crosstrek is clearly not intended for actual trails (can you imagine??), so it’s not really fair to bust its chops on this account. That some people do not realize this, or what actual off-road conditions are, is not the cars fault.
Having said that, and despite my disdain for the whole image of Subaru-as-somehow-nature-loving, doesn’t seem like a bad car for what it is. I’d take one for commuting in cold climates.
We’re a cult, Fuzzy.
I dunno… while neither is my personal cup of tea, I think Subaru looks far more refined and “classy” than the blocky Caliber.
Part of that, I’m sure, is my admitted bias against one of the worst products to come out of one of the worst eras for one of the worst modern car companies, but the Caliber’s clunky wheel arches, blunt nose and crude detailing does it no favors. The added ride height for the Subie also helps visually smooth out its design.
That said, from a reliability standpoint I think I’d take my chances on a Caliber before signing the note for a new Dart.
Besides the clunky look of the Caliber, there was also the rather substantial issues of poor driving dynamics and an uncomfortable interior comprised largely of Mattel-grade plastics. The Crosstrek has none of these albatrosses hanging around its neck.
One of the most telling failures of the Caliber was during the big 2009 Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS or the much more well-known name of ‘Cash-For-Clunkers’). While C4C wiped-out the inventories of the most fuel efficient vehicles (the Toyota Corolla, in particular, was in big demand) as people traded in their gas-guzzlers, no one was particularly interested in the Caliber and there were still plenty of them left on dealers lots when the program ended. Cobalts weren’t exactly flying off dealership lots, either.
Calibers are a rare sight in the UK,the Cruiser and Neon sold well but the Caliber never caught on.
The Caliber never caught on over here in its home either 🙂 We had one as a rental for a day while a car was in the shop. Usually we enjoy a random rental but in this case could not wait to get our car back.
If the Caliber had been available in AWD I think it would have done a lot better
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/noframes/24822.shtml
I believe it was available with AWD. See above link.
Which brings it back to marketing. If it was available with AWD, they sure didn’t push it.
I stand corrected, it was available as AWD in 2007-8, unfortunately few people knew it. I, at one point, looked into a Caliber as an economical AWD vehicle when I found out it wasn’t available I moved on. Must have been 2009
It was available with AWD.
Paul, you cannot be sirius. The Caliber looks clunky – who would want to walk out of their front door in the morning and be greeted by such a miserable sight ? The Subaru XV looks good by Subaru standards.
Outfitted properly, the Caliber could look competitively attractive. If the owner chose.
I liked the way they looked.
It was definitely a chameleon car. In base version, it came across as somewhat bland. But in Sport or SRT form, they look as good or better than the Subaru.
That SRT/4 version is one bad ride!! When I see a nice, clean one running around it gives me thoughts of finding a clean, decent used one. We’re talking 285-hp hooked up to a manual transmission! It’s kind of a sleeper.
The mechanicals and interior may have been lacking, but I guess I never understood why the Caliber was panned b/c of it’s looks. The Matrix and Vibe were only marginally better looking. The PT Cruiser and HHR were the real ugly ducklings in this segment.
It’s a shame about the goofy looks because this is a great type of vehicle – a small wagon with spacious interior that is good on gas and often available with a manual.
I want one of these for my MM garage…
That’s it, exactly, By Subaru standards. Judged by others, it’s pretty damn ugly.
I always thought the Vibe and Caliber were similar? Do you not agree?
I can see that. I always thought the monotone color package on the Vibe did it 100 favors in the looks department. Speaking of the Vibe, who here knew the original was also sold as the Toyota Voltz in Japan!?!
And here as the (for the most part identical outside of sheet metal) Matrix.
The Vibe would be about the only Corolla I would ever consider. Too bad it got stuck with the Toyota motors. Which pretty much takes it out of consideration.
They could switch over all kinds of other things to turn a Corolla wagon into a Pontiac, why the hell couldn’t they have put a proper Ecotec in it too? At least there would have been some power in that wagon…
These, the old wagon-y Forester, Vibe/Matrix, are all pretty similar in terms of dimensions (though the Forester had a bigger engine). I like to think they hark back to the old Civic/Tercel wagons, even if a little bigger.
When the Caliber came out I thought it was cool car in a world of Corollas, Focuses (Foci), cobalts etc…Then I drove one. Might have been the worst new car I had ever driven. Horrible plastic interior, terrible switch gear and the CVT just moaned….
Could have been great
Paul makes an interesting comparison here. Neither car is what you would call a beauty queen, but are really very similar in concept and execution in the larger sense. I have to laugh when I read some of the comments both cars are pretty harsh on the eyes, but somehow the Subaru is better looking? OK…
The Caliber was trying to ride several trends when it was released in 2006. We were still riding pretty high on the SUV wave, and it had SUV styling attributes. It even has the huge J Mays inspired fender flares that were first on Audis, then followed by Fords (as J Mays moved from one company to the other) and finally everyone else.
Actually, I have spent some time in these cars and I like that size of car. It was on my list of replacements if my Sunfire would have died at that time. I had no problems with the style or the materials of the interior as it was an inexpensive car. What I did find, at least in the example that I borrowed for a week and a half, was that the 2.0L motor and the CVT were a bad combination. Slow and noisy, not my favorite mix. The car drove well enough, handled fine for what it was (I wasn’t autocrossing it) and seemed like every other competent small car you find these days.
The particular car I had borrowed from a friend had been a sales rep’s car and the car had several issues. One was an appetite for engine oil, but this car at the ripe old age of five already had 200,000 miles on it. The trans seemed like it was slipping, but I really couldn’t tell as I have had little experience with CVTs. There was a constant check engine light on. Later on, my friend found it was actually throwing a code related to the CVT.
As a commuter and a grocery getter, it was fine little car. Outside of the CVT, it drove like most others. I gave it back, thankful she had a spare car I could borrow and didn’t have to pay to rent one. But since I’m the “motorhead” of the bunch, she started peppering me with questions about the car. I really couldn’t give any truly solid information which eventually led to the diagnostics being performed at a shop.
I don’t recall what the issue was with the trans, but it was something the indy shop she chose could not fix, it was a dealer only service (initially). After the dealer got further into the trans diagnosis, it was determined it was terminal. My friend was furious as she had bought the car for her kid to use. She was willing to sell it to me for a nominal amount (<$1000) but I still would have had to replace the trans. And I wasn't crazy about the car with the trans or it's appetite for engine oil. I turned her down.
Had it been the 1.8L/five speed version, I would have given it more consideration. I like smaller cars, I like the wagon configuration and I liked the styling. I think the R/T version of this car would be a hoot, and will be a collectible at some point in the future. Unfortunately, this car (and other Chryslers of the period) got beaten with Daimler’s cheap and ugly stick, castoff Malaysian Mitsubishi engineering mashed up with what was left of Chrysler’s good engineering and cheap-o materials do not make memorable cars. In a positive fashion, that is…
I've often joked that certain US domestic models would sell much better if it had a Japanese nameplate on it. Paul's comparison comes pretty close to actually making the punch line work…
In 2008, i was posted in Charleston for 3 Weeks, had a new Caliber as a rental car.
I liked the looks, but boy was that car a cheap POS.
Things didn’t work, it was noisy, thirsty and, quite contradictorily, terribly underpowered.
I don’t know what killed the sales of it, perhaps just general Daimler-Chrysler malaise…
Dr.Z and his hatchet-man, Wolfgang Bernhard, sure proved the old maxim that it is not possible to cut one’s way to prosperity…
When Daimler-Benz took over Chrysler I had hopes that they would raise Chrysler’s product quality closer to Mercedes standards.
Instead, Chrysler’s products plunged to abysmal levels and Mercedes quality closed the gap substantially with its corporate cousin.
All brought to you by Jurgen Schrempp, The World’s Worst Auto Executive.
The Caliber worked for me. I thought sales were actually pretty good the first few years. I recall Motor Trend saying something like introducing a small car into a period of higher gas prices was the only reason it did okay. Never drove one, but I recall these being widely panned.
Styling, of course, is subjective. But I would much rather look at my 2012 Impreza on a daily basis than comparables from Nissan, Toyota or Honda. The Ford Focus, on the other hand, is pretty spiffy, especially in some of the reds and yellows it comes in. Too bad it isn’t all-wheel drive.
I think the Impreza will age the best of the current compact cars. I know this because all of the auto journalists think it’s boring. Whereas cars like the Elantra will look silly in another 10-15 years.
The latest Focus makes me feel sick
“Too bad it isn’t all-wheel drive”
It is, they just call it the Escape
My son has one that looks just like this. It’s a nice vehicle, but bigger and heavier than I need for my daily driver, more along the size of my wife’s Forester.
That’s funny, because the Escape is smaller then the Forester by two inches
BLECH. Those things look horrible. And offering the ecoboost yet no manual trans is like a slap in the face.
One of the more interesting things about the sorry Caliber was how its mechanically identical Jeep brethren, Patriot and Compass, sold okay (especially the Patriot). It’s like if a vehicle is old-school in appearance, consumers will tolerate less than stellar performance.
Even now, I think the Patriot outsells the much more modern looking (updated at least once) Compass, whereas the Patriot still wears the styling it came with when originally introduced in 2007.
When the Caliber first came out I thought it might have some potential, even though–like the Crosstrek–it seemed to be trying to straddle one too many genres. But then I rented one for a week, and its combination of Soviet era plastics, horrific ergonomics and low rent drivetrain quickly disabused that notion.
I like the looks of the regular Impreza hatch, but the Crosstrek – yuck. Can’t the tall-and-ugly Rubbermaid trim look just be OVER, already!?
If the Caliber had average reliability or above average reliability I would not dislike it so much since I could probably forgive its other short comings.
The current generation of Outback is kind of ugly and has frames around the windows unlike previous Subaru products, but at least it has a stick shift. In fact, the current Legacy is so ugly my folks decided not to Cash for Clunker my car to buy a 2009. Do not worry, my car was a suffering heap. The current generation Forester looks a bit odd andI still have a hang up about driving an SUV mostly on pavement, but it comes with a stick shift and has the most cubic feet of storage. The Current XV Crosstrek looks nice, comes in Tangerine Orange Pearl and is available with a stick shift, but does not have much cargo capacity. So in conclusion I think I will buy a Baja Yellow with Silverstone Metallic plastic trim Subaru Baja with a stick shift.
Oregon is full of Subarus and a number of them get used like Subarus though occasionally someone will slam one. The fact cars last so long here nearly makes Oregon a rolling Subaru history museum.
Personally, I like the Caliber. It looks like a scaled down Magnum wagon…although the transition of the rear quarter to the hatch seems an afterthought…could have been better. That said, it baffles me why people lamented the Neon which was just another crappy, blah looking sedan. Theyre actually well made cars for what they are (cheap wheels) but that also means that people view them as disposable. The SRT-4 Caliber in theory SHOULD have spanked the neon SRT4 in every way. 215 vs 280 hp beforeyou start getting into the Mopar upgrades. But that’s just too much motor for a pure fwd so can you say ‘torque steer’? Had the awd been beefed up for the SRT model, it would’ve been a different ballgame. Seeing as how the Jeep softroaders are on the same platform, Jeep left a LOT of money and street cred on the table. Jeep could’ve fielded a rally prepped Compass that would spank the STI and Evo on the gravel, a 280 hp SRT Rallye Compass would do the same on the street.
I like the looks of the crosstek….actually one of the better looking CUVs out there. BUT, does it even offer a manual trans? A turbo model? Subaru has this nasty habit of coming out with a turbo on some of its models, barely building any and then forcing you into a slushbox if you want the good stuff. Just makes no sense to me whatsoever. Currently, the Mini Countryman is the only CUV that is throwing us enthusiasts any kind of bone, since it has the whole rally/racing them going on, and you can get a awd/turbo/manual combo.
Yes, it comes with a manual.
The Subaru has much better visibility from behind the wheel.
Some former workmates between 2008-10 chose Calibers as their company cars (as well as a couple Dodge Avengers and a Dodge Nitro). All grew to hate the Lego-like plastic interiors of all of them, except the workmate who surfed. He thought the Caliber just the best thing ever as no water could damage the Lego – and those drop-down tailgate speakers that were perfect for post-surf music at the beach.
TBQH I wouldn’t be caught dead in either one of those vehicles… and I’ve never understood this whole Subie cult business… around here (n.e. Ohio) they rot pretty bad, they eat head gaskets at 100k, and they leak oil like the Exxon Valdez. What gives?
I like the CrossTrek, it has much better proportions than the Caliber, which was just oddly blocky. I think the regular Impreza hatch looks both too tall and too narrow, the wheels are inset too much, gives it a cheap appearance. But the CrossTrek version gives it a much tougher appearance, more sporting and yet still compact and tossable. Obviously different strokes for different folks since most people who have commented seem to not like the Subaru, but I could see myself driving one for sure. Make mine orange and I would make the wheels all black too. 🙂
Wish one looks better now,?
Oh yea is lifted!
2008 Dodge Caliber Lifted
Better than a Subaru XV Crosstrek to much cheap black plastic around body. Looks awful!
I almost bought a ,2018 Subaru when to see them at the dealership to much money for the cheap black plastic,so I dicide to just lift my old trusted old gal. No regrets get a lot of compliments.😎