The Dodge Caliber is comfortable and practical, but it has one major fault — poor visibility — that I just can't live with.
For 2010, the Caliber dropped its high-performance SRT4 model, as well as its 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine option. It also employs a new naming convention this year: the trims were changed to (in ascending order) Express, Heat, Mainstreet, Uptown and Rush. I'm not sure what the point was behind changing the trim names, but, then again, they are original.
The biggest news, is that the Caliber got a completely redesigned interior for 2010, and that work was well-done. Chrysler has had its troubles lately, having to merge with Fiat to stay alive. If the Caliber's interior is an indication of what the company will do in the future, it's a promising sign. I didn't care for the previous Caliber's interior, but I think Dodge is on the right track with this one.
Visibility
If you're going straight ahead on a flat, farmland road, visibility in the Caliber is OK. However, if you ever have to turn or move in reverse, you're going to be in trouble.
The A-pillars (the ones that flank the windshield) are fairly large and sweep back at a shallow angle. A lot of cars have this styling and, as a result, a lot of cars are hard to see out of when turning. The pillars block your view of pedestrians, cars — anything — and that's a big problem.
On the highway, there's just not a lot of window glass — what car guys call the "greenhouse" — and while the view isn't claustrophobic, I never felt like I was seeing enough of the traffic around me to confidently judge my passing possibilities.
The view out the back of the Caliber is the worst, though. The rear window is small, and the rear seats have fixed, molded headrests that don't recede into the backrests, so it's like looking down a tube to see out the rear. Folding the rear seats down helps visibility — marginally. The Caliber is one of only a very few cars I've driven lately where I never felt confident when I was backing up, and there's no optional rearview camera or sonar parking assist.
Interior
If the visibility out the car is a huge downside, the interior is now one of the Caliber's strengths. Dodge completely redid the interior for 2010, and that work has paid off.
Our test model was a midrange Uptown model, and it had leather seating surfaces and other upgraded trim pieces. Looking at pictures of the base model, though, it's obvious Dodge has done its homework. The whole interior is cohesive. It looks like someone sat down and thought of the interior as a unit, where everything should look and feel similar. Sometimes when I'm in a car, I feel like things are sort of grafted together whether they really fit or not, but the Caliber didn't suffer from that.
Also, whoever designed the Caliber gave it something nice that's getting to be pretty uncommon these days: covered storage space. There's a sunglass holder on the dash, a bin under the armrest, and a center console bin. It was really convenient to have little out-of-sight places to hide things.
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