Am I the only one here?

[iTurbo]

Was just wondering if I am the only one here with a Caliber SRT-4? Seems unfortunate that the "old-skool" crowd never caught on with this car at all. I've owned this car for a little over two years now and I gotta say I love the damn thing. My only gripes so far are the lack of rear view visability and no USB or iPod connectivity. Other than that, this thing is a blast!! I guess I'm a little surprised that the 2.2/2.5 crowd gives the car such a bad rap but I gotta say I love this thing! It is seriously the fastest car I have ever driven. That may sound a little wierd but compared to my old turbo dodges it is seriously better in every way (except for rear view visability).

So far the only mods I have done as far as performance is the Mopar Stage I ECU. It helped a lot, especially with regards the the throttle response which sucks big time (stock) thanks to the drive-by-wire bullshit. I have been thinking of getting the new RealTune "MS1K" (Mopar Stage 1 Killer) tune though. That is supposed to help out a lot as far as t he throttle respone, even more the the Mopar S1 ECU. Other than that, I'm not sure I want to do anything else to the car. I thought of getting a high flow downpipe from NeedsWings or RealTune but I gotta admit I really like having a quiet car for once! All of my older turbo mopars have 3" exhaust systems and this CSRT with stock exhaust is faster than all of them! It's just not right, hence my decision to go 16v with the fleet. I mean, I buy this CSRT and right off the bat it's way faster than any of my old skool turbo-mopars despite all that I have done for them; it's just not right dammit! I mean seriously I can only hope that a TIII in my Omni GLH will keep up with the damn thing!!!

[BadAssPerformance]

They are nice cars, i have seen a couple on here?

[boost geek]

They'll catch on when they hit the junk yard. Newer cars are too much $$$ to mess around with and blow up.

[contraption22]

Weren't there less than 2000 of them sold? Rarity might be a reason. Also a completely new engine family and lack of aftermarket support and limited DIY upgrade ability. Replacement tires cost more than some of us wrapped up in entire project cars.

I sat in one at the dealership back in the day. Loved the seats. Didn't like the shifter or the overall looks of it. The sticker price didn't help matters, as there was a slightly used Magnum R/T on the lot for less money.

[iTurbo]

Yeah, I can see that as far as warranty goes. I bought the extended 7/70 warranty since the Lifetime Powertrain Warranty wasn't available for the SRT cars. So far I have only had to bring it in for warranty work for:

1. Control arm bolts. Everytime I hit the gas at full torque it would clunk loudly! Or if I hit even a mild pothole! I brought it in to the local dealership at 8AM and they found a TSB regarding the issue and had it fixed by by lunch break. Never heard it since.

2. Black-out tape on door pillars. Only the CSRT Calibers got the blackout tape and mine started wrinkling/chipping because they bunched up at the corners of the pillar. The local dealership had it fixed in no time with new black out tape and so far it's been fine.

3. Brakes pulsating. I had a problem with the brakes pulsating a few thousand miles after I got the car. Found out the front brake rotors were slightly out of spec so I had the local dealership resurface them and they have been great so far.

I gotta admit though, I only have about 11k miles on the car since buying it two years ago. It's pretty much pleasure vehicle only and I don't dare deliver pizza in it. That's what my Regal and Shelby Lancer are for!! Haha. No wonder I'm building a 2.5L TIII for the SL and 2.2L TIII for the Omni, they gotta show the Caliber who's boss!!! But I don't think a stock TIII turbo is gonna cut it!

[glhs727]

Our caliber srt-4 has 50K on it, and still running great!........

[Keito]

I really liked the car when it came out and thought about selling my SRT-4 Neon to get one, but I couldn't
justify selling my car that was paid off and had 15,000 miles on it to get a new car payment.
Today it sits in the garage, sun is shining and I don't even have insurance on it yet, now has 18,000 miles.

[Mopar318]

Nice cars, but I here they don't hold up well to lots of boost like their older iron block ancestors. Ive seen a few that have cracked the blocks.

[ScottD]

I can't attest to the accuracy of these numbers but they probably present a reasonably accurate snapshot of how limited the production was.

http://homepage.mac.com/mouser/CSRT4...ry/CSRT4R.html

I am in the same boat as Keito, I drove a new one and while I really liked it, at the time (2008) there was no blue CSRT-4 available and my NSRT-4 had under 20k on it.

[contraption22]

I will say, that my attitude towards it has softened. Especially since I really miss having a hatchback daily driver. Especially lately.

[Keito]

Wow, I remember when you had nothing good to say about it!

[89FerrariShelby]

Had a "regular" version for a rental car when traveling for work one time. Lack of visibility was a killer for me. I would never drive a car that I dont feel like i have damn close to 360 degree visibility, and that think i felt like i had maybe 180.

and its not very good looking imo....you can make anything go fast...but there's only so much you can do about appearance on any given car....

glad you're enjoying it, at the end of the day, that's what's most important

[Vigo]

I may be taking a shot in the dark here but i think the lack of AWD curtailed the customer base by a lot.

[dodgeshadowchik]

They'll catch on when they hit the junk yard. Newer cars are too much $$$ to mess around with and blow up.

+1 This is turbo-mopar, after all. I think most of the people here dislike car payments.

---------- Post added at 11:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:56 AM ----------

I may be taking a shot in the dark here but i think the lack of AWD curtailed the customer base by a lot.

This too.. With the EVO and WRX... it seems that they should've offered an AWD version. They had one on the R/T, so I don't think it would've been that far fetched. Also, these newer cars and all the electronic garbage on them make them less user-friendly to modify and work on. See above comment about $$

[Vigo]

Again im not certain on this but i think it was originally considered and tested as AWD but they were breaking things and caught a case of the WAAAAAAAAs and gave up instead of making it work.

[iTurbo]

As far as I know, the other Calibers that were AWD equipped could only come with the dreaded CVT transaxle, and that would have never held up to the 2.4L Turbo. I doubt they would have even bothered testing that setup in the CSRT.

Also, I heard they were originally going to come with the Quaife LSD like the NSRTs did, but the bean counters decided it was better to go with an electronic traction control system. So far I think it actually works quite well and it keeps the cars tires from spinning out of control through the gear. You can turn it 'off', and the car is more fun to drive but you burn up the tires a lot more then.

Actually, I don't mind the lack of a real LSD. There are videos on YouTube of Neil Emiro's Caliber that he has installed his own traction control system and he was cutting very consistent mid-to-high 5 second 0-60 MPH times measuring with the built in performance computer in the cluster.

[ScottD]

I will say, that my attitude towards it has softened. Especially since I really miss having a hatchback daily driver. Especially lately.

Two words my friend - Turismo 2.2!

[Juggy]

my buddy dynoed 332whp and 353? tq on 18 psi with a mopar stage 1.5 (test computer?)
only mod was the computer and 3" from turbo back. car ran 13.0 @ 112 with 2.1 60 footers....

mary beth has a beautiful picture of it smoking the tires up at SDAC 15 (the pic made it into a magazine......)
i got the video somewhere too.....the car was still filled with smoke when we opned the hatch 6-7 hours later to get some things out of the car

[135sohc]

Thought I spotted one yesterday. Did they also come in black or just that orange color ?

[iTurbo]

I think I remember seeing that one. Was it black? Somebody should post up a pic of that.

Would like to mod my CSRT further, but I got too many things going on so I am not letting myself buy anything for it until I bring my older cars back to life with TIII transplants. As much as I love the car, I would like nothing more than to put the hurt on it with my Shelby Lancer and the world will be a little more right.

---------- Post added at 09:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:39 AM ----------

Thought I spotted one yesterday. Did they also come in black or just that orange color ?

You could get them in orange, red, black, silver, and blue. Orange was '08-only and blue was '09-only though. I'd post a pic of my car but my site (turbosedan.com) is down.