Excellent second car (or first car)

If you're looking for a roomy, reliable, great looking vehicle, I don't think you'll be too disappointed with this one.

We just celebrated our one year anniversary owning our 2001 Sebring. Ours is a 4-door, 6-cylinder, hard-top with a moonroof. The first thing that strikes you about the car is how stylish it looks on the road. I will still sometimes walk by it in a parking lot because it looks too sporty to be mine. We chose champagne color and it was a very good choice. The lighter color hides the dirt and dings.

Once inside the car, you'll be shocked by how spacious it is, particularly in the back seat. One of our children is still in a forward-facing car seat. Given the room in back, it is no problem installing it or removing it. Also, even when my child is in the car seat, another child can still get by to get out the door if necessary - there's that much room!!! Note: if you have a child in a rear-facing seat, consider this - the back window is huge, which makes the back seat bright and sometimes very hot. A rear-facing child would be pelted with the bright sun.

In the driver's seat, everything has been positioned very well to be within comfortable reach: lights, seat adjustment, radio/CD etc. There's plenty of leg room on both sides (qualification: assuming you're six feet or under. I had a passenger who was six feet and they were fine but made a comment that a couple of more inches and things would be difficult).

Driver seat control - forward and backward is fine. However, I wish it went higher. With the new outside design, it is a little difficult to see all angles out the back window.

Dash board - nothing stands out as excessively bad or good except one thing: the low fuel indicator light is positioned on the fuel gage. That strikes me as incredibly stupid since, if I was looking at the fuel gage, I'd see it was on empty - I don't need a little light there. Instead, why isn't it where my previous Dodge had it: by the speed-o-meter, which is where you are looking all the time.

We have a 5-CD player that has been working great and sounds wonderful. Again, no unnatural stretching to reach the various operating controls. Everything is very well positioned. Note: for the driver to physically remove a CD for another CD while driving would be very dangerous given how low the CD entryway is. I never swap out CD's while driving for this reason.

Gas mileage: okay, not as good as I'd hoped (but I had high expectations). I average about 25 MPG on open highway.

Maneuver/Handling: I've never had a problem. It is a long car and you have to get used to that (or at least it's longer than my Dodge Spirit was and it took a few weeks for me to get used to the extra space in back and front). It handles tremendously in highway traffic when I need to change lanes, accelerate quickly etc.

Back seat sinking comment: the side of the back seat where the child seat is has begun to noticeably sink. There is now a gap between the bottom of the seat and the back. I've never had that happen to me before with the car seats. When we stop using that child seat, that gap will become noticeable if the seat doesn't rebound a bit.

I highly recommend the moonroof. It was reasonably priced and it adds to the fun of driving this car. Also, we tend to use the air less because everyone enjoys having the roof open.

Reliability: In the one year that we've had it, we have not had one issue in this regard. We've been diligent about getting its oil changes etc. But, beyond that, no problems at all (knock wood).

Trunk space: unexpectedly enormous!!! Shopping is never a problem with this car given there is so much storage space in the trunk. I'm able to leave some standard things in there all the time and still have plenty of room for bags and packages.

Note: it took me awhile to get used to the front windshield. It is very big and aerodynamic, so you have a lot more peripheral vision than older cars. It sounds stupid but it made me slightly dizzy for the first week I was driving it but then I became used to it.

Value: even with the couple of "toys" we added on, like the CD player and moon roof, I think we got tremendous value with this car. When our primary car is in the shop, there's no problem with the family using this one, even for longer drives. In fact, sometimes we'll choose to take this car because it is so much fun to drive.

Overall, I would highly recommend this car to anyone who values:
1) Looks/Style
2) Value/Price
3) Reliability
4) Comfort