LA Times calls Dodge Caliber "heavy and sluggish"

Los Angeles Times writer Dan Neil wasn't too impressed with the Dodge Caliber R/T after a test drive this week. His first major complaint related to the car's CVT transmission. "It feels exactly like a manual transmission with a shot clutch," he says. "The dawdling, clutch-slipping CVT is not at all helped by the R/T's curb weight, which takes any horsepower that manages to survive and strangles it in its crib." Neil was also disappointed with the vehicle's overall handling. "The R/T has kind of a crazed steering feel, rather numb and wandering, requiring lots of adjustments in midcorners. For as much rubber as it wears, the thing pushes like a plow and "” thanks to its tall-wagon center-of-gravity "” rolls like the Atocha in a Caribbean gale."