Just got back from a Florida Vacation & had to write down some observations on my rental.

This 2006 had 14,5xx miles on it before I assumed it for 9 days. The exterior of the car looks really dated. The "cab-forward" thing just doesn't work well on a convertable - the proportions of the vehicle don't look right.. but styling is a personal taste for most everyone, so I'll leave exterior impressions alone.

The interior:

Positives: Comfortable room for the kids in the back. Seats were comfortable & supportive. Everything seemed fairly well layed out. The top folds up & down very easily -- and quickly.

Negatives: Little or no attention seems to have been paid to build quality. Our Sebring had a really fake-looking chrome-colored band of plastic between the lower dash and the upper dash. Not only were visible gaps noticible between the two, but it was obvious that the chrome-colored piece had a rough-cut edge to it. It was very tacky. No auto-headlight feature. I guess my $15k Chev. Malibu must really be blessed - I can't believe how any manufacturer can leave this out of their standard equip. list nowadays. I left my headlights on twice 'cause of this - both times were on short-errand -type trips, so no harm done. There was an annoying air-leak/wind-whistling somewhere in the glasswork/convertable top on the drivers side area. Never could isolate the problem. Drove me nuts.

Powertrain:

Postivies: the 2.7l is fine for everyday driving. Nothing drastically sporty, but it gets the job done. A "previously I owned a 4 cyl" type of person would be thrilled with it. It seems smooth and quiet. Didn't drink a whole lot of gas either. A very nice engine for it's position.

Negatives: The transmission is the worst I've ever driven. It simply could not figure out what I wanted to do. It would upshift/downshift willy-nilly. It was just schizo. Very tempermental. I was actually thinking that the car had been abused or there was some sort of build-defect-issue at play here. It's very, very bad.

Misc:

The "air bag" light came on repeatedly during routine driving (along with it's annoying chime). Turn a corner. Step on the brakes. Step on the gas. Have the car shift gears. Sneeze. Breathe. Blink. Didn't freaking matter. Chime, chime, freaking chime. The light came on and off so much, I thought I was playing a pinball machine. Worse was the rental car companies response: "If you want to exchange it for another, just bring it in". Yeah idiot: let me pay $3.50 in tolls each way to bring your diseased p-o-s back to you and take time away from my family @ the theme parks that I'm spending $100-a-minute to take my family to. Whatever.

It is an old car, older than the Malibu, so it's little surprise, especially that ugly interior. I personally like the exterior. Hopefully the new Sebring convertible will be a much better car.

I find the interior and exterior to be attractive.

I just think the dash looks a litle too stiff- in both design and materials.

And a lack of auto headlamps is not a big deal.

If one is too lazy to turn a nob or what not to turn the lights on, would said person be too lazy to pay attention while driving?

If one is too lazy to turn a nob or what not to turn the lights on, would said person be too lazy to pay attention while driving?

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When one becomes very accustomed to automatic headlights, it's a very hard habit to get out of.

Oldsmoboi is correct on this one -- once you get in the habit of not having to turn your headlights on and off, you don't think anything of leaving a car with the headlights on (both my Suburban and my Malibu leave the headlights on for 30 seconds after the car has been shut off/vacated).

As for the exterior styling, it's a personal preference. The interior design isn't bad at all - it's the execution that was horrible. The band of plastic the seperated the upper and lower dash regions had a 'painted chrome' finish. The gap between the upper part of that chrome-plastic band and the lower part of the upper-dash had a sizeable gap that was large enough so that you could see the jagged cut areas of the plastic-chrome piece. Combined, it made for a very cheap looking interior.

One of my previous vehicles was an '01 Stratus - and that chrome-piece was a faux wood plastic piece. Granted the faux-wood wasn't high-quality, but it did look better than the faux-chrome. And my '01 Stratus was of much better build quality -- no where near the gaps in the dash pieces that this unit displayed. My '01 Stratus didn't gear-hunt like this unit, but the transmission wasn't exactly smooth - it was fairly jerky in it's execution.