Dodge Stratus Review

I was given an '06 Dodge Stratus as my rental for my most recent business trip to Virginia, Maryland and DC. When I first got the car I really wanted to hate it and dog it as much as I did the Chrysler 300 that I had while in New York. It ended up that I don't really hate this car, I don't like it either. It gets kind of a meh reaction from me.

I'll start with the minuses:

The car isn't a looker, still has the Dodge Cab Forward design language to it. It is one of those cars that you just ignore because it is so boring. The engine pick up was pretty poor, of course it only had a 4 cylinder and must weigh in at over 3000lbs. A lot of weight for a small engine to pull around and you can tell. The engine whines pretty bad when pressed to get up to speed on a on-ramp and dislikes any hills that you come to. Those where the only two big minuses but they present the biggest problem. I am reminded of a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Will Farrell is lamenting on the fact that he drives a Dodge Stratus (or maybe a Cirrus).

The Pluses (Or rather things that where not all that bad):
Seats where ok, radio was ok, cabin controls where ok (still don't know why the cruise controls needed 6 buttons to operate), space was ok, sight lines where ok, ride was ok....blah blah blah.

That is the thing about this car, it is just so bland. Dodge built this car to be just, ok. They didn't try to do anything special with this car. I still can't put it worse than the 300 (there where just so many things wrong about that car) but at least someone tried to do something exciting with the design to where it stands out in a crowd. Why did anyone buy the Status? Really why? If you did tell me. Was it price? Had to be because I can't think of any other reason to own one.