2003 Chrysler PT Cruiser Touring review from Finland

So far, nothing, very,

My wife and I bought a brand new Chrysler PT Cruiser 2003 model (Touring) in July, 2003.

We've had the car now for about 4,5 months and driven about

6000 km:s with it and are just as happy with it as we were on the day we

bought it. You've all heard this before:

* cute looking car, styling a real masterpiece

* functionality inside very good

* good handling capabilities

* practical seats that can be folded according to one's needs

* seating position relatively high, good view of road

* very comfortable to drive, sit in for long trips.

There are also things I'm not so happy about, but they are minor

things like:

- petrol tank cap somewhat difficult to open/close sometimes

- hand brake position a bit awkward, should be closer to driver

- rear part of car gets very dirty in rainy/snowy weather.

One thing that was a pleasant surprise for me was the petrol/km rate.

After having read a lot of critical comments on different web pages

I decided to test it out myself. On a 1000 km return trip to another

part of Finland I received the following results (speed 80-100 km/hr, no AC on, winter tyres on) :

* petrol consumption, pure motorway driving: 7 l/100 km

* petrol consumption: half motorway/half town: 9,2 l/100 km.

It's also been interesting to see how different the pro:s and con:s can

be in different countries. I've noticed that in the USA many people seem

to get annoyed by things that don't have much importance over here, for

instance:

* the window up/down switches are OK to me (I use them maybe 2 times a year)

* the motor noise, we can legally drive 80/100/120 km per hour on our roads,

so there's no motor noise to speak of, in fact I've never driven this silent

a car before)

* acceleration is fast enough for me, with a 2.0 l engine and manual gearbox

(why would anyone want a car with automatic gears, beats me?)

My wife, who maybe was even more enthusiastic about the car than I was

when we actually bought it lists things she likes as follows.

* the colour (metallic red), styling, interior design (e.g. hand rest)

Whenever I pick her up from work she always seems to get in a good mood

when she lays her eyes on the car (so the "wow" factor still seems to work for her!).