From VW.
I expect this engine will wait for clean diesel in NA.

Continuing the trend started with the Chrysler 300.

I looked at a Caliber in a dealership the other day.
It had alot of neat toys built in for the money.
However I'm curious how well the CVT tranny works and how much maintenance
it will need over the lifespan of the car.

I put a deposit down on a PT Cruiser today. Plan on using it around town,
and for my 19 year old daughter to use when she is home from college,
home depot runs, etc. Very different car from my 2000 3ooM, but I think it
will be a good replacement for my old K car based New Yorker,
which is rusting out from road salt in New York.

It was an interesting experience working thru 3 different dealers to find a
PT Cruiser with the options that I was looking for.
I have a 300M and a Thunderbird and was looking for basic transportation in
the PT Cruiser.
Reading the brochures the touring model with ABS brakes seems to be a good
fit for my planned use but PT Cruisers with ABS were hard to find.

The first dealer wanted to sell me a leftover loaded 2005 with a turbo for
$24k or switch me to the Caliber.
They suggested I should buy the Caliber now at list price because they were
destined to be "hot" and hard to get and my daughter would not want to
be seen dead in the PT Cruiser. Their selling point were free tires for the
life of the car if I came in every 3,000 miles for an oil change and tire
rotation.
.
The second dealer, a local 5 star, the one I purchased the 3ooM from in 2000
was polite,
showed me what he had on the lot, quite a few Walter P models, and a Route
66 model with ABS.
The Route 66 model was overkill for my needs, none of the Walter P versions
had ABS.
The salesman wasn't really interested in bringing a car in from another
dealer that was closer to my requirements..
I was told it would be difficult to make this happen since they were not
making much on the sale since I was using the PP plan for the purchase.

So today I went to another 5 star dealer about 45 minutes drive to my south.
They told me they could get a car with the options I wanted from a sister
dealership in Connecticut,
got the details on the car from that dealership, and said they would have it
here in a couple of days for me to check out.

Glad to hear it's working well.
It was a bit earlier than that the Mitsubishi engines were troublesome
in Chryslers. Their 4 cyl in the 80s burned oil too soon.  Chrysler
replaced it with their own very successful 2.2L and 2.5L engines, which
we had.
The Mitsubishi 3.0L V6 was a reliable engine from friends reports, but
the Chrysler 3.3L was better from all aspects.
Glad to hear Mitsubishi solved their problems.

Great engine in our 2001 Sebring, but I hear there were problems in the
early years of that engine, as is often the case.
Wasn't '98 the first year for that engine?

My suggestion is not to buy a significant new mechanical design like an
engine or transmission for about two model years.

I have experienced grief when I unknowingly bought to soon a new design.
I could give you a real tale of grief I had with the Chrysler 4 sp
manual transmission in my '81 Horizion.  Thank goodness Chrysler
replaced that transmission completely with success in the 3 rd. year,
but the time I wasted up to that time was ugly. If I had the money I
would have dumped it very soon.