Aesthetically, the car needed much work, and that definitely showed later on with the plastic components having warped and cracked over the years. Overall the design could have been more fully optimized to provide a bit more space for gear. Plus, the relatively tall and streamlined design made the vehicle prone to tilting during high speed turns.

This doesn't give you a lot of "UMPH" when you hit the accelerator, as I mentioned before. Sometimes when I try to merge into traffic, I have difficulty due to the vehicle not accelerating quickly enough. This may be due to the occasional piston misfire code that I read from my sensors. It also doesn't have the greatest gas mileage. The gas tank runs out of gas at about the same rate as my '93 Subaru, and my '93 Subaru has a gas tank that is 60% the size. Also expect to drop about $40 on each fill up from the bottom, depending on the cost of gas. It's always a pain to see that much money drain into the gas tank. The gas mileage gets even worse if you go around in a very mountainous area like I do. For a car its size, I would prefer that it had a third car seat in the back, but it doesn't. Instead, it only seats five people. Although I'm no stickler for aesthetics, I don't really like its blocky styling. It looks as if it could stack up with other cars of its kind and make a jenga tower. This "blocky" design also becomes an issue when you're driving more than 90 MPH and the wind is trying to carry you off of the road like a bird of prey seeking fresh meat. A more aerodynamic design, like the 2006+ Toyota Rav 4s would have been much welcome in this department.

I have had to replace the alternator 3 times. I'm not sure if there is something wrong with the amount of wiring in this vehicle that causes it to burn up the alternator, but it sure does eat them. I keep getting told my mechanic that I am going to have to eventually replace the catalytic converters on them and I'm told there are 3 of them on the vehicle and they are $1100 each. I'm not looking forward to this. The rear seal on the engine is leaking oil at 180,000 miles and I'm also burning some through. I have to put a quart of oil in every 500 miles.