As a car, not bad, but not great. For the price, it's perfectly fine. Great in the snow
Main reason for my "not bad, not great" in the title concerns the shifting. I don't think it does it that well. It decides to put you in 6th when it should really be in 5th, even 4th, then it eventually has to downshift, and may go to 2 or 3 (too low). But, I've rented other similarly priced SUV's and they all seem to do this. Perhaps this is the way they get the gas mileage up. In any case, I use the pseudo-manual function alot. My previous cars (of many years) have all been manual transmissions, so I have strong personal preferences when it comes to shifting. Otherwise, car is fine. It gets me from A to B. You wanted a more powerful car, well, ya gotta pay for it. Oh, yeah, it's great in the snow, which is why I wanted an AWD. But didn't want to pay an arm and a leg. Other thing: road noise is somewhat high in this car.