The Intrepid's stay in Florida would come to an end this month, as it traveled to Denver, and then back to our home office in Los Angeles. Before bidding farewell to the rain and shine of southern Florida, our Intrepid would encounter some very dark skies, which were a portent of the damage that was yet to be suffered by our large sedan.

First, we picked up an unwelcome hitchhiker in the form of a nail in the sidewall of the left rear tire. Stopping at a local Goodyear service center, we had the tire replaced for $177.72. Real trouble surfaced a few days later during a nasty thunderstorm. Our Florida staffer's significant other was driving when a car cut off the Honda Accord she was following. The Honda stopped in time, but as our staffer put it, "The front of the Intrepid was introduced, rather rudely, to the rear of the Accord."

The Accord suffered little damage, but our Intrepid's hood was creased and the front bumper was scuffed and scratched. We later took the still driveable Dodge to Fairbanks Dodge in Coconut Creek, Fla. To our surprise, the damage estimate totaled $1,700. It didn't appear that the Intrepid had suffered that much damage, but with modern crumple zones, body damage can be big bucks. After some haggling, we were able to get the price lowered to $1,553.34, still quite a charge for a small fender-bender. Our car spent about a week in the shop, and was as good as new, ready for the long journey west.

We loaded up the Intrepid, easily fitting everything that was once crammed tightly in our long-term Miata into a small fraction of the Dodge's total cargo space. Immediately, we were aware of the cavernous interior, providing us with room to sprawl. Also, we found the cabin to be quite luxuriously appointed. Cruising in the Intrepid proved to be easy and tolerable. We commented: "As a cruising vehicle, the Intrepid is very pleasant. The seats are comfortable, it's spacious, the engine's quite powerful, at speed it's not unsettled, and it gets decent gas mileage."

On the haul from Miami to Denver, the driver's side window quit working, preventing us from doing simple tasks like paying tolls. In order to pay the attendant, we were forced to pull well beyond the tollbooth and swing the door open wide. It's not like we're driving an '81 Chevette, so it was a bit embarrassing. We'll have to get this fixed ASAP.

Many other interior quirks presented themselves to us while on our trek. The list included a floor-mounted parking brake that's easy to depress just a bit if your foot taps it, a thin-rimmed non-malleable steering wheel, and left-hand stalk-mounted wipers. Other complaints included climate controls above the stereo controls, slushy movement of the transmission lever, poorly placed stereo controls, sticky cupholder deployment mechanism, and an overanxious "distance to empty" display. In addition, we noticed that the cruise control has a mind of its own; a driver commented that the cruise-control needle bobs up and down and doesn't maintain the set speed. Now we're not talking a bobbing buoy in a tropical storm - it's more like apples in the bucket at your local fair.

Not all was annoying on the way to the Mile High City. Praise was given to the white-faced gauges and the sound of the stereo. The trip computer and large map lights also were complimented. The mechanicals did receive accolades as we found the engine to be powerful, delivering the power smoothly and efficiently to the front wheels. We also were impressed with the suspension's ability to soak up large bumps quite effectively, with our driver saying, "I've gone over several bumps recently with no trauma or drama; everything's cool."

Arriving in Denver, we handed over the keys to our managing editor, Karl Brauer. Karl immediately found the broken window to be a huge inconvenience. "The broken driver's window was a hassle, especially when dealing with the many toll/ticket gates around Denver International Airport. It's also a drag when the car's been sitting in the sun all day, and you want to put down the window to blow out the stale air." We also detected a very slight vibration in the wheel, which led us to suspect an out of balance front wheel. After stopping, however, we noticed that three tires were low on air. We've since filled them up, and hope that alleviates the problem.

We had quite a bit of stuff to load into the trunk before departing Denver for L.A., but found the huge trunk a blessing, as we were able to load half-a-dozen pieces of luggage, a portable crib, a stroller, several bags of assorted baby items, a baby walker, and a medium-sized camera bag. Brauer commented, "It's cool to think that the days of American sedans with 'dead-body toting' trunks have returned."

While Brauer found the exterior styling to be fresh and modern, he did point out that the long, low front overhang was easy to scrape, a nasty quality usually reserved for low-slung sports cars. We think that it's overly scrape-prone for a large sedan; after all, this isn't a sports car, but it doesn't necessarily feel like the quintessential large sedan. Brauer noted: "The car feels decidedly large, yet not at all unwieldy or cumbersome. Dodge did a good job of managing the Intrepid's heft and keeping the 'land yacht' sensations to a minimum."

After issuing praise to the Intrepid's highway stability, even during heavy downpours, we arrived in Los Angeles. We cleaned up the car and handed the keys over to an eager L.A. staffer who described the styling as, "sleek and modern" and thought the Intrepid was a car that a person would like to be seen in." After jumping aboard and realizing that the driver's side window was broken, his sentiments had a change of tune, as he felt what two previous drivers had already experienced. "You never really notice how much you use that driver's window until it goes out. No fast-food drive-thrus, no getting parking tickets at garages, and no paying for parking. I was never so embarrassed."

That ultra-sensitive "distance to empty" gauge we noticed on the way to Denver showed itself again, but this time the driver did not know there was still plenty of gas in the tank. The fretting driver described: "Miles started to count down like a rocket ready to take off at Cape Canaveral. By the time I had traveled the mile and a half of traffic, the mileage gauge had counted down to 1." We got gas just fine, even though our driver is now a recovering gas-pump-aholic!

Final observations in L.A. ranged from great seats front and rear to a pokey climate-control system, a bit recalcitrant about cooling the occupants in a timely fashion. Almost 5,000 miles later, our Intrepid set up tent and called L.A. home once again. It's certainly a great cruiser, but we'll have to see how pleasant it is to live within in the bumper-to-bumper mess that most of our staff calls home.

Current Odometer: 31,209
Best Fuel Economy: 28.8 mpg
Worst Fuel Economy: 15.8 mpg
Body Damage: $1,553.34
Maintenance Costs: $177.72
Problems: Broken driver side window.