Just read this on one of the UK sites I still frequent. Not that it comes as that big a surprise, given that there's a distinct lack of 2015 Evos for sale...
Just read this on one of the UK sites I still frequent. Not that it comes as that big a surprise, given that there's a distinct lack of 2015 Evos for sale...
The first ever autox that I ever attended was very cold, in the upper 30's. I was standing by my car in grid which was adjacent to the starting line. The first car up up was an Evo with four massive slicks on it. Before he got up to the line he lit up all four tires for a couple seconds, I guess to get some heat in them and clean them off. My jaw hit the ground, it was a most amazing sight to behold. Prior to that I had only read about Evo's in magazines and watched them in the WRC. I was always in the Subaru camp but I still hate to see it go.
IMO, The EVO is the only decent car they have made in the last 10 years or so as far as I can tell. They might as well focus on EVs only since they don't really stand a chance of being successful in the mainstream US market.
amg_rx7 wrote: IMO, The EVO is the only decent car they have made in the last 10 years or so as far as I can tell. They might as well focus on EVs only since they don't really stand a chance of being successful in the mainstream US market.
How did a company that gave us a lineup like the FTO, 3000gt, Eclipse, VR-4 Galant, and EVO at the same time end up this way? I may have just answered my own question looking at what I just wrote...
Still it seems like Mitsubishi had a harder fall from grace than most any car company I've been around long enough to see implode in the US. I'll forgive them if they can bring an EV to market that's fun to drive with a 200 mile range for under 35k and doesn't look like a guppy though.
I am a big Subaru fan but I love the Evo too. The completion between them always improved the breed. Mitsubishi mishandled that one and I am Sorry to see it go. One of the all time greats.
It is an irony that a lot of people LIKE the company and some of its products, but we don't buy them.
People are first and foremost herd animals, as such, it is hard to pull a viable market out of the herd.
That is too bad -- an Evo seems like one car that shouldn't be bought used, and now there won't be any new ones. I considered a new X, but then had anxiety about there even being a dealer within 150 miles that could service the AWD and electronics on the thing. Makes me wish I'd been in a position to own one of the 8's or 9's from new.
Disappointing but not surprising. I came pretty close to buying a new X, but had similar feelings. I have a dealer close, but paying in the low 40s for one of these cars rubbed me the wrong way. I too wish I could have bought an IX new. The X MR gearbox is slick, and the interior definitely makes it a more livable car, but meh. The dealership was pretty depressing. They keep calling me to see if I'm still interested.
In reply to VinnyGT19:
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head as to why I ended up buying a new Evo X (first new vehicle purchase ever). Having the nearest Mitsu dealer about 2 1/2h away has now become a bit more of an issue as the local shop that looked after it has gone out of business. I still have someone who can do the minor services but for anything major, I'm looking at spending a day driving around and the E36 M3 really hits the fan if I have to leave the car at the dealership.
After about 14 months with an MR I'm coming to the conclusion that it's a brilliant but somewhat flawed car that makes a good second or third vehicle, but leaves a little to be desired as a DD.
With that taken care of, there's no need for the Diamond Star logo to exist on our shores. I predict they will go the way of Daihatsu, Isuzu and Suzuki in a few years.
ddavidv wrote: With that taken care of, there's no need for the Diamond Star logo to exist on our shores. I predict they will go the way of Daihatsu, Isuzu and Suzuki in a few years.
What? You're just going to dismiss the Diamante as the ultimate savior of MMNA?
I've a friend that bought an Evo X. The few times I've ridden in it I have always silently wondered why people purchase them if they do not intend to race them. Audi A4 with a few options is the same cost and good lord would I rather ride in an A4. S4 is about 20% more cost than the Evo if I really wanted comparable performance. They just seem really cheap.
NOHOME wrote: It is an irony that a lot of people LIKE the company and some of its products, but we don't buy them. People are first and foremost herd animals, as such, it is hard to pull a viable market out of the herd.
I'm poor, like many fans of mitsubishi, so they only ones I could reasonably afford are old as dirt and falling apart.
In reply to pres589:
Some of this is just choice or diversity. I don't particularly care for either Audis or Subarus, plus I've owned an Evo II before so I figured I'll give the X a shot before they disappear.
Armitage wrote:ddavidv wrote: With that taken care of, there's no need for the Diamond Star logo to exist on our shores. I predict they will go the way of Daihatsu, Isuzu and Suzuki in a few years.What? You're just going to dismiss the Diamante as the ultimate savior of MMNA?
Maybe it will be the trucks that are at once cramped, underpowered, and expensive.
Knurled wrote:Armitage wrote:Maybe it will be the trucks that are at once cramped, underpowered, and expensive.ddavidv wrote: With that taken care of, there's no need for the Diamond Star logo to exist on our shores. I predict they will go the way of Daihatsu, Isuzu and Suzuki in a few years.What? You're just going to dismiss the Diamante as the ultimate savior of MMNA?
In their defense, that was totally the Dakotas fault.
I can't remember where but I remember reading that the Evo was on it's last leg from the President of Mitsubishi motors. They said it was a great car but it wasn't in the future of the company. They wanted to focus more on the future of vehicles since they weren't competitive with the current state.
So more i-MiEV less Evo.
Very sad.
Actually from what I read in other places, more electric/hybrid than Evo.
What I heard was that they have been wanting to kill off the Evo for quite some time because it does not mesh with the environmentally-friendly image they want to create.
Problem being, the Evo was the only thing that they were actually selling.
(Hey, remember when Mitsubishi balked at selling it here because they thought nobody would buy it?)
IIRC at least with the Evo VIII, the US got the watered down version.
I don't think the Evo really was a big seller anywhere with the possible exception of Japan, the older Evos didn't sell too well in the UK for example until the grey import movement started and people started shipping over a whole bunch of them from Japan. Same with GTRs and FD RX7s, IIRC they sold a couple of hundred of each new in the UK and the majority came over as used cars later.
Mitsubishi killed itself in a particularly American way: a retarded approach to credit. I really think the 0 down 0 interest debacle set the company on a E36 M3ty path it was not able to recover from.
I dont think the products were that bad at that point. A Galant was definitely no worse than a Taurus in either performance or reliability or build quality in 2000. A 2000 mirage was probably way more reliable than a 2000 Focus. A Diamante was actually a damn good car (my dad's is still nice, reliable, and smoke free at 255k on original engine and trans). The lineup was competitive at that time. The problem came when they started giving cars to people who shouldnt have had new cars, and those people trashed the cars and let them get repo'd, which meant every mitsubishi anyone ever saw in 2003 was a ragged out pile of E36 M3 because it was owned by someone who never intended to make a payment and sure as hell wasnt going to pay to have the oil changed! Resale value tanked, and you couldnt sell a new car for $20k when all the 3 year old ones were selling for $4500 and everyone who didn't know the definition of 'context clue' thought every new mitsu was a piece of E36 M3 because every 3 year old mitsu had been run into the ground by people who didn't give a E36 M3. So they didnt make enough money to reinvest in the product line and combined with a few product updates that fell flat (4g eclipse, 9g galant), you had the Mitsubishi Death Spiral!
I really think all of it goes back to the dumbtarded turn of the century american credit market and Mitsu falling into that trap harder than any other carmaker. They were never able to come back from the damage it did to their reputation and position in the market. I also think people who think mitsu has a bad reputation because the products are E36 M3ty is mostly wrong or at least putting the cart before the horse. They weren't always so uncompetitive.
My experience with used Mitsubishis involves heavy rusting issues and labor intensive (therefore expensive) repairs due to chunderheaded Japanese design.
Such as? My experience as a tech never did anything to turn me off of mitsubishis vs anything else.
However, nothing rusts down here so if anything is any more prone to rust than anything else, well, that only applies to suckers who like working on rusted E36 M3 enough to live in rustland and work on cars at the same time, i guess. I really dont know if i would even enjoy the car hobby at all if all my E36 M3 was rusted or couldnt even be stored outside without turning into a steaming pile of E36 M3.
While I think Vigo turns a blind eye to some of Mitsu's dubious engineering, he is spot-on about the credit issue and the customer base that wound up buying their products. They turned a slightly upmarket brand when it debuted into Hyundai circa 1986. I look at a LOT of cars for my job as an insurance appraiser and Mitsu's are almost the exclusive domain of the inner city/poor credit/only service it when it fails to run demographic. It has sullied their always questionable reputation when it comes to reliability in pretty dark ways.
In reply to ddavidv:
So what you are saying is irresponsible people = irresponsible owners = poor/no car maintenance = breakdowns = bad reputations?
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