Nevada_545: Educating your kids concerning vehicle maintenance can be futile. If it starts and sort of drives it is OK!
My kids? Was that part of the conversation?
Something else I read about Mitsubishi as of late is that they see the US as the largest auto market. They are not willing to abandon it and lose their dealer network and such over a bad decade. The barriers to re-entry are large so it is best viewed to ride out the bad years and stay in the game.
See http://www.edmunds.com/mitsubishi/mirage/2015/review/
The “expert” review pans the car yet the owners give it a 4.7 star or so rating. Take one for a test drive yourself and then judge. Both the short term and long term reviews seemed to give it a good rating so test it out yourself.
Here are some pretty fair reviewers who went in with an open mind.
This isn’t a Mercedes or BMW but not everyone needs or wants one of those. You could buy a whole Mirage for what some of the repairs on those cost. My parents own a Mercedes Benz and like the car but are not too happy when it goes in for work at $140/hr. $140 is practically a one month payment on the Mirage! They are totally focused on different audiences.
Take one for a test drive yourself and then judge.
There is a 2015 Mirage for sale in my area for $8,500 with 4000 mile on it, perhaps a year from now one will be in my price range.
You might consider one of these if the Mirage is priced a little too high for your tastes! Not everyone has the last name of Rockefeller! These are oldies but goodies.
“. . . but the Mirage had the personality of an old Ford Festiva she once owned and greatly missed. She insisted on waiting a few days to get this car just so she could get it in the blue color that was similar to her old Festiva.” Dammit, @cwatkin , now I’ve gotta go check out the Mirage. 
. . . my hesitation would be the same as the concerns @db4690 brought up. . . A vehicle with low production numbers from an automaker which may or may not be in the US market 10 years from now. . . parts could become very hard to come by. . .
Compare to a Corolla or Fit, which are all over the place, so there should be plenty of after market parts available for decades. . .
I know Mitsubishi has been advertising the Outlander a lot around here. Looking at Mitsubishi’s website, the ‘Sapphire Blue’ looks like the color my Festiva used to be before the clear coat started peeling off. . . 
I like the ‘Kiwi Green’ too. Fortunately the auto show is coming to my town in a few weeks. . .
@cwatkin , clearly you’ve done your homework. Incidentially, loved the videos. The part where the marble falls into the rust hole; I almost fell out of my chair. 
Phil Hartman was a funny guy, shame he died the way he did. . .
I don’t think Fiat re-entered the US market so much as they bought their way back in by buying a controlling stake in the defunct Chrysler Corp. although I guess that’s splitting hairs. . .
@sgtrock21 ; agree. Both my parents were products of the Great Depression, neither was financially sophisticated but they knew enough to avoid debt. Thinking of some stories I’d like to tell, but I guess they’d all be off-topic. 
I know my parents had Montgomery Ward and Sears cards, but now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t recall seeing them use those cards to buy stuff; shopping for school clothes etc. it was always, pull out a ‘roll’ of cash to pay. . . children absorb that stuff by watching. . . I guess that’s why they always say you have to parent by example because your kids will watch what you DO and not what you SAY.
Looking back, my parents did not make a tremendous amount of money, but since there were no debt payments to make, the money that did come in could be used to live a good middle class lifestyle, as opposed to having to mail it all away to finance companies.
My deceased brother had three and his significant other insisted on hanging onto the "Verona " and old Metro .The Verona seemed to be a nice car ,but very problematic (Brothers significant had 4 vehicles including a 4wd pickup ,but had to get Me to haul Her garbage (dont do that anymore ) She scoffed when I suggested for Her to get rid of all the junk and get a small truck and the ironic thing is She considers Herself to be a "farm " girl.
@cwatkin
"Go out and test drive one."
“The Mitsubishi Mirage has a 10 year / 100,000 mile powertrain warranty…”
Let’s not get carried away. I am not going to drive 250 miles to my nearest dealer and I certainly would consider the trip to be inconvenient for warranty work.
Will these cars carry four adults and 4 sets of golf clubs or 2 or 3 Dahon folding bikes?
Not all of us are as concerned about MPG as some other features. I’ve never purchased any car based on fuel economy (and I’m very thrifty).
I like larger cars that are quiet, safe, and comfortable.
CSA
I can see this being a nice option in places such as Europe where space it tight but it seems like more of a novelty here.
Well, that’s exactly it. They make perfect sense in Europe. Americans are faddish and saw them in Europe, wanted them here, and now use them for road trips. It’s madness, but then so is rolling coal and fake racing parts, and we’ve certainly got enough of those as well.
I have a friend who had one. He got different wheels for it, and from then on he couldn’t get the tire shops to give him new tires unless he took the wheels off and took them in off the car so they had plausible deniability that it was from a Smart. Why? Because apparently the wheels are part of the engineered crumple zone and are designed to shatter on impact to dissipate energy, so if you swap wheels you’re killing part of the crash protection system.
@sgtrock21
"Purchase what you need and save for what you want."
I learned that, too. That’s a lesson that needs to be passed down to more folks today.
“I had a friend with a Suzuki X-6 motorcycle in the early 1970s. Performance = Holy crap!”
Was that the X-6 “Hustler,” 3 cylinder, 2 cycle, 2 mufflers on one side, 1 on the other? I knew a guy with one. Seems that it was almost gutless until it hit a narrow power band and then just hauled (as do most 2 cycles). Those were little screamers. I had a Suzuki dirt bike with a Basani tuned pipe.
CSA
missileman: Were you first issued a Colt AR-15 in the Air Force? I know AF was first to get them. My rifle in 1978 Army basic training was one. Selective fire but no forward bolt assist and plainly stamped “Colt AR-15”. I did not experience M-16 jamming until the M-16A2 (3 round burst with a terrible trigger) which was a piece of crap. My final Individual Weapons Qualification was with the M-4 Carbine and M-9 Pistol which functioned perfectly.
cwatkin: RE: The Pontiac Aztec I saw one in a parking lot yesterday. It had been rear ended which actually improved it’s looks. I attended an Army school in 2006 near Reno, (coincidence?) NV. Two students from New York were talked into an Aztec for less money than a sub compact by the rental car agency. They liked the extra room but complained that it was embarrassingly ugly and handled like a pig.
@CSA That log warranty is only on the powertrain, not on all those other things that malfunction and fall off prematurely. Consumer Reports has little good to say about this car, mostly dealing with substandard performance, comfort and finish. That’s not even dealing with reliability.
Yes, I had been doing my homework for myself on these cars when my GF’s car went south. She also picked the sapphire blue as that was the color of her old Festiva. As for the engineering, some thought actually went into this thing. The variable valve timing impressed me and the thing had a nice broad torque curve. My old Metros seem to hit their sweet spot at around 3200-3400 RPM. They are also getting roller lifters and improved cams next year. These changes to the engine are bringing about a slight fuel economy increase as well as a 5% increase in power. Not that this is a ton but again some thought is going into this car unlike other cheapos.
Others who have taken the gamble and bought these cars are having no major issues so that right there is a good sign.
One of the biggest complaints so far has been what people view as sloppy suspension. What I have read seems to indicate that the suspension on these was made for use in third world countries with crappy roads. They stiffened it up some for the US market in 2015 and plan to do more of this in 2017. Personally I live in a rural area with many gravel and chip seal roads so the somewhat sloppy suspension isn’t a big issue for me. I do lots of service calls and if there has recently been a big storm, I will just take the 4WD gas guzzler to be sure I can make it. The roads where I live might as well be in a third world country if you ask me. Missouri has some of the worst roads. Part of this is funding but I think a large issue is the fact it goes above and below freezing so much in the winter.
The Suzuki Verona was also a GM Daewoo product so no surprises about the issues. Remember the original topic here.
While on the topic of guns, Daewoo made an AR-15/M-16 type weapon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daewoo_Precision_Industries_K2
4 adults can ride in the car but I wouldn’t take too much luggage. The back seats are surprisingly roomy in a little car like this. We had 3 people in the car when test driving (me, GF, car salesman) and it didn’t bog down from lack of power with each additional passenger. There is room for one or two suitcases in the back hatch area. This area is by no means large and you wouldn’t take a family of 4 on a vacation in this little guy. 3 people maybe but not 4. We put some stuff in the back including a file box. I think you could easily pack 4-6 file boxes in this area. If you read the reviews, you see that many of the comments state that this is a great extra car and not for everyone because of the size.
You are probably right about Fiat. They basically bought their way back in by buying out Chrysler. This will be a marriage made in heaven! Fiat is even more unreliable in nature than Chrysler so I would steer clear of them for sure! I used to view Mitsubishi pretty much the same way but a lot of that opinion was based on the time their were married to Chrysler. That got them to a point where they were near death.
Yeah, I enjoyed the old SNL paradies. I love how they make the Yugo and Hyundai Excel out to be super luxury cars.
The concern about Mitsubishi leaving concerns about leaving the market were something that also concerned and still concerns me to a certain degree. Their sales numbers are just a tad below 100,000 cars in the US at this time. They were down to like 52,000 at the lowest and their numbers are growing each year so things are looking up. The Outlander was another car that is well-liked by the buyers. I asked the dealer what the best seller was for them and they said it was the Mirage because of the low cost to purchase and the high mileage. Mitsubishi is a huge multinational company so can take a loss in one market. I can’t find the article now but the CEO or someone high up in the company said that leaving the US market is not something to be taken likely. They are committed to growing their presence in the US as it is the world’s largest auto market and are focusing on quality and reliability this time around.
We don’t have a Honda dealer here so that would be the same as the Mitsubishi for the Fit. I drove a Yaris once and felt it was more of a tin can than my Geo Metro! I didn’t know this was possible but I guess it is. I am sure it is a fine car and reliable being a Toyota but I will say the Mirage rides a lot better than that one.
I would be more concerned about the Smart car leaving the US market. I hear their sales are terrible but I see them around my small town all the time. Another car I see a lot of that I think is ugly is the Nissan Cube and I see a TON of them around too. I swear half the US sales happened near me. At least we have a Nissan dealer here. I have no clue about the Smart.
If the car turns out to be junk I guess it will be a good thing that she bought the extra warranty I told her not to buy. It covers a loaner/rental so if the car has to sit around waiting for parts during a repair, then she has a car.
This was the car she liked and her co workers were very mixed. One of them said that was great but her husband only lets her buy big trucks/SUVs. The other said it certainly wasn’t her style and likes bigger cars. Anyway, you can be certain you will hear if it ends up being a problem car.
The bumper to bumper goes up to 5 years/60,000 miles. The powertrain warranty is 10/100,000 miles. The extended warranty she purchased goes up to 10 years / 120,000 miles and is bumper to bumper. If the car is junk I guess that will be a good purchase.
Yes, all the “expert” reviewers with a few exceptions pan the car. Then look at the reviews of the people who actually drive the car. Look up actual reliability specs and you will see it doesn’t have lots of issues. http://www.edmunds.com/mitsubishi/mirage/2015/review/ It get 4.7 stars from the consumer and TERRIBLE from the expert review. There is a major disconnect just like this on all the review sites.
I work on electronics/computers and know all too well what happens when people buy something just based on the price tag. People go to Wal-Mart and buy the cheapest conglomeration of parts possible and then wonder why the thing breaks down and costs more to fix than they paid for it. I see this all the time and they say “It was a good deal. It was cheap.” I tell them it isn’t a good deal if it doesn’t last or perform well enough for their needs. Basically lots of companies make special lines of products just for Wal-Mart so they can be sold cheap. You don’t get the same TV or computer there as you do elsewhere.
I see this car as an economical but decent made little car. It isn’t for everyone but certainly not junk either. It is luxury compared to the beatup Geo Metro I drive around for the mileage. That thing is a metal box on wheels but still fun to drive. It is also very reliable. I had to play catch up on some neglected issues when I got it but since then it has been great.
I posted these before but here we go again.
I find the comments about the colors funny. The green wasn’t my favorite but certainly better than the pink or purple or whatever they called that color. I personally like the burgundy red one as well as the dark gray. Yes, it seems that only cheap cars as well as expensive ones come in such loud colors.
These seem to be fair reviews if you ask me. I like how they make note that inflation adjusted, the price is about like some of the pretty dreadful cars of the past.
common sense answer: My friend’s mid 1960’s X-6 “Hustler” was a 2 cylinder 250cc 2 stroke. I remember when the power kicked in around 7,000rpm it was like firing a rocket booster! It was the only motorcycle I have ridden that actually scared me!
@sgtrock21
I Remembered Shortly After My Last Post. I Mixed It Together With The Kawasaki Mach-3. I Recall Both Of Them.
CSA
A coworker had an early Suzuki Swift 5 speed M/T 2 door HB. I drove it a couple of times and was very impressed by the little car’s performance.