As mentioned, insurance carted this car off due to damage sustained in a hailstorm and edge of a tornado.
I figured I would mention how I liked the car overall and why I was considering selling it before it was totaled. Overall I liked the car. It was as reliable as the day is long and the gas mileage was phenomenal. At the time of purchase it was considered one of the top “green” cars and the only one without complicated hybrid technology. It really never needed any work and routine maintenance was not hard to perform. It started like a champ no matter how hot or cold it was and handled driving on highways and backroads. I could always count on this car. Mine was a manual transmission which I liked. Of course the CVTs have more reliability issues so cannot judge those but the manual was great and shifted smooth.
I had done all the maintenance myself and could see that the inside of the valve cover looked as clean as a new engine on the day it left. I had done brakes myself as well as changed the transmission fluid so the mechanicals will make a good donor for someone needing a new engine or transmission. None of this work was difficult. Overall I found this to be a simple and reliable little car.
With this, why was I considering selling? I do a lot of driving while working and it seems that people overall have gotten to be far worse drivers than just a few short years ago. I bought this in late 2016 or early 2017 as a closeout for $10,000 brand new. This was before the pandemic seems to have changed people and not for the better. Being such a small light car, I began to worry about safety. Of course this had a pretty low safety rating compared to others and near misses were becoming more common. I swear people are like zombies today, both on and off the road. Basically I still liked the car but was really starting to think seriously about selling it or trading it in because of the safety concerns.
I have had Mitsubishi Outlander Sports as rental cars and found them to be a decent car. It was funny how all the controls are just the same and everything looks pretty much the same. I kinda forgot I wasn’t in my own car. My main concern about buying one of these is the CVT. I know they get overall decent safety ratings and there is more room but I really want to avoid a CVT for now. I understand new designs are coming and might overcome some of the shortcomings of current designs. I know there are some manuals and traditional geared automatics in the older models.
I am also considering a Mazda CX-5 or Ford Escape when I decide to replace it. For now I have others that run. The damage to them from the storm was not as bad with their heavier construction. I did replace the windshield on the 1997 F-250 LD, only to have it blow up a few short days later.
If you like standard shift cars youi would have loved my sons Plymouth Champ/ It had two shift levers and was also made by Mitsubishi.
As a trucker in the old days before turbocharged diesels, I drove many trucks with 2 shift levers. 2 x 5, 3 x 5, and 4 x 4. for 10,13,and 16 speeds, after that were the road rangers with 8.9,10 13 or125 speeds accomplished wit one shift lever with a lo to hi range knob you pusher up or down abd on the 13 avd15 speed trans a sm,all lever you rotated to split the cears in the high range.
the earlier two shift lever tans had no synchronizers so each shift had to be double clutched and the early diesels had only a 300 rpm operating range. If you missed a shift going uphill, you had to pull over, put in first low and work your way up again.
It sounds like you got your money’s worth out of this car, especially for $10k new with a full factory warranty. Even a well-used 8-10 year old Mirage currently sells for more than $10k.
Maybe you should have kept this vehicle, if it was still in decent condition, and the damage was purely cosmetic (hail, etc). There’s something to be said for a paid-off vehicle which is easy to drive and park, and gets excellent fuel economy. And however poor you think its safety rating might be, I’m sure it’s as safe as anything else on the road 20 years ago.
You might think that, just as I think anyone paying $8-15k for a high-mileage 1980’s to early 1990s Toyota pickup must be high as a kite. And yet people are asking these prices…and they’re getting it. And a 60,000 mile Mirage is vastly superior to a 300,000 mile Toyota, even with Toyota’s legendary reliability, etc. FYI, there’s a dealer here advertising a well-used 2017 Mirage for $12,995, and presumably someone will buy it.
Looks good to me. Pretty color, too. I wouldn’t normally spend $8500 for a vehicle, but I’m definitely tempted. Then again, I’d rather just keep driving the vehicles we already own, and invest whatever extra money comes my way.
MItsu’s are generally decent. Better reputation in the rest of the world than US. I used to buy them as used cars as they were great deal. One of them the “Galant” in my handle here.
The problem for me now is the lack of dealer network.
I also feel your pain as far as small cars go. I have always liked small cars, ideally stick shift. But, at this point, the smallest car around me on the road is a CUV and visibility and safety becomes a concern.
I saw these things selling for more than I paid for it during the pandemic in far worse shape (at that time before the tornado) and with more mileage. I should have sold it then because of course those resale values did not last.
I think part of the bad reputation here is from the time they were hooked up with Chrysler. Also, with cheap cars, people often don’t do basic maintenance and the cars become unreliable. One guy was complaining how his engine jumped time on a Mirage and ruined the entire engine at only 60,000 miles. Then it came out that he had never changed, checked, or added oil for the entire time he owned the car. Sludge was caked like black tar on every surface inside the engine. I think a lot of cheap cars get a bad rap because the owners neglect to do basic maintenance.
The engines seem to run forever on these things if you take care of them. Mine got synthetic oil every 5000 miles. The inside of the valve cover was as clean as a new engine. The CVT transmissions are a different story. Many failed at around 120K. That is one reason I went for the manual. I also just like manuals.
I considered buying it back and using it as a beater but they wanted close to $2000 for it. Once I got the initial assessment which told me to bring it back for a total loss evaluation, I didn’t really care. A customer gave me a 2000lb non-running generator and I manhandled it into the back hatch and strapped it in. The generator was 15 years old but had never been run. They added gas and just let it sit. I used solvent and cleaned out the gas tank. The carb was ruined so I replaced it with a $35 China model off Amazon that converted it to dual fuel to use with propane. The rubber lines all needed to be replaced as well. Basically this was the cleanest piece of neglected equipment I have come across.
Oops! One zero off. It was a 200 lb 5000/6000 watt generator. It is just some China no-name with a Honda GX390 clone engine on it but it seems to work great. I ran it for about 5 minutes with the 15 year old oil. I hear mixed reviews about if oil has a shelf-life or not so figured changing it soon was wise. Either way, I could tell it was breaking in with the metal in the oil. Then I ran for about 3 hours with varying loads and changed the oil again. I can tell it isn’t the cleanest power compared to current inverter models but probably typical of a basic construction generator. It was also basically free.
Yes, a lot of the bad rep for Mitsu is due to the costumer crowd they attracted. The 0 down, 0 interest rate appealed to people with lower means and that meant quite a few could not maintain the car. The other counterpart IMO is Toyota. Always appealing to buyers that value reliability. You know these folks are going to take care of the car. Same reason why a used Lexus is generally a safe bet.
In Japan, their home market collapsed after a government investigation revealed that the company was refusing to cover valid warranty claims on defective engines and transmissions. People who had to shell-out thousands of $$ to repair nearly-new cars have long memories.
