Most recently, I hit a pothole, had a blowout, and my 17" aluminum rim bent. There is a class action lawsuit pending against Mitsubishi for this. Check this link for details: http://www.litigation-results.com/kcstarmitmotors.htm.
I had a bad wheel bearing at about 24,000 miles. It manifested itself as a squeak coming from the front driver side wheel. When I took it in the first time, they said I needed front brake pads. I thought this was a little odd for a car with relatively low mileage, and a manual transmission (I frequently downshift). The second time I took it in, I don't think they could determine where the noise was coming from, so they said they could not replicate the problem. The third time, they finally diagnosed and replaced the wheel bearing. Spent over $200 unnecessarily on a front brake job.
Climate control has acted strange intermittently. When the knob it set to defrost, the A/C light would blink green/orange, and it felt like the A/C compressor was turning on/off.
The rear hatch pistons have had to be replaced. There was not enough pressure to lift the hatch off the latch. I had to go to the back of the car, unlock the hatch, and keep the key turned while lifting the hatch in order to open it. It doesn't seem to be a major thing until you only have 1 free hand to try and do all that.
The rear struts seemed to make a clunky noise over bumps from about the time the car had 20,000 miles on it. My local dealership has yet to solve that mystery.
Generally, the car lacks body/trim integrity. There seems to be new squeak/creak/rattle every week.
The car looks great. They did a pretty good job on the aesthetics inside and out. The instrument panel looks cool, as do the leather seats. It is pretty comfortable to drive too; kind of gives you the feeling of being in the cockpit of a fighter jet.
Don't bother trying to sit in the back seat if you are over 5'6" though.
It's not a horrible car for the money, if you buy it pre-owned. But if you buy it new, but you are overpaying for a cheaply built car whose reliability I have found to be very questionable. I will never buy another Mitsubishi, and would not recommend them to anyone who can afford better. I'm going back to Nissan's - I never should have left.
I have a 2000 GT and I think you are better of having a Nissan. Anyone who compares the beautiful eclipse to a so regular Nissan doesn't even deserve it. The eclipse is a wonderful car, even though it has it's problems, it looks damn good. (A hell of alot better than ANY Nissan) Any and Everybody who is fortunate enough to have an eclipse should love it. Sure it's a pain to manage, but so is every car. Maybe in the future Mitsubishi will have a maintenance warranty.
We are all a family... an eclipse family...let's start acting like it.
People like this are why the car companies put out such poorly made cars. So, you should expect a car to be a pain to maintain and upkeep? Good luck with that mentality. My 2000 Eclipse was junk from day one with annoying little quality issues that I shouldn't have had to deal with for at least 100K miles, but they were present non-the-less. This is why it was gone at 14K miles... Sorry for $20K+ I expect a lot more reliability and quality out of a car. They never look cool enough for me to say "who cares if it is in the shop every week, at least it looks good!!"
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