None yet.
I only got the car last week, so I can't really comment too much about it. For the moment, I love this car.
I've never been a big fan of Magnas and I always considered them to be dagy looking cars for old farts. Last week, We've been out car hunting and that was the first time I actually had a closer look at Magnas. The older models still seem to fit my above description, but from the TJs onwards, they seem to have evolved into something different.
When I saw the one I eventually bought, I knew that this was the car for me. The egg-carton grille and the wide nose give the front much more character and the newer tail lights and the slightly restyled rear end also seem to give the car a much more modern look. The five-spoke mags and the massive rear spoiler give the car a pretty sporty appearance.
The interior is very nice and spacious, there's plenty of storage space in the cabin, the dash is rather stylish and the instruments are very functional and good to read.
What I can tell so far, the handling of the car is excellent. I was pleasantly surprised, when I heard the car was a front wheel drive. This is very unusual for a car this size and power, but doesn't really hurt the driving experience. There's minimal torque steer, but if you like to beat the others at the lights, you need to either get used to squealing tyres or develop a feel for the accelerator.
The 3.5l 24V V6 engine with its 155kw power offers a steady acceleration, is very responsive and runs very smooth. It's pretty quiet throughout the lower rev range and develops a bit of an aggressive sound when revving higher, but is never annoying or even loud. Since I haven't driven her long distance yet, I can't say too much about the fuel consumption yet, but in mainly peak hour city traffic, she's happy with about 12 litres/100km. That's to be expected from an engine this size and I also have to add the "lead foot bonus" you have to pay if you're a bit heavy on the accelerator.
The 4-speed automatic suits the engine well. It is pretty smooth shifting, even if you kick the car back into fairly high revs. Of course it would be nice to see this car with the 5Speed auto with sequential shift :)
The suspension is soft enough to be comfortable and hard enough to let you feel the road beneath you and allows decent cornering speeds without leaning much towards the outside wheels. It could be a bit harder, without compromising too much on the comfort I suppose that's what you get in the Sports or VR-X models.
The car comes with heaps of goodies like power-steering, -windows and -mirrors, ABS brakes, drivers airbag, cruise control, central locking, key-less entry and whatnot. There's only two things I miss and that's a passenger airbag and traction control.
There's not much negative to say about the car. The button to release the boot could be better placed than inside the glove box and a button to lock/unlock all doors would be nice. The rear spoiler looks pretty good from the outside, but limits the rear view a bit and the frame-less doors may look good, but don't allow weather shields to be mounted. For somebody like me, who likes to drive with the window open, that's a bit of an issue.
Other than that, the V6 Si is a very powerful, comfortable, spacious and stylish car with a touch of a sports car.
You gotta love it!
Ahh, it's good to hear of another Ford/Holden fan converted. ;)
I've been an advocate of the Magnas since my parents bought a '91 TR Elite in 1993 which was superb until the day we sold it with 290,000k's on the clock, with the only exception being the auto transmission needing a rebuild at about 180,000 with another one coming up (reason for sale if I remember correctly). My previous car was a manual 1990 TP SE (see review on this site) and was also an excellent car with no problems other than usual wear and tear until the radiator became 25% blocked (according to multiple sources, Magnas in general have no faults as long as the cooling system is kept clean). If I had known about it when I'd gone on that 600k round trip on a 37 degree day I probably would still have it... :(
Although I don't have weather shields on my '99 TH Solara, I know you can buy them for the Magnas - they fit around the roofline and go all the way back to the top of the rear windows. I don't think they're very wide, but they seem to be designed to deflect the wind. Have a chat to your local Mitsubishi dealer (and perhaps some after-market retailers) and see what they say!
Oh yeah - the spoiler on my car also restricts the rear view to the point that I can't see the number plate of the car behind when I would normally (such as when they're tailgating)... but you get used to that, and it's a relatively small price to pay when you consider the lack of "old fart car" comments you'll get compared to a standard Executive. :)
Well done on your purchase - I'm confident you'll enjoy driving your Magna as I will for many years to come. Just maintain the cooling system regularly!
Just to add to my original post:
I took the Magna on a 750km round trip on the weekend. Since I wasn't too sure about the accuracy of the trip computer (and when the next servo would come along), I filled her up when the trip computer told me I had 50km left to go. By that time I had done about 720km on the tank (I hadn't filled her up before we left) and there were about 100km of peak hour city traffic included and about another 50km within city limits and townships. According to the trip computer, the average fuel consumption was 9.4 l/100km and I could squeeze about 62 litres in, so there was actually more mileage left that the computer estimated. On the final leg between refuelling and getting home, which was almost solely high- and freeway cruising at speeds of around 110km/h, pushing her up to 140 during overtaking when necessary, she was happy with 8.4 l/100km. This is an excellent fuel efficiency for a car of this calibre.
Note: A Comments RSS Feed 
is available. New comments appear in the Members Area before the main site