|
| 1997 Mitsubishi Diamante Review, Steve B, From St Louis
Add a review!
Mitsubishi Diamante LS
| | Model of the car: | Mitsubishi Diamante LS | | | General comments: | Mitsu was way ahead of the curve with this one. I only hope the next generation is as much an improvement as this was (compared to its '95 predecessors). Mitsu engineers have a very high bar to meet if that is to be achieved.Give me more! Say, 8cyl 350+hp and eliminate the weakness listed below and I'm no longer interested in a Q45 as my next vehicle :).Drive this car for a while and your standards will probably be permanently raised, which may be a bad thing for your future checkbook.Attractive, refined, luxurious, but it could use several improvements...so no 5 star rating here. | | | What things have gone wrong with the car: | Hey, now that's what I like reviews for! Weaknesses! I love the car, but I remain critical of anything I spent my money to buy.Unfortunately, I have a few which I hope some engineer and marketing rep at Mitsu will actually read and fix:Mitsu has been lowering the price of this same model year after year...great huh? Well, not if you already bought it at the higher price. That only makes a buyer wish they had waited to purchase it, and this decreases the resale value for existing owners (now that's a nice swift kick!).Resale values need a boost. There is simply no way a lexus (a.k.a. toyota) should retain better resale value than this car - its a perception thing; nobody thinks Mitsu=Luxury.The rear disc brakes should have been made as large as the fronts and ABS should have been standard in 97.Mitsu needs to add some reinforcement to the roofs of those cars without sunroofs. Tapping on the roof reveals a hollow tin-can sound which seems very cheap, but probably isn't there if a sunroof is present.Mitsu also should have padded the inner door such that closing the front doors with the windows down did not cause another cheap sounding glass rattle.Wind noise should have been reduced, but this seems to be an artifact of the frameless window design.I'm no mechanic, but why not use a timing chain instead of a belt which must be replaced every 60K miles? This is a labor intensive (costly) requirement. Also along the lines of maintenance, it would have been nice if a casually aware owner could replace the spark plugs themselves. As it is, the engine design requires another labor intensive feat of mechanical know-how which means it will cost over $100 to swap out a set of $15 plugs.The final gripe here is with the fancy AI-transmission. Mine has never been right for longer than two weeks. When it's right, it's just plain great! When it's wrong, it's really wrong, so much so that I wonder if the engine mounts will soon give way (yes, the whole car shakes). Mitsu swapped out one totally dead transmission computer, and recently it has begun missing badly on the 2-3 shift, especially at speeds from 20-30. Additionally, it has always been reluctant to do a 2-1 shift until you completely stop (if you don't it finally will in a rough manner when the computer realizes you want to speed up and it's currently using 2nd for acceleration from 2mph). I now long for a fixed set of gear ratios - bring back that superior 1970's technology! | | | Previous car: | No, you can't mean the dime-a-dozen B**mers? |
|
