You're confusing racing with street use, the two are not the same. The Evo motor is a very stout motor but so is the STI/WRX motor. Both have proven to be very reliable when modded sensibly. There are plenty of folks with 400 WHP STIs and WRXs on stock blocks that don't have any issues. Hell, I'm at 300 ft/lbs of torque at the wheels right now and haven't had any issues even with track use. As I said, unless you plan on building an absolute monster, there is no discernible difference between the two. If you do plan on building a monster, you wouldn't buy the Ralliart or the WRX anyways, you'd buy their bigger brother car (Evo or STI).
We have no definite number for how much the TC-SST actually costs to produce. I don't deny that it is more than most manual transmissions but that 6000$-8000$ figure is undoubtedly inflated heavily due to dealership pricing, they won't sell at the same price they buy. If you priced out every part on a car using dealership pricing, you'd very easily surpass MSRP. Moreover, a higher cost does not make a car superior.
Undoubtedly some people love the technology, but some don't. We've seen it time and time again in reviews and personal comments, some don't like automatics of any kind, myself included. I place zero value on the TC-SST, to me it's not a selling point thus the Ralliart's value is greatly reduced in the sense of being the right car for me.

 

Sticker price on my 91 stealth TT was $34,XXX, before taxes (have the window sticker =D) and it has no options (Cloth seats, Leather was an option that year, after that all Vr4/TT came with leather)

Ive been looking into getting an RA for my wife, and i do have to say it is a great value.

 

you are right but mitsu should only add high tech cool extras that make the car a segment leader in stock form especially at that price tag. THey know what the average consumer wants, thats where the money is! if they are aiming at knowledgeable tuners then they need to have a well performing base car with a tranny that can handle added power introduced by mods..

I am getting a RA in 6 months.. only cause i dont want a fast car, heck i drive a 323i which suits me fine... if i wanted a fast car i would look elsewhere. The RA is the best looking car in segment. but both the RA and EVO at their current prices need 30 more hp stock.

 

IM not a "beamer boy".. im a car lover and a stater of facts.. main complaint about EVO and RA is not enough power in stock form and interior build quality.

I had a 1999 ecliipse GS which i loved.. then i had a POS 2003 lancer es..lol I am am buying a RA cause i dont want or need a fast car and i want an auto tranny.. The RA is much much faster than my 323i so its fine for me.

 

I'm not confusing racing and street use... all I'm saying is the RA's engine is unquestionably solid and has high potential... and that you can't use "The RA doesn't have the WRX's 2.5L boxer engine" advantage cuz it clearly isn't an advantage.

Repeat, I'm not saying it is superior cuz clearly other people prefer a traditional stick transmission... I'm just saying that some people also love technology like the SST and it clearly has its own benefits... it costing a lot more means that Mitsu clearly is putting a lot of value on the RA and making minimal profit... I happen to like that idea. Who likes to make a big company a lot richer by spending more than you should have on their products? It's like saying a MAC is a much better value over a PC cuz it has a much nicer OS/interface (pre-Windows 7), but for a MAC... people are also paying 3 to 4 times over the price of a PC given similar hardware specs.

 

exactly!! mitsu could have save some money and left out some of that extra high-tech stuff and simply added 50 more hp... extra tech is only great is the is faster around tracks than most cars in its class!

 

Dealers have to offer better deals on RA cause demand for it and other mitsu products is very very low, cause the brand is weak! and many folks who want an EVO find the price to be too high "for a mitsu"..

 

Thanks for stating the obvious LMAO. All the more saying that the RA is a better value cuz you can take advantage of Mitsu's poor sales by having even better deals/incentives and haggling room. If you really think the brand is weak, you shouldn't be buying a Mitsu then, go buy another BMW and make them even more richer :-) I hear the auto-manual tranny that you seem to want is also available on the M3, it's only $70k with that option I think... hopefully you can afford it.

 

The M3 one of the most respected performance cars on earth, like the EVO9 is.. I cant afford and M3 and i dont want one cause i dont drive fast ever!..lol i dont want another BMW except the 335i which i cant afford.

I like the looks and feel of the RA, if mitsu folds in USA i will be screwed is all.. its not a good thing that dealers have to loose money on a car cause the brand is weak it means they will not want to carry that brand in the future.

 

^ I wouldn't worry about Mitsu going away anytime soon... it has been mentioned before that in the US, they're just a tax writeoff. The company is HUGE (a big seller in other continents/countries) and they clearly stated that the car brand is here to stay in the US.

Yes, the M3 is in a class of its own... but I can't afford one, if I had the money, I'll flesh out about $15K more and get the GT-R.

 

Once again, my point was that you had essentially reduced the criteria to the point that only the Ralliart could satisfy it. If you want true advantages, the WRX doesn't have an automatic that can't handle power well. It doesn't have a transmission that throws the car into limp mode. It has the ability to launch out of the hole substantially faster. The 2.5 L engine can be an advantage as well. The extra displacement means more torque and the larger stock turbo means more power in general. Almost all STIs and WRXs that I've seen make more torque than HP and they generally make it at a lower RPM. That is an advantage. The 2.5 L is also very reliable (within reason) and has a high potential, high enough for 99% of users.
I really doubt Mitsubishi is making is making minimal profit on the Ralliart. They're not a charity and I don't think their stock holders would be glad to hear that they're basically giving the car away. Sure it has a nice transmission but they've cut corners elsewhere like the brakes, the tires, the wheels, the suspension, the interior, etc. Mitsubishi is like any other car manufacturer out there, they care about the bottom line at the end of the day. If you really don't like the big companies, I have no idea why you bought a Mitsubishi. They're a massive company, I believe larger than Honda, Toyota, GM, etc.

 

It might have been a JDM EVO IX. Unfortunately, we don't have any numbers for an actual EVO X (JDM or otherwise) on Nurburgring. I will say, though, that 11 seconds is a HUGE difference, even on an 8-minute track. To put it into perspective, the EVO IX hit an 8:11 lap time. A Porsche 911 GT3 hit it in 8:03 and an e92 M3 hit it in 8:05. The important thing about those numbers is that all of those cars and lap times were with the same driver.

I don't want to bash Car & Driver, but it has been my experience that they are not the most accurate publication (and they do not have the best drivers). I believe it was C&D that test the WRX when it first hit stateside and listed it as having a >6 second 0-60 time, but when MotorTrend got their hands on the WRX, they were miraculously able to hit 0-60 in 5.4 seconds. There have been other instances that have less to do with driving and more to do with driving skills and more to do with editorializing, but let me just conclude by saying that I have a hard time considering C&D reputable.

There is no question that the Cobalt SS is a fast car, but it is much closer to its performance ceiling than other cars. And unfortunately, that is because of the drivetrain. A FWD car will never be able to send the same amount of power to the ground as an AWD or a RWD in an actual track situation. The torque-steer would be overwhelming, there is not enough tire traction to both steer and power the car, etc. That is why FWD is widely acknowledged to be inferior. Even with an LSD, you would not be able to compensate. As a coach at a performance driving clinic put it, "Your tires have a finite amount of traction. You can use that traction to accelerate, decelerate or steer, but can never exceed the traction of the tires." Now think in terms of FWD: The front tires are doing EVERYTHING. Well, the rear tires are holding the back end of the car off the ground, but they don't do much more than that. In an AWD car, the front tires are steering and putting power to the ground, yes. But an AWD car has the benefit of also feeding power to the ground through the rear tires, allowing more traction to be used for steering. Ultimately, the RWD (arguably the best track layout) lets the front tires do 100% of the steering while the rear tires put 100% of the power to the ground.

My point is that I don't know of a single person wanting to use their car for any sort of performance driving who wouldn't want to trade out factory tires (and possibly brakes) almost immediately. Most people who buy a >$30,000 car go in knowing that there are some things about the car that they don't like/want to change. If they don't feel that way, they are either easy to please, or are just using the car to get from point a to point b and truly don't care.

And ultimately, this thread is about what people value in their car. You have said that you don't value the things that the RA comes with. You don't value the same things that the people on these forums who love their RA value. You say that you choose to value other things, and we should just accept that you find those other things to be more valuable. Since that is the way you feel, why are you trying to tell us that we are wrong for valuing those things we like about the RA?

This thread is about why we are happy we got so much value for the money, and why we appreciate the things we got for our money. If you didn't buy (and don't care to buy) a RA, why are you posting in this thread trying to tell us that we didn't get as good of a deal as we thought we did. You made mention that by saying that the RA is the best value for the dollar, we are, essentially, saying that it is the best car. Well, I'll go ahead and say it: "The RA is the BEST car." That is my opinion; I'm entitled to it; and if the RA wasn't the BEST car for ME, I wouldn't have bought it. Is that a subjective statement? Of course it is, but as you have been so kind to point out, value is all about subjectivity.

You could ask any number of questions about, well, if you had an extra $10,000 to spend on a car, would the RA still be the best? Or, if you didn't need a car that other people could drive, would the RA still be the best? Or if you needed a car that could hit a <13 second 1/4 mile, would the RA still be the best? The fact is, none of those things are true/matter to me, so yes, the RA is the BEST VALUE car. Period.

 

Amby, your statements regarding the superiority of the Rex's 2.5L engine over the 4B11T holds no meaning to me till you provide actual links of a track car that rivals Ryan's dominating X using the stock engine block/internals pushing that much whp and still standing, given the abuse of ten thousand race miles.

Do you really think Mitsu is making the same profit on the RA as Subaru is on the WRX given both the car's standard equipment and usual deals/incentives? Give me actual proof and I'll believe you. From my shop-around experience and just looking at what each car has standard, I think it's safe to say which one is priced better given the hardware.

 

Given that we're comparing a FWD Chevy to an AWD Mitsubishi, 11 seconds isn't that big of a deal. It is a difference, yes, but the fact that a FWD car is so close is pretty impressive in my books. I'm not sure if it was done with the same driver, I suspect Chevy hired one of their own.
Actually read the C&D article, they used professional drivers (some quite well known apparently). Motor Trend had a similar result so if you trust Motor Trend more, there you go.
I'm well versed in racing and the traction circle, thank you. It doesn't change the fact that a FWD car can be very quick, it's simply a matter of knowing how to drive it. Sure you don't see a lot of 500 WHP FWD cars out there but 300 WHP is common. With that kind of power, and the lower weight of most FWD cars, they're a potent track vehicle. Why do you think so many people race Civics, RSXs, Integras, etc? The Chevy team broke several records with their Cobalt time attack car. Chris Rado is currently pushing the envelope of what FWD can do with his Scion. Unless you're racing at the highest level, the old FWD vs AWD vs RWD argument doesn't mean squat.
I know of many performance oriented people who don't want to spend money if they don't have to. This is what makes the STI and Evos so potent, they come from the factory ready to hit the race track. The same can be said of the 09 WRX, sure the tires aren't superb, but they're adequate, same for the brakes. The first few days I tracked my car I used the stock brakes. I had different tires because the 07 came with RE92s, all-season tires.
I'm not telling people they're wrong for liking the Ralliart, since my first post I've been pushing this idea that people should go with whatever they like. I do however dislike the general attitude of people attempting to rationalize their decisions by attacking the other side. Arguing that the Ralliart is the best value while openly dismissing or downgrading the qualities of other cars is ridiculous and does nothing more than make people look like fanboys. When people make statements like "The RA is awesome, X cars are crap" (a comment I'm sure we've all seen), it really does come off as fanboyism crap, especially when that same individual completely ignores any and all evidence indicating the flaws in that logic.
If you're free to state your opinion, why am I not free to state mine?

 

So now the successes of Ryan Gates can be used as "proof" of the Ralliart's superiority? Does Gates drive a Ralliart? I think not. There's also more to racing success than the engine. Gates is a hell of a good driver and AMS is a great shop with a great team of mechanics. His car is a full blown race car, I believe he even has it down to 2700 lbs.
TurnInConcepts races a WRX and from what I've heard, is dominating its class (breaking several records along the way) so that can be used as "proof" of the WRX's superiority right? What about the Crawford STI? The STIs driven by Ken Block and Travis Pastrana? Once again you've taken the argument to the extreme. How many 500 WHP Ralliarts are running around? None, it's immaterial at this point. There are other factors that limit the car's ability to run these numbers. Moreover, racing is different than street use, in some respects street use is actually harder.
Give me proof that Subaru is making more money than Mitsubishi. Your argument works both ways. As I said before, dealer incentives shouldn't be included as they're too variable. Hell, at one point, local dealerships were selling Evos for 5000$ to 10000$ above MSRP but that was purely a local phenomenon.