There have been a multitude of complaints on this board about how Mitsubishi has abdicated its responsibility to Evo owners concerning its willingness to cover, under warranty, any mechanical problems which might arise ("worst-backed cars in the world", etc.). However, in fairness to Mitsubishi, it seems as though they are in the impossible position of having to be liable for repairs which may, in all likelihood, be the fault of the owners' driving habits. So my question is this. What is a fair warranty for the Evo, including stipulations? Are the current criteria (mods=voided warranty) too harsh, or not harsh enough? How can Mitusbishi protect itself from having to pay for abuse-related issues while at the same time not shortchanging the responsible owners, and how can the company ever make this distinction?

 

lol any warrenty would be great that they would honor

 

dunno maybe if they decided not to team up but accept certain tuners who are known and reputable and said okay as long as we can determine that you arent abusing the car we will honor your warranty.....

 

I'm sure there are tons of people who own Civics and beat them to hell, or neglect them beyond belief, but Honda still cares. Most of the autocrosses I've been to, people have known about Mitsu's outlook on warranties regarding Evos. But Honda voiding warranties on their cars are less obnoxious.

 

It would take the honesty of the owner to come up with a fair warranty. If people didn't put their broken cars back to stock and take them in, or if they actually told the dealer what has happened with the car then mitsu could make a decision based on facts rather than everyone telling lies.

 

I have purchased four Mitsus since "00". Ultimately all of my service problems have been resolved. My only complaint is with the effort I have had to put forth to receive the services due me.

Here is a list:

lights not working at all on one side of the car. Head lights comming on and going off by them selves, electrical problem that destroyed the battery, three transmission problems with syncros. Bolt left out when recall work was perfomed. one qt. of oil left in the engine with an oil change. operating switch improperly installed on sun roof. Parts that were to be ordered were not ordered. Cars were in the shop for over a month on three occasions.

All of these problems were resolved. At one point I was given a brand new Cadillac as a loaner for over a month and a half. The only real problems getting things done under warranty was a second trans problem on one of the Eclipse GTs I bought. The difficulties were due to a poor service tech and service writer and a service manager who mistakenly stood by them.

The cars suffer some what from soft quality control and from marginal quality in the manual transmissions. For me, attention to these areas would yield better cusomer satifaction than any warranty improvments that I can think of.

 

Not voided, restricted... talk to Mitsubishi... and, well, I'm not going into it more

 

this is a good question. as a new owner the warranty thing really bothered me, but as the odometer creeps up, i am yet to have ANY kind of problem. this impresses me because i had a 02 beetle before, and i had warranty work done on that thing 13 times in 2 years. i keep thinking that the CEL light will come on but it never does. the block has repeatedly been proven bulletproof, and i am begging to think that driveline, clutch, tranny, ect problems are brought on by the driver. (i understand that there are some cases where that isnt true- but it seems more often then not)
regardless of mods i would be happy if mitsu bit the bullet, and covered us on the small electrical/mechanical things that seem to break. if my HID's fail before my warranty is up they should fix them. if my recaro seat back snaps it should be there problem. these are small things in the big scale of all of this, but we shouldnt have to pay. on the other hand, when my clutch starts to slip, i will replace it, i dont hold them responsible one inkling.

 

This seems reasonable (a happy medium). I sure hope that Mitsu adopts a more magnanimous approach toward their customers. I really think that a reputation for unrivaled customer care regarding warranty issues would really help their bottom line in the long run. Customer loyalty is essential. Any Mitsu executives listening?

 

I also think they should tell the driver before the person buys the car what constitutes ABUSE of the vehicle eg: Clutch drops at 6,000+ rpms etc .... pretty much make it clear what can be done and can't be done and what will be covered .... That is why I spoke to the district rep about these issues as soon as I bought mine ...

 

Do we really need to tell a new car buyer how to drive the new car? Ok Mr. evo owner DO Not sidestep the clutch. Ok Mrs. Diamante owner Do Not exceed the speed limit, OK Mr. Eclipse owner Do not stand up throught the sunroof.... Etc.

There is a fine line between what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. Will speeding cause a warranty related problem? Probably not because the car is supposed to travel on the highway. But should we have to tell you what to do or not to do? Some people have common sense and some people have only enough sense to say "I paid $30K or more and therefore I should be allowed to abuse my car". The responsibility lies with the person using good judgement. There is not one car manufaturer out there is going to cover any part of a car if you told them honestly and exactly how the clutch pieces came to be embedded in the bell housing. We really are not stupid when it come to signs of abuse but when we can plainly see that it is abuse then you try to lie to me and say that it wasn't that is an insult and what about beating a car is considered warranty? I work in the car business and I've seen many things that can be done with a car and everytime I see someone playing stupid and making the concious decison to side step the clutch at 6 grand, I have no problem telling them that they are responsible for the repairs. It is not a defect in materials or workmanship. Any vehicle has limits. When someone buys the car knowing that parts are going to be installed that will affect the limits of the engine, trans etc then they should be responsible for the outcome of the changes they make, not the manufacturer.
Bottom line: Do we really have to tell people how to not abuse ther vehicles?

 

No I don't think you need to tell them what abuse is. But you do need to be upfront with them, maybe even if they don't ask you since the warranty coverage on the Evo is delicate.

When I bought mine, I sent an e-mail to my salesman asking him about the implications of some 4pt harnesses I was considering getting. Part of his e-mailed response (which I still have) was something like this 'Mitsubishi knows that this car is going to be taken to the track/autocross and driven hard. Don't worry about it', that is the kind of thing that should be avoided, where the salesperson tells you it won't be a problem, when it clearly is.

 

lancerdealer...I fully agree with the point I think you are making. My only comment/concern....and really...my only gripe with some of the experiences of people on this board is warrantys getting voided on parts that have NOTHING to do with some level of abuse.

For instance, if someones rear window motor dies at 5k miles, why should that not get warrantied for a cat back system and a boost controller...or something like that. I could name a million scenarios where it seems the dealer is using mods as a scapegoat to not do warrany repair- citing some ridiculous chain of events that they claim proves the mod caused the failure...without any sort of rigorous engineering analysis done. And there are stories like that littered throughout this forum and others.

Above all else, I think THAT is what makes people mad, no because mitsu wont cover a tranny after pumping out 500 hp at the wheels.

 

That is correct.

I guess that is what sets us apart from those dealers is that we have guys that have modded and unless it's caused by the mod it's warranty. It's plain and simple for us. But on the other hand if the customer fesses up and says yes I modded it instead of throwing a 2year old tantrum calling everybody names and bashing all dealers, calling customer service complaining about warranty coverage, we will be more likely to try to help them. Contrary to popular belief, we are not "stealers" we are not the enemy. We do not make money denying warranty work.

I suppose it would be different if those of you would not generalize and make all dealers out to be crap, just based on individual experience.

But then I suppose it takes a different person to assign responsibility where it lies instead of hammering everybody just because we have a three diamond on our shirt.

We appreciate honesty above all else and if the customer tells us that there have been mods BEFORE our Mitsubishi Master certified tech, the only one in the entire state of Utah, spends an hour or two trying to find out why there is a hesitation when the boost comes on, then we as a dealer wouldn't have wasted his time following procedure to document all things for warranty sake only to find out that you as a customer knows more than MM, have put on "better" ignition wires and they have failed. In that case you are going to say hell no I'm not payin' and we already know that MM is not going to pay us. So our choices are to pay the tech for his time because the responsible party will not. Or we say to the tech " thanks for wasting your time and screw him out of that money. In case some of you don't know this, techs do not get paid by the hour, they get paid by the job and according to who is paying.

I understand what you are saying and I agree, but then we are only getting one side to the story.

 

Right. And let add to that by saying I think you are right: there are a large number of complaints that have been caused by a bad attitude on the part of the customer. Ive heard a lot of stories of customers absolutely going nuts when a tech points out the flywheel is blue after a slipping clutch complaint, for example. Name calling erupts, calls to mitsu corporate and the whole works.

Im not saying you will be able to sweet talk dealerships into doing a lot of stuff they shouldnt, but a smile and a civil, respectful conversation will be more effective than temper tantrums at resolving issues like this.

Now, like apples, there are some rotten dealers out there. But by and large, I think a lot of them would like to help out in grey area situations if they like the customer. And by help out, I dont mean perform warranty work when they arent supposed to, but they might give you the name of a tech whod be willing to do some stuff cheap while off hours, or they might just "happen to know" where you can get a cheap part...things like that.