Robevo RS

iTrader: (16)

i dont know why guys keep saying the evo 8-9 looks like ****ty econobox. In this forum... The other hand they like the VI...
these car made to be looking like one! ta ta ta....
If you dont like it, then get a celica.

DrSmile

iTrader: (2)

And now a very dismal December... Subaru was down 9%, Mitsu 40%!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5425528.html

blitzkrieg79

Jeeezzzzz, I wonder what caused this slide, Mitsubishi was doing fairly good throughout the year with constant increases month to month compared to previous year and then November and December were tragic. I hope they'll sort things out, to drop 40% to around 5,000 car sales (from 9500 which isn't a lot to begin with) is not a good sign Worst thing about it is that except for Evo X (which is really not a mainstream car) Mitsu has nothing new in the pipeline to excite the public I would hate to see Mitsubishi leave the NA market and don't understand what their problem is as they are doing decent everywhere around the world (especially in Europe where over the past two years they really picked up their sales but then again they offer much better products there such as Colt, Grandis, L200, or even the new Pajero) except of course the US.

And in other news, 2008 Dakar Rally has been cancelled: http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/s...=99&id=3180745 Now that really sucks, looks like terrorists win again, the greatest rally in the world has been shelved Nothing but bad news all over the place today...

atombomb33

iTrader: (28)

I guess that whole "time to rally" sales event theme didn't work out so well for them...

atombomb33

iTrader: (28)

That -40.4% drop for Mitsu was by far the worst in the auto industry for December. The only other brand with a double digit percentage decrease was Isuzu at -22.8%.

That's gotta hurt Mitsu to be the worst in the industry during a December when the entire industry was only down -2.9%.

blitzkrieg79

This is not good news, most of the automakers have tanked in the month of December but decreases were rather minimal percentage wise. To drop 40% when you have new models such as Outlander and Lancer is not a good sign at all, anyway, here is a breakdown of sales: http://www.cnbc.com/id/22491249/for/cnbc The most puzzling is the decrease in sales of Outlanders which I think are one of the best SUVs in it's class (Rav4, CR-V, Rogue). Lancer sales (which again is one of the best compacts in it's class compared to Corolla, Civic, Mazda3), although increased compared to last December also don't look too good, Mitsu should be able to sell at least 3500-4000 new Lancers per month, not good news for Mitsubishi at all when your new car ain't selling at all. I wonder what caused such a drastic decrease, lack of marketing, lack of leadership? They better have a new game plan for 2008 as this will be a tough year financial wise for all of Americans as economic data is not looking too good and the FED can't just decrease rates infinite number of times to help out investors.

ExcessLancer

The sad fact is that KIA and hyundai have been eating MItsus lunch for the past 5 years. I remember when people would laugh at the mention of the words KIA or hyundai but now peopel are choosing those brands and feeling proud that their cars are even getting good reviews form auto mags..LOL Mention mitsu now and you get no response not even a laugh... sad!

I believe that most of these KIA and hyundi buyers are people that mitsubishi would have sold a car to long ago. KIA and hyundi are now making affordable cars with modern features that look ok. and they are marketing hard to the right folks even though they have nothing in their line up nearly as cool as the 1999 eclipse GSX or EVO9... i used to drive a POS 2003 lancer ES and the dealership used to go to suddenly and with out warning switched to KIA, when I asked, the owner told me there just aint no money in mitsu cars anymore.

Ludikraut

iTrader: (17)

I would have bought an Outlander, had offered the '08 with a 4banger, instead of only having 6-cyl engines in it ... and I MOST DEFINITELY would have bought an AWD 4G63 Outlander had it been available. Instead, I went with a Forester XT Sport.

IMO, sales of the Lancer are hurting partly due to the fact that while most reviews say that the car is great to drive, most reviews also state that it is underpowered.

l8r)

ExcessLancer

All mitsus sedans and coups are under powered its their theme...LOL

blitzkrieg79

Actually Mitsubishi will offer a 2.4l 4 cylinder version of Outlander later this year, Lancer GTS will receive the same engine too. Problem is that people who think that a 4 banger in Outlander will save some fuel compared to the 6 cylinder version are mistaking because the weight of the Outlander will make the 2.4l engine work hard making it just a bit more efficient (while offering less performance) than the V6.

And yeah, the AWD 4G63 Turbo Outlander was available in Europe, great little ride, and compared to base Outlander models it wasn't all that more expensive either... Mitsubishi has so many cool and unique vehicles across the world that I just don't understand why some of them can't find its way to USA

And as far as Mitsubishis being underpowered, I don't agree with it, when you compare price to HP/0-60 ratio Mitsubishi isn't any worse than the competition. I find it funny when car magazines praise the new Civic and it's engine/performance when in fact base Civic with auto transmission barely gets 0-60 time under 10 sec. and they bash on new Lancer as being underpowered when the base Lancer with CVT beats a base Civic with auto-tranny by almost a second to 0-60... Another example is the Endeavor, from performance point of view, although it has a bit less HP than Honda Pilot, it's 0-60 time is actually about the same.

Problem with Mitsubishi NA is at the top exec level, they have no clue how to run operations in US, to whom target their ads/sales. The 2002-2006 product US lineup was a bit stale but the new generation of vehicles has greatly improved. Reliability is also up, they rank near the top in recent Consumer Reports reliability rankings.

atombomb33

iTrader: (28)

The problem isn't really with the cars themselves. Like several of you have stated, some of the new Mitsu cars/SUVs are pretty decent vehicles and stack up well against the competition.

The problem is that the Mitsubishi brand name isn't worth $h!t to the average US consumer. That's why Mitsu doesn't make it on their shopping list because they don't know anything about the brand and don't trust it.

And Mitsu is smoking crack thinking they will sell the Evo X to consumers who have luxury brands on their shopping list. You can't sell a brand like Mitsubishi to a luxury consumer when the brand name itself doesn't stand for anything...even if it is a car like the Evo...just isn't going to happen. Case in point, is that they can't even sell Mitsu vehicles to consumers that have Mazda, Kia and Hyundai on their shopping list...

blitzkrieg79

As I mentioned earlier, the problem with Mitsubishi NA is they marketing/PR department, they need to invest a lot of money to put Mitsubishi on radar along the lines of Mazda, Hyundai, Kia. Their products are not any worse then the mentioned 3 brands plus they offer a better warranty than Mazda. They need to hire someone on top with US car sales experience that knows the American public. Those Japanese just don't cut it.

evolved83

iTrader: (2)

+1 and the fact that they treat you like crap when you service the car... I think their cars are good, but they need to rebuild the name in more than one area

atombomb33

iTrader: (28)

+1,000,000 on the marketing/PR department screwing things up over the past 2-3 years. I used to work for Mitsu's ad agency back in 2002-2004 when the brand was having it's most successful sales years. Everyone remembers the advertising with the cool music. It sold cars (over 300,000 cars a year) and it gave the brand an identity as a young-at-heart, fun-to-drive, emotional brand.

Then the Japanese took over the US operations in late 2003 and it's pretty much been all downhill from there. They also hired Finbarr Oneill as CEO (he worked previously as CEO at Hyundai). Guess where Mitsu got the idea for a 10/100K warranty? When all of those things happened I quit my job because I saw the writing on the wall and knew the company was going into some very rough times.

atombomb33

iTrader: (28)

The dealership service is a whole other issue they definitely need to address. But, the image of the brand should come first. Toyota dealerships are just as bad as Mitsubishi dealerships (Toyota typically ranks as one of the top 3 worst dealership experiences), yet people still buy Toyota vehicles because the brand name means something and people trust the company.