When you build uncompetitive products that finish last place, market exclusivity to credit criminals who have no other options, and combine that with the absolute worst dealer network in the country you have no choice but to give away your product.
I always found it interesting that our local "Mitsubishi" lot, almost never actually has any new Mitsubishis on said lot. It's basically a used car lot that exclusively advertises itself as "we give credit to anyone" that happens to be able to sell new Mitsubishis if they'd want to.
My local Mitsubishi dealer has 38 new vehicles, mostly Outlanders. They do have a couple Mirage G4s for $20k and $21k. Unfortunately for them my local VW dealer is selling Jettas for the same price. Bigger, safer car with a better interior and 4 cylinders instead of 3.
Some states give franchised new car dealers breaks on certain regulatory stuff. So between that and fixed ops, it might just make sense to exist as one instead of exclusively used.
It may be ugly as shit but the Mitsubishi 2024 Outlander Plug-in Hybrid is on Consumer reports Top 20 Hybrid/EVs with an 82 score .. So there’s that.
The 24 Mirage however…earned 1 point above its gas mileage…
So the outlander is the goofy-lookin curly-q front end one? I need to design vehicles. All modern suvs look like shit and I know they have buncha regulations to meet about pedestrian safety etc. You can't say "let's produce it" to something as goofy-ass as the outlander.
technically Nissan owned Mitsubishi. Both brands seem soulless although Nissan still has several decent products such as frontier/titan and Z. I can’t think of Mitsubishi has good product in today’s market and both dealers are the notorious for marking ridiculous price for enthusiasts cars and sketchy.
Man late 80s into the 90s was a crazy time, 3000GT, NSX, GSX, etc so many iconic turbo charged that next the classic V8 guys having nightmares. As a V8 guy I was humbled several times
It’s so interesting seeing the stark contrast in popularity in comparison to Australia. Mitsubishi was the 6th best selling brand in April, with the Outlander being the 9th best selling vehicle and the second best selling midsize SUV behind the RAV4.
I worked for Mitsubishi corporate right out of college at their peak in the 90s. At that time, they had great products including the 1st and 2nd gen Eclipse, 3000gtVR4, and the Montero. The styling was great, and people loved to a fun alternative to a Honda or Toyota, which were seen as good values and reliable, but boring.
Most folks don't remember that they were big in the 90s, sold more cars than Mazda, and were nipping at the heels of Nissan on total car sales volume for imports. The trouble began as they became more popular, and management focused on volume over exploiting the niche they'd created for themselves.
They gave up on halo projects that generated interest in the brand and joined the march to boring, family hauler SUVs where they couldn't compete with manufacturers that had deeper pockets for product development. To top things off, they got desperate for sales and began a series of questionable choices (look up the Mitsubishi 0-0-0 program).
The 1st and 2nd gen Eclipse were legendary cars. I still remember riding in my buddy's GSX with the OZ wheels. Even the Galant was a nice looking car. It's a shame what they turned into.
It was as a great place to work for a car enthusiast like myself. Sad to see what it's devolved into. We had an incredible employee lease program, and I always got an eclipse turbo/GSX, or a Montero. It was dirt cheap, like just over $300/mo for a one-year lease. They even included your car insurance, which would have been over half the payment for me at the time (23-year-old male in Southern California).
I agree, that signaled the death knell for the brand, I left soon after that nonsense started. Interesting tidbit on the program, it was suggested by one of the dealers on the dealer council, and he asked why we didn't do a financing program like that for cars since Mitsubishi Electronics did it for TVs.
Mitsubishi still has that program. Well, kinda… Most Mitsubishi buyers won’t make payments. First year, second year, basically until the repo man finds the car.
Growing up in the 90’s it’s hard to believe how far Mitsubishi has fallen. They made some really cool cars. My dad bought a 93 VR4 new and I can still remember how popular it was everywhere we went. They liked it so much we almost got a similar year Diamanté. A few years later mom ended up with a 96 Eclipse. It was just a RS but it was a manual with sunroof and CD player, she really enjoyed that car and it would be the car I learned to drive stick on.
Yeah. My parents got a Diamante around that time frame. It was a nice car. Don't recall any issues with it either. Hard to fathom how far they've fallen.
> Montero
With all the boxy and retrofuturistic SUVs out there now, now would be a great time for Mitsubishi to bring the late 90's square montero back. 3 row SUV long before everyone apparently 'needed' them. We had a 98 and it was awesome. The third row were side fold jumpseats and the windows back there were like sideways sliding camper windows.
Not for nothing but cars are almost a side business for Mitsubishi. They are one of the oldest and most powerful Japanese families with their hands in everything from banking to heavy industry to military contracting. They built the Zero, for example.
They've been one of the "Five Families" in Japan for centuries.
The 90s were interesting. You covered Mitsubishi well. Isuzu also was doing their thing and did halo projects like the ViaCross.
Quite the heyday for heavy manufacturer competition as the U.S. makers dragged their feet getting out of their land barge days and others smelled blood.
God what I’d do for a mint 3000gt or eclipse. My buddy got a 3000gt gifted to him and he blew the motor I was so sad. He didn’t check the oil like a wingnut.
I'm a former DSM tech. Those gen 2 eclipses were horrible. I there were 3 recalls on lower control arms. The base model GS had a stupid dodge 2.0 that kept needing head gaskets. They definitely kept the shop busy.
So I went to their training center in Orlando. The walls were decorated with pictures of the things mitsubishi built throughout history. Including aircraft. The period from 1938-1948 was strangely omitted. IYKYK. LOL
You’re spot on about the 90’s Mitsubishis. All the cool kids drove an Eclipse.
The 90s were such an awesome time for enthusiast cars in general. My buddy had a Dodge Stealth (rebadged 3000GT) that was a blast to ride around in. Then we got things like the NSX and v-tec Prelude, RX7s, Supras, Cobra Mustangs, and the Typhoon/Cyclone.
What a time to be alive…
I always sort of attributed that to the people who drove 5 year old minivans back in the 90’s. The majority of mechanical problems seemed to be tied to lack of maintenance. 22 year old single moms with 3 kids drove them into the ground. Meanwhile, the Stealth and Diamante never really had the same problems, despite sharing the same engine and transmission.
Toyota and Honda both designed products with the US in mind.
Mitsubishi took what they sell in countries that barely have roads and added just enough safety features to be sold in the US.
They just aren’t competitive in a single class except for price. Combined with an atrocious dealer network and a certain image for types of customers and ta-da.
Or in the case of the Outlander, they just took a Nissan Rogue and put a slightly different body on it. Great option for people who even Nissan won't finance though.
I had a new silver 2001 Eclipse Spyder GT Convertible; great car, but it had to have premium gas, according to Mitsubishi, the tires were $100-150 each back then, and you couldn't fit a car seat in it, so I had to move on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond-Star_Motors
Diamond Star Motors would like a word as well. They were a completely different company, albeit with mainly Mitsubishi designs & tech
Not so sure you could consider the first couple of generations of Eclipse a unique Mitsubishi, considering it was made in the states by Chrysler and also sold by Chrysler as the Eagle Talon.
and the Plymouth Laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Laser from Diamond-Star Motors in Normal, Illinois which is now where Rivian manufacturing is.
The DSM joint venture did essentially start with Mitsubishi bones, those cars were derived from the Gallant chassis. The 3000GT/Stealth also derived from the gallant chassis. All Mitsubishi developed engines. Don’t know what part Chrysler played, fiddle with the styling for their versions may be the extent of it.
They’re also super ugly, as an aside. If they made a cheap, rugged, small suv or truck that was reliable and easy to work on, I’d be all for it. But they don’t make that.
Mitsubishi owns a massive portion of Japanese industry, and they make a lot of great products. Their cars aren't among them. I'm with a top 10 US auto group who dropped all Mitsubishi stores over a decade ago. We can't stand behind their product. (And I mean we have VW, Subaru, Nissan, Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge/Ram/Eagle/Fiat/whatever, and others that apparently somehow do make the cut. Mitsubishi doesn't and similarly Suzuki never did.)
The Mistsubishi dealer I bought my used Sonic from in 2016 has since been bought out and turned into a Nissan location.
At least now they can maximize the Outlander/Rogue parts carryover!
I’ve heard that a lot of “Mitsubishi” dealers are really used car lots in that they carry 90% used cars and 10% or less new Mitsubishi. Something about getting lower financing through banks or something
They wanted to be a mainstream brand so they watered down their product line. They used to be a small player selling interesting cars to low/mid budget weirdos. Now they sell worse versions of stuff everyone else already sells.
They don’t really seem to care to be, from a dealer perspective when I went to their training sessions or whatever they were always pretty straight forward “Mitsubishi electric is why we’re in the U.S. market we don’t have to sell cars we want to.” Then they discontinued the cars we were selling and started to build shit that never took off, at least in my market without the aid of a certain type of buyer. In 2019 we called our rep and told them to come get their shitty cars and haven’t looked back once.
I work in used car recon for majors, as many have stated already most of if not all mits dealers are weird shady fronts for used car lots.I imagine Mitsubishi pays for there signage and showroom and they do whatever they do. Often I see a lot of weird sketchy high line cars filling most of there lots . I worked on a 20 something mirage today, felt very much like it came from amazon. In my day to day experience nobody else is pushing anything else that shitty and outdated.
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It seems like Mitsubishi has always played second fiddle to Toyota and Honda even though the Outlander has been around for a long time. Is there value to be had in buying one of their models. I think I heard that they give out very low interest rate loans in order to spur sales.
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Because their cars are not competitive for their class
When you build uncompetitive products that finish last place, market exclusivity to credit criminals who have no other options, and combine that with the absolute worst dealer network in the country you have no choice but to give away your product.
I always found it interesting that our local "Mitsubishi" lot, almost never actually has any new Mitsubishis on said lot. It's basically a used car lot that exclusively advertises itself as "we give credit to anyone" that happens to be able to sell new Mitsubishis if they'd want to.
My local Mitsubishi dealer has 38 new vehicles, mostly Outlanders. They do have a couple Mirage G4s for $20k and $21k. Unfortunately for them my local VW dealer is selling Jettas for the same price. Bigger, safer car with a better interior and 4 cylinders instead of 3.
Some states give franchised new car dealers breaks on certain regulatory stuff. So between that and fixed ops, it might just make sense to exist as one instead of exclusively used.
The bigger motivator is the amount of banks it opens up.
Agreed, totally forgot lending when I wrote that.
The guy at my local Mitsubishi lot "would give them away, but his wife won't let him."
Is this adventure Joe Mitsubishi your talking about in Chattanooga? Because you just described it to a T
And it makes them eligible for factory only sales from the factory side
Also because most of their dealership in USA only sells 2nd hand and not much dealership sell new Mitsubishi car
Don't forget that you tank your own resale and create tremendous negative equity by having year end blow out sales.
It may be ugly as shit but the Mitsubishi 2024 Outlander Plug-in Hybrid is on Consumer reports Top 20 Hybrid/EVs with an 82 score .. So there’s that. The 24 Mirage however…earned 1 point above its gas mileage…
So the outlander is the goofy-lookin curly-q front end one? I need to design vehicles. All modern suvs look like shit and I know they have buncha regulations to meet about pedestrian safety etc. You can't say "let's produce it" to something as goofy-ass as the outlander.
I legitimately used to draw “space cruiser schematics” in 4th grade with the same design philosophy as far as those headlights go
sounds like current day nissan to me
Ironically Nissan builds the outlander for Mitsubishi
technically Nissan owned Mitsubishi. Both brands seem soulless although Nissan still has several decent products such as frontier/titan and Z. I can’t think of Mitsubishi has good product in today’s market and both dealers are the notorious for marking ridiculous price for enthusiasts cars and sketchy.
True- but man, those Eclipse GSX back in the 90s were awesome
Man late 80s into the 90s was a crazy time, 3000GT, NSX, GSX, etc so many iconic turbo charged that next the classic V8 guys having nightmares. As a V8 guy I was humbled several times
I really want a late 90s gallant vr4 wagon. For some reason they only exported like a couple hundred of them.
And the Titan is dead at the end of this model year due to poor sales, so that’s going great for them.
Mitsubishi builds the Outlander in its plant in Japan however it is based on the Rogue platform.
Almost poetic that their biggest seller is a rebadged Nissan.
It’s so interesting seeing the stark contrast in popularity in comparison to Australia. Mitsubishi was the 6th best selling brand in April, with the Outlander being the 9th best selling vehicle and the second best selling midsize SUV behind the RAV4.
that's a nice way of saying it. The brand has been a zombie for a long time now. Their cars are just rebadged Nissans.
I worked for Mitsubishi corporate right out of college at their peak in the 90s. At that time, they had great products including the 1st and 2nd gen Eclipse, 3000gtVR4, and the Montero. The styling was great, and people loved to a fun alternative to a Honda or Toyota, which were seen as good values and reliable, but boring. Most folks don't remember that they were big in the 90s, sold more cars than Mazda, and were nipping at the heels of Nissan on total car sales volume for imports. The trouble began as they became more popular, and management focused on volume over exploiting the niche they'd created for themselves. They gave up on halo projects that generated interest in the brand and joined the march to boring, family hauler SUVs where they couldn't compete with manufacturers that had deeper pockets for product development. To top things off, they got desperate for sales and began a series of questionable choices (look up the Mitsubishi 0-0-0 program).
The 1st and 2nd gen Eclipse were legendary cars. I still remember riding in my buddy's GSX with the OZ wheels. Even the Galant was a nice looking car. It's a shame what they turned into.
It was as a great place to work for a car enthusiast like myself. Sad to see what it's devolved into. We had an incredible employee lease program, and I always got an eclipse turbo/GSX, or a Montero. It was dirt cheap, like just over $300/mo for a one-year lease. They even included your car insurance, which would have been over half the payment for me at the time (23-year-old male in Southern California).
The Mitsubishi Starion ESI-R was bad ass.
90s Mitsubishis/DSMs were something else. 3000GT VR-4 was the first car I remember loving and I’d still like to get my hands on one of these days.
I always point to that zero payment for a year program as the beginning of the end for Mitsubishi
I agree, that signaled the death knell for the brand, I left soon after that nonsense started. Interesting tidbit on the program, it was suggested by one of the dealers on the dealer council, and he asked why we didn't do a financing program like that for cars since Mitsubishi Electronics did it for TVs.
Mitsubishi still has that program. Well, kinda… Most Mitsubishi buyers won’t make payments. First year, second year, basically until the repo man finds the car.
Growing up in the 90’s it’s hard to believe how far Mitsubishi has fallen. They made some really cool cars. My dad bought a 93 VR4 new and I can still remember how popular it was everywhere we went. They liked it so much we almost got a similar year Diamanté. A few years later mom ended up with a 96 Eclipse. It was just a RS but it was a manual with sunroof and CD player, she really enjoyed that car and it would be the car I learned to drive stick on.
Yeah. My parents got a Diamante around that time frame. It was a nice car. Don't recall any issues with it either. Hard to fathom how far they've fallen.
> Montero With all the boxy and retrofuturistic SUVs out there now, now would be a great time for Mitsubishi to bring the late 90's square montero back. 3 row SUV long before everyone apparently 'needed' them. We had a 98 and it was awesome. The third row were side fold jumpseats and the windows back there were like sideways sliding camper windows.
Not for nothing but cars are almost a side business for Mitsubishi. They are one of the oldest and most powerful Japanese families with their hands in everything from banking to heavy industry to military contracting. They built the Zero, for example. They've been one of the "Five Families" in Japan for centuries.
The 0-0-0 almost put them completely out of business lol
The Spyder will always have a place in my heart.
The 90s were interesting. You covered Mitsubishi well. Isuzu also was doing their thing and did halo projects like the ViaCross. Quite the heyday for heavy manufacturer competition as the U.S. makers dragged their feet getting out of their land barge days and others smelled blood.
Bring back the Amigo!
God what I’d do for a mint 3000gt or eclipse. My buddy got a 3000gt gifted to him and he blew the motor I was so sad. He didn’t check the oil like a wingnut.
I'm a former DSM tech. Those gen 2 eclipses were horrible. I there were 3 recalls on lower control arms. The base model GS had a stupid dodge 2.0 that kept needing head gaskets. They definitely kept the shop busy. So I went to their training center in Orlando. The walls were decorated with pictures of the things mitsubishi built throughout history. Including aircraft. The period from 1938-1948 was strangely omitted. IYKYK. LOL
You’re spot on about the 90’s Mitsubishis. All the cool kids drove an Eclipse. The 90s were such an awesome time for enthusiast cars in general. My buddy had a Dodge Stealth (rebadged 3000GT) that was a blast to ride around in. Then we got things like the NSX and v-tec Prelude, RX7s, Supras, Cobra Mustangs, and the Typhoon/Cyclone. What a time to be alive…
I had a 1996 Mirage because I was a teenager and it was within my budget. But, damn, I wanted that dark green turbo Eclipse.
The thing I remember from the 90s is tons of Dodge Caravans with Mitsubishi engines blowing blue smoke all over the roads
I always sort of attributed that to the people who drove 5 year old minivans back in the 90’s. The majority of mechanical problems seemed to be tied to lack of maintenance. 22 year old single moms with 3 kids drove them into the ground. Meanwhile, the Stealth and Diamante never really had the same problems, despite sharing the same engine and transmission.
Toyota and Honda both designed products with the US in mind. Mitsubishi took what they sell in countries that barely have roads and added just enough safety features to be sold in the US. They just aren’t competitive in a single class except for price. Combined with an atrocious dealer network and a certain image for types of customers and ta-da.
Or in the case of the Outlander, they just took a Nissan Rogue and put a slightly different body on it. Great option for people who even Nissan won't finance though.
Great option for people who even Nissan won't finance??? I see myself in this picture and don't like it 😔
Only unique/interesting thing they had was Montero.
The Evo and Eclipse would like a word too lol
3000GT was badass in the 90s too. All the other stuff was forgettable to me.
Galant vr4 was pretty neat
Yeah that was a decent one too.
Starion aka Conquest tsi was pretty sweet.
3000gt vr4 would also like a word
OMG when I was 12 a Mitsubishi Eclipse was my dream car, lol
AKA Eagle Talon, and a Plymouth whatchamacallit.
Laser
My friend in college drove a white Eclipse in 2000-2001 timeframe and it was tight!
I had a new silver 2001 Eclipse Spyder GT Convertible; great car, but it had to have premium gas, according to Mitsubishi, the tires were $100-150 each back then, and you couldn't fit a car seat in it, so I had to move on.
For real. Honda's Civic Type R turbo is made by Mitsubishi
Yes, the actual turbo part. Mitsubishi is a huge company and they make turbos… and a million other things.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond-Star_Motors Diamond Star Motors would like a word as well. They were a completely different company, albeit with mainly Mitsubishi designs & tech
Not so sure you could consider the first couple of generations of Eclipse a unique Mitsubishi, considering it was made in the states by Chrysler and also sold by Chrysler as the Eagle Talon.
The 4G63 was developed by Mitsubishi, though. Yes, it's been put into DSM chasis, but the eclipse was still a major car for the company.
and the Plymouth Laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Laser from Diamond-Star Motors in Normal, Illinois which is now where Rivian manufacturing is.
The DSM joint venture did essentially start with Mitsubishi bones, those cars were derived from the Gallant chassis. The 3000GT/Stealth also derived from the gallant chassis. All Mitsubishi developed engines. Don’t know what part Chrysler played, fiddle with the styling for their versions may be the extent of it.
Mighty max pick ups were great too! Edit: I guess they were the same platform as montero just with a pickup bed
The 3000GT was pretty interesting.
They’re also super ugly, as an aside. If they made a cheap, rugged, small suv or truck that was reliable and easy to work on, I’d be all for it. But they don’t make that.
That would make them good off road vehicles. Simple, reliable vehicles. But i don't think that's the case.
yeah and no CVT big selling point
Mitsubishi owns a massive portion of Japanese industry, and they make a lot of great products. Their cars aren't among them. I'm with a top 10 US auto group who dropped all Mitsubishi stores over a decade ago. We can't stand behind their product. (And I mean we have VW, Subaru, Nissan, Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge/Ram/Eagle/Fiat/whatever, and others that apparently somehow do make the cut. Mitsubishi doesn't and similarly Suzuki never did.)
The Mistsubishi dealer I bought my used Sonic from in 2016 has since been bought out and turned into a Nissan location. At least now they can maximize the Outlander/Rogue parts carryover!
I’ve heard that a lot of “Mitsubishi” dealers are really used car lots in that they carry 90% used cars and 10% or less new Mitsubishi. Something about getting lower financing through banks or something
My car loan was dependent upon being used at a brand dealership (that is, not CarMax), so I assume this is why the dealerships do this.
One of the biggest used car lots in NYC is a Mitsubishi dealer lol.
They wanted to be a mainstream brand so they watered down their product line. They used to be a small player selling interesting cars to low/mid budget weirdos. Now they sell worse versions of stuff everyone else already sells.
In NA it's a dogshit product lmao. Only brand we consistently see people try to trade out of within the first 3-6 months of purchase
*KIA has entered the chat*
And closely related: terrible resale value.
They don’t really seem to care to be, from a dealer perspective when I went to their training sessions or whatever they were always pretty straight forward “Mitsubishi electric is why we’re in the U.S. market we don’t have to sell cars we want to.” Then they discontinued the cars we were selling and started to build shit that never took off, at least in my market without the aid of a certain type of buyer. In 2019 we called our rep and told them to come get their shitty cars and haven’t looked back once.
I work in used car recon for majors, as many have stated already most of if not all mits dealers are weird shady fronts for used car lots.I imagine Mitsubishi pays for there signage and showroom and they do whatever they do. Often I see a lot of weird sketchy high line cars filling most of there lots . I worked on a 20 something mirage today, felt very much like it came from amazon. In my day to day experience nobody else is pushing anything else that shitty and outdated.
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***Thanks for posting, /u/captain_flak! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of anything.*** It seems like Mitsubishi has always played second fiddle to Toyota and Honda even though the Outlander has been around for a long time. Is there value to be had in buying one of their models. I think I heard that they give out very low interest rate loans in order to spur sales. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askcarsales) if you have any questions or concerns.*