an '03 Mitsu Outlander....pros? cons?

My favorite wholesale used car dealership has a lowish mileage 2003 Outlander for sale. looking on Edmunds.com led me to believe these must be THE best cars(?) Mitsubishi has built for road use. Not sure if this one is FWD or AWD, tho.

Any opinions?

No usefull advice, but I'd swear I saw/read something BITD that showed an Outlander that was available with the Evo drivetrain, albeit only available in auto w/paddle shift. Am I out of my berkeleying mind, because I've never found anything else relating to it???

Welllll, the Outlander is "basically" a Lancer underneath it all...isn't it? And it has available AWD, so I imagine swapping out the n/a 2.4 for the requisite EVO bits shouldn't be too hard.

Aside from some of the things folks have said on here about Mitsu products (some think they are decent, others think they are trash), my biggest gripe is that pretty much only the Eclipse is available with a manual transmission. Oh, and a very tiny minority of Lancers.

But I'm thinking I want a 'wagon, and I also think that maybe it's time I don't play it quite so safe (AGAIN) with my car/truck purchases. I usually stick with the "major" brands.

AMS built an EVOLander. I don't know much else about it.

pro: children of the corn. you can drive around screaming "Outlander, we have your woman!"

I believe only the new ones with the GT trim have the evo's awd system. I dunno how different the 2 cars though.

Integraguy- Are you looking for an SUV? Something awd or what? Or was it just something that came up and looked fun?

Andrew

As a Honda "fan", I've considered a CR-V for awhile, but from my research I've found that the 2nd and possibly 3rd gen. CR-Vs are "plagued" by a A/C design "fault" that manifests itself when the A/C system suddenly (and expensively) self-destructs. I have found a few nice 1st gen CR-Vs, but they all have high miles and/or high prices. As an alternative, my "fall-back" was the Escape....however, research on the Escape reveals it has "problems" with the automatic transmission in several different years of production. Escapes with a manual transmission are nearly impossible to find, except on CarMax, which is on the expensive side.

When I saw this Outlander I went to Edmunds and they were fairly highly regarded. I'm guessing it's the being a Japanese BUILT vehicle that has a lot to do with it's being so well constructed. Though, now that I've had a few days to consider it, this Outlander is priced about, MAYBE a bit lower, than what a similar year/mileage CR-V would be priced at. A bit of a bargain, but no screaming deal.

I'm looking at "cute-utes" because I have what may be the start of arthritis and it makes getting into and out of my Civic difficult and sometimes painful. I'm almost able to afford a new Escape, and 2 Ford dealers in my area have 2010 Escapes with a manual transmission....I just can't seem to "pull the trigger" on a new, NEW car, much less a new to me car.

Unrespected and underrated. It's got the 4g64 motor, so it's reliable as gravity. It's also a six year old Mitsu so it's started to do its inevitable slide into the ghetto value wise. There were a couple of TSBs on 03's, make sure they were done, nothing earth shattering.

My experience was with several hundred Outies at Shelton Mitsubishi.

If you don't live in snow country, you don't need AWD. It won't break, but you'll like 2 more MPG better.

Thanks 4g63t,

After my latest post, I decided to go back and look on CarMax, just out of curiosity(sp?). I found a few more Outlanders, including a nice(r?) '03 than the 1 I found locally.. Of course, being CarMax it was a couple of $K more. There are or were a few Outlanders scattered among my neighbors and that's another reason why I considered them.

I'm planning on moving to Fl. in the near future, another reason for considering a 'wagon and figured FWD would be good enough for 90% of time. The other 10% would be trips back and forth to Pa.

So far, it's looking like the only bad point about an Outlander is the very plain looking interior if you don't have the XLS or SE model....big deal.