Faults:

It's the turbo touring model and I'm at about 130,000km now.

- Noticeably noisy tappets.

- Dashboard lights blown.

- Shocks need replacing.

- Expensive, hard-to-get-to oil leaks.

- Radiator fan stays on, sensor broken.

- Ignition coils need replacing.

- The turbo appears to do nothing.

- Fuel gauge broken; I suspect some sort of damper fault.

General Comments:

Comfortable and nice to drive. But in more recent times it has caused me a lot of grief.

Faults:

Power steering went when I first got the car, at the time covered by factory warranty. Not sure how much that would cost to fix normally, but met plenty of other Lancer owners and no-one else had that problem.

Mid-2007, dash cluster developed a weird problem where ALL the instruments (ie. speedo, tacho, odometer) turned off randomly. Problem gradually got worse and had the cluster replaced by an auto-electrician/wrecker, cost was $210 ($150 for cluster, $60 labour). Fault lay entirely within old cluster. Again, not common.

General Comments:

Apart from the problems above, my Lancer was faultless. It was very easy to drive with a light clutch and decent handling. I only sold it as my partner and I had a baby, and a small coupe doesn't make a great family car. It was my first car, and I would recommend as a first car or runabout.

Excellent on fuel (6.2L/100km on the highway with A/C on), and servicing is fairly cheap as it is a common car.

Front seats are a little firm for long trips and back seats (in the coupe, at least) have very little legroom, nor do they fold down. Boot space is generous for a small car.

Being the 1.5L it won't set your pants on fire in the performance department. However, they are reliable if serviced regularly, and easy to modify if you're into that.

Faults:

Mild front tyre wear due to under-steering handling bias.

General Comments:

Ownership experience:

Extremely reliable, faultless ownership experience, nothing has gone wrong to date. Log books from previous owner confirm this record.

Cheap to run, good fuel economy despite auto trans (7.2 hwy, 8.5 city, 8.0 combined)

On the road: Adequate performance from 1.8 litre around town, but gutless at low revs when going uphill, and needs fairly vigorous use of the throttle if you have an auto. Will lose speed on undulating terrain, especially with several passengers on board or with air conditioning on. Handling is excellent on smooth, well cambered roads, but can get awkward on badly-cambered round abouts, with the front end under-steering moderately. Also, badly surfaced country roads can upset its balance, but this is common to most small cars.

Equipment and comfort:

Well designed and ergonomic inside: has all the essentials like air con, height adjust drivers seat, CD, air bag, but misses out on electric windows, tacho and cruise control (although cruise wouldn't work very well with a 1.8 engine). Great head and shoulder room, feels more spacious than a Mazda 323 but the materials are cheaper.

Design:

Despite its small size, the styling makes it look bigger and gives it more presence on the road than similar sized Toyota's and Mazda's. A non-embarrassing alternative for young men who wouldn't be seen dead in a Barina or Corolla.

Faults:

The radio stopped tuning to FM about a year ago.

General Comments:

Extremely reliable and good on petrol. Quite nippy on the road too! No electrics bugs me a bit, but the alloys and spoiler sold me..