Faults:

When I bought the car, it needed a new motor and new control arm. After I got that done, the turbo blew after couple hundred miles, so I replaced it with the 1st generation Eclipse turbo (which is better than the stock T25 turbo). Within that 3000 miles after that same turbo, I went through 3 more turbos.

There are a lot of aftermarket support for this car, which makes the car more and more fun with more mods.

I also changed the brake pads, which is typical for every car.

The car now has a CEL light for random misfire which is a pain to diagnose. The forum dsmtuners.com can tell you, if you want a fun car and don't mind always having to fix this car, this is for you.

If you want a fun reliable car, this car is NOT for you.

General Comments:

Overall this car is fun if you drive it once or twice, and maybe own it for couple of months. It gets even more fun when you start putting money into it and modifying the car, but the car ends up breaking down and starts having problems here and there...

I would NEVER buy this car again, and I would NEVER recommend this car to anybody.

Faults:

I had to replace the fuel pump relay, that was about 3 months after I got it. That was the only time it left me stranded, mileage was approximately 70,000.

The CAM sensor went bad around 82,000 miles, and I replaced all the radiator hoses and flushed the coolant system. The car runs considerably cooler now.

I noticed an oil leak around the valve cover, turned out that the valve cover gasket was bad, so it was replaced at 83,000 miles.

General Comments:

Very nice car, has had a few minor repairs, but nothing out of the ordinary for a car with this much mileage on it.

It needs new shocks/springs, but still handles considerably well.

Engine idles and accelerates smoothly.

Transmission is still easy to shift, hardly any resistance from 1st through 5th.

Faults:

I have had the same problems with the door handles on my '98 Eclipse. A couple of weeks after I got it, the passenger side door handle broke. A week later my driver side door handle broke. I got them both replaced, and my driver side door handle lasted a little over a year, just long enough for the warranty to run out. I bought another one and replaced it again, which is quite the pain, just for it to break again a month later. A friend mentioned looking for carbon fiber door handles, but I haven't seen any for this car. The door handles are very cheaply made. Why would they be made out of plastic? They even feel very cheap.

Another thing; the anti-theft stereo is very annoying. My stereo stopped playing CDs, so I bought another one to replace it, but I'm not sure how to work around the black and gray plug-ins in the back that will only connect to the factory stereo. Irritating.

Faults:

Top fabric gathers oddly and bends brackets - close to a $500 repair first time it happened; after that I just bent them back by hand.

Gears on top motor stripped out. Looks like $1,000 plus to repair. So I've used as a manual top. Kind of heavy, though. Pulled my back a couple of times.

Visibility with top up is very poor. Hard to change to lanes on the right - huge blind spot.

Front speakers needed replacement (no big deal).

Leather on drivers seat starting to crack (will get to be an issue).

CD player skips on every bump (now I'm getting picky).

General Comments:

I really love the car, it's really fun to drive, handles well in bad weather and gets very good gas mileage, but the problems with the top are inexcusable. Two convertible shops have told me the mechanical problems I've had very common with this model. Since the 98 was at least the second year in production, it's outrageous that Mitsubishi would not have recognized them and addressed them.

This is theoretically a Japanese car, but no Toyota or Honda.