Faults:

The door hinge on the rear of the truck, with the attached spare tire is broken. Dealer suggests I replace the entire door (hundreds of dollars), which is ridiculous, in my opinion. Poor design, in my opinion, as the weight of the spare tire adds a lot of stress to the door hinges over time. More recent models hide the hinges inside the door- better design. Otherwise, normal wear and tear.

General Comments:

Vehicle rides very well for an SUV- no major engine problems. I keep up with maintenance- I plan to keep this vehicle until 200K miles.

Faults:

Rotors and brakes needed to be replaced. That's basically all that happened.

General Comments:

This car is so reliable. I beat the car so bad, I swear the engine should have blown up.

Only if Mitsubishi made it a little more powerful; it has a 6 cylinder that is not powerful.

Faults:

The vehicle is rusting quite a bit. I had to spend $850 to replace the rear brakes because the calipers were rusted shut and I was told that they could not be cut.

My engine light came on at approximately 30,000 because the engine sensor went bad.

My dashboard light in the heater area is out. I'm afraid to have anyone fix it for fear they will break the dashboard.

General Comments:

My Montero has been pretty good to me. I do agree, however, with a couple of the other reviewers. The horsepower is not really that good. I do find that when I really need to move and press the pedal, the transmission delays, even when the vehicle is warm. It is definitely bad when the engine is cold.

I did not get my 60,000 timing belt change yet. That is another $700 and I just put $850 out last month for the rear brakes. I'm at 60,300 now. Does this engine model cause bending of the pistons when the timing belt goes?

Faults:

Front and rear brakes at 30,000

4WD light switches at 32,000

Cam plug seals at 37,000

Radiator hoses at 38,000

Radiator at 40,000

Outrageously expensive 60,000 mile maintenance service, vehicle design discourages do it yourself maintenance.

General Comments:

Minor problems, but expensive to fix if out of warranty.

Basic maintenance difficult, skid plate has to be removed to do an oil change, intake manifold must be removed to change spark plugs or wires, vehicle requires timing belt at 60,000 miles along with spark plugs, over $1000 at dealer. Water pump is driven by timing belt and expensive to change also.

Compared to my previous Saturn: the 60,000 mile service and oil changes I could easily perform, it had a timing chain which didn't require replacement in 108,000 miles, and an easy to change water pump. I just went back to a 2002 Saturn SL2 because it was a better vehicle than the Montero with a much lower operating cost.

Faults:

As of right now, the only thing that's wrong with the car is that it needs an alignment.

General Comments:

With this vehicle, you can feel every bump in the road with it.

Pulling a trailer that weighs less than 1000 pounds makes it use a half a tank of gas doing 70MPH on the highway.

When the thing's cold, you have to get the tach over 3 before it will shift.

Often when you step on the gas hard to pass somebody, the transmission will slip, and the dealer can't seem to find anything wrong with it.

And finally, you're supposed to be able to shift into 4 wheel drive while you're moving, well, not with this piece of junk, if you try to shift it while you're moving, all you hear is gears grinding.

Faults:

Power locks, will not just unlock and stay that way, have to unlock several times with the controller or by hand to make them stay unlocked. Had the locks repaired by the Mitsubishi dealer, but the problem continues.

CD player stopped working, still waiting to be replaced for over three months now. Dealer states that the CD player must be replaced by a Japanese CD player, because the truck was manufactured in Japan and if they install an American CD player the warranty will be voided.

General Comments:

Very pleased with this truck, handles itself very well going down the highways.

The third seats are not too small, but there is not enough space to get in them for an adult or child, and there is not enough inside storage room behind the seats for traveling.