Faults:

Air con stopped working, plus the usual wear and tear.

General Comments:

A very dull car I had a while ago, this Carisma was however very reliable. And you can give me reliability any day!

Quite good looking in red, I put nicer alloy wheels on as well, really brought this car's looks up.

1.8 was slow but managed around 40 mpg.

Interior was full of plastic and boring, but it was laid out well and it all worked, ergonomically OK.

Seats comfy enough but ride a little firm, cruised on the motorway smooth enough though.

As boring as it was, I kind of miss this car, it was so simple and reliable, I traded it back in 2013, it was still going strong with nearly 130K on it. Look after these cars and you can count on them.

Faults:

Electric windows switch on the passenger side fell apart, but the window could still be opened from the switch on the driver's side (common problem).

Rear suspension arm bush was squeaking quite badly, but didn't affect how the car drove one bit; it was just a bit annoying!

The alternator pulley bolt came loose and fell off, which in turn made the pulley fall off, which meant the alternator was inoperable. A 2nd hand replacement was cheap and easily replaced.

General Comments:

This car is seriously underrated, and IMO is as good if not better than any of the VAG diesels!

With only 100 BHP it is well able to move once on boost, although waiting for the turbo to kick in is a bit of a pain. There is pretty much nothing happening under 2000 RPM, then BOOM full power.

MPG is unbelievable, with an average of 50 MPG. Around town I could manage 40 MPG, and on a long drive at 60mph I could manage over 60 MPG.

It handles OK for a big bus, and the suspension is nice and comfortable, but with the addition of front and rear strut braces, the car was well able to take bends at a high rate of speed.

The interior is very spacious, and the seats are very comfortable and grip you well while going fast into bends. The boot space is unbelievable; I was able to fit a complete set of 15" wheels with tyres and another set of 15" wheels without tyres, and still had some space left over.

I would happily buy another Carisma, but I would opt for more luxuries next time like leather seats and cruise control.

Faults:

A wire came of the air conditioning unit.

General Comments:

No blistering performance, but very economical.

Extremely comfortable.

Well built.

Reliable.

Exceedingly well equipped, having leathers seats, air conditioning, CD player, electric windows all round, alloy wheels, etc.

Large boot space with net to hold small items.

Faults:

Rattle coming from the dash, but that was fixed by the dealer. They blamed the installation of a Car Alarm.

Hydraulic Lifters (needed replacing when I got the car) there had apparently been a recall by Mitsubishi to have this fixed- mine where never done.

General Comments:

It's a very comfortable/ Solid car to drive, I'm currently doing about 400 miles a week (80%motorway) and it's excellent.

It's not the fastest 1.8 on the market however it is by no means the slowest, it will get you to 60mph in about 10sec, which ain't bad and is limited to 115mph (apparently).

The biggest selling point about the GDI model is the fuel economy, on the motorway doing 70 (of course) it will return 45mpg. However going through road works at 50 was returning me 69mpg -Don't know any 1.8 petrol's that will do that.

GDI engine has low CO2 emissions (168) so is only Group C TAX.

All in all a great car- that doesn't deserve the negative reviews it gets. I would say it's a shame they don't offer the GDI engine any more!