Faults:

A hole in the drivers seat back, caused by a lack of padding and roughly finished seat frame.

Creaks and groans from the front suspension.

Squeaking from the rear suspension.

Alarming brake fade.

General Comments:

This car should have been amazing. On paper, the figures are superb, the reality less so. Never have I been more disappointed in a modern car, especially from a Japanese manufacturer. Having had Japanese cars for several years now and been completely satisfied and thrilled with their reliability, build quality and sheer dependability, this was quite a blow, and the only reason I can come up with is the fact that they are manufactured alongside the Smart Forfour, and not actually by Mitsubishi. The fit and finish of materials is cheap to be polite, some positively sub standard.

I found a hole developing in my seat backrest within a couple of months of purchase. I reported this to my not so local dealer, who told me there had been a recall issued on this and not to worry as it would be rectified FOC. This has been rectified now, but it has taken nine months of E-mails to the manufacturer and calls to the garage to get it done. Not good.

The suspension sounds like an old Metro, it's dreadful, creaking and groaning its way along.

And being the Sport model, with 107 bhp on tap, the last thing you expect is brake fade. After only about half a dozen presses of tackling at fair aplomb, a windy mountain road in Snowdonia, the brakes seemed to vanish entirely, not exactly inspiring confidence in the responsiveness, had I needed to actually stop.

Chassis not really matching the performance either, way to eager to cock a wheel in the air when cornering, usually one of the driving wheels, resulting in wheelspin and plenty of ensuing torque steer.

Faults:

Constant grinding/creaking noise from the front passenger side of the car, been back to the dealer 4 TIMES for this problem, going back again Friday (fingers crossed this time they sort it out).

Gearbox problems (reverse).

Call back for seat belt issues??

General Comments:

This is without doubt the worst new car I have ever owned! Grinding, creaking, crunching - will it ever end? We've had this car from brand new, and to sum it up, disappointing! Performance wise 0-60 comes up in 10.5 seconds, and a top speed of 115mph, superb for a 1.3! Constantly does 38-40mpg round town and upto 48 on a run!!

With performance and economy like this, you'd think it would be great, right! Easily matching 1.6 cars for speed, and battling diesels for fuel economy! Well you couldn't be further from the truth, the build quality is poor, interior trim looks cheap and nasty, and the vision when driving is awful, due to the A-pillars being way too thick, you literally can't see cars/trucks/bikes at roundabouts because of them!

To make matters worse, the main dealers are the most ignorant/arrogant waste of time/effort people you could come across! Depreciation of the cars value can only be rivalled by KIA, and if I hear the expression "They all do that, sir" one more time (you don't want to know what I'll do).

If you're seriously considering a new small car in the £9,000 price bracket, buy a Toyota Yaris or a Ford Fiesta, both will hold their value better, and have far superior build quality/reliability! If the grinding/crunching problem on ours isn't fixed this time, I'll be swapping it in for one of these!!