I test drove the Lancer today, and took a look at the maintenance schedule in the manual. It says to change the spark plugs and check the valve clearance every 30,000 miles. All of the other cars I'm looking at, such as the 3 and the tC, only requires a spark plug change at 100,000 miles or so, and do not require any valve clearance checks.

How much would that cost me? Wouldn't it be $500 or so to change the plugs and check the valves? Thats a pretty big expense every other year. Its about the only thing I dislike on the Lancer.

Why does Mitsubishi require this, when other car manufacturers don't?

Is this just a way to make some money on the car owners, as a way to make up for the long warranty or something else?

 

ya, but like any car manufacturer, they will always find a way to make extra money off of their customers. but at the same time, changin ur plugs is only better for ur car to be done fairly often, and while they are there to change the plugs it only takes a few minutes to check the valve clearance, so ur price shouldn be to crazy. dont let the maintenance schedule worry u, cus it looks even better for resale if u can show that things like that are taken care of.

 

another thing, they may want the valves checked because of the valve timing on the mitsubishi engines, jus to ensure that everythin is working properly,

but as an owner of a new one, the car is great, performs well, and ive had piles of people coming up and asking about the car jus cus it looks so nice, and hey, chicks love it, haha, hope i helped a little

 

Its good to know that the car performs well. I'm just about sure I'm going to buy the Lancer. I like it better than the Mazda 3, tC, civic, etc.

The only thing that scares me about the car is that its a Mitsubishi... they aren't exactly known for quality. They sure are confident of their cars though with that warranty.

I'm hoping that the aggressive maintenance schedule is not due to a low quality engine, but due to some other reason.

Thanks for your comments.

 

Actually only in United States that they are not well known for quality but in Asia, Europe and Africa they are well known for durability. check the Saturn Engine on the Lancer

We Americans don't like the Mitsu because of the way they look.
except for the eclipse. They look ugly especially the old Lancers.

But Mitsubishi is like Honda they built almost everything from trucks, airplance (The Zero's),boats, HVAC,generator,heavy equipment etc etc that is Mitsu.

remember the best rally car is built by 2 Japanese automakers Mitsubishi and Subaru and that's it.

Not even Toyota come close to close to Mitsu's Pajero, Lancer and Outlander Paris to Dakar rally event.

They Built Rally car so it should be tough just like the Lancer 2008.

I drove mine on 1 foot of snow and it's front wheel drive.
I didn't have any problems with my car except my car was spinning when I hit a Black Eyes got few little scratches hitting a wall of ice on route 9 Natick but the GOD DAMN CAR IS TOUGH no dent at all

 

and another thing, haha, some dealer showed me this when i was lookin at a car, punch the headlight as hard as u can, it doesn shatter, almost **** myself when he did it, then bought the one next to it jus in case, thats qualitty rite there, so if the engine doesn run, least the headlights are still good

insurance, waaaaay cheaper on a lancer than a civic, and theres waaay less lancers out there than civics, as for tc, ive never checked them out, mazda 3, my buddy has one, its a chick car,

 

read my thread in general.my mirage has been almost non maintained and its drives and runs like new,220.000 miles and it gets 33mpg has never let me down.i whished someone could tell me what to expect out of the tranny.(auto)i need to replace the factory timing belt. never mind i think im just going to leave it alone and torture test the belt.its a 4g93 bye the way. then again the lancers all alunimium engine might need some tlc.