Well, ive been gone for a bit, but I wanted to make a few statements about the long term.

Firstly, I have a 1st Gen, 2004 outlander 2.4l MPI. Its been my daily driver since buying it new Jan of 04. Its seen its fair share of NY winter weather, as well as travel quite a bit (im breaking 100,000mi by this weekend)

anywho, Id like to report in the following to anyone looking to buy the first gen

1) ditch the factory yokohama's. I made the mistake of replacing the factory set with another factory set (1 cause it was cheap, and 2 I figured I might have gotten just a bad set). Tread life is horrible, although I did manage to drift the car on sever occasions. In doing so I learned that the front right and rear left wheels provide the main power. i guess when it starts to slip, the others kick in, but I havent seen that happen yet (even geting stuck in the snow)

2) the A/C may give off a horrid stench. I posted about this a long long time ago, makes the smell of moldy old sweaty gym socks... anyway, I fould a temporary cure. begining of every season, I cycle out the freon and add new one. Im not sure how or why this works, but using my defogger or my a/c is actually tolerable again.

3) replace wheel bushing when you begin to hear squeaking. its common, so I'll leave it at that.

4) the rear wiper blade is OEM only, when you go to replace yours buy a few more. i beleive they are about $8 + tax if applicable. Lesson learned here: Dealer will not always be in your city/town forever.

5) Real MPG 20 city 25 high way, if everything is in your favor

Overall, I still love this car. I do ride it hard (its been on a gravelly dirt path quite a few times). I dont drive this car to be eye candy or a show stopper. It gets me from A to B while running over X.

 

I have a 2nd generation 08 outtie and one thing I've learned about the A/C is if you leave it in recirculation mode (recirculating the inside air) when you shut the engine off, you will get a musty smell for a short time when you first start the engine back up. I always try to remember to turn off the recirc mode for 10 seconds or so before shutting the engine off.

The other thing is making sure to change the cabin air filter every 12,000 miles or so.

 

for some reason, it wasnt teh cabin filter. I had it changed twice within a month just to make sure.

also, I forgot to mention, Im also currently having issues with the car stalling on idle, even with the idle adjust set to max. Im having the IAC valve checked, and a tune up done. I'll report results after.

 

AWESOME!



My Eclipse started doing this. It turned out to be the battery cable at the battery end. I cleaned the contacts, applied some coating stuff on it, and it was good as new. My guess is it was making the voltage drop too low when I was at idle, and stalling the car. (Increase in resistance= decrease in voltage) It must have been a hell of a drop that the alternator could not keep up

 

Nice to see a fellow 1G owner still here.

I've had mine for 3 years now (27K miles). Been to the dealer once (@ 12K) for a "service engine soon" light that turned out to be an ECU replacement. Other than that (warranty covered) no problems whatsoever.