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I work in NY and some of these problems are not as common outside the salt belt.
The Endeavor and 3rd gen Eclipse 200-2005,especially with alloy wheels, are notorious for having the front axles seized into the hubs. You run into this when they have noisy wheels bearings you’re trying to change. We’ve had many that end up needing new knuckles, but many times you can get the axle out by putting a large 3 jaw puller like a Posi-Lock on it and applying heat with a Oxy/Acetylene torch. Beware of this possibility going in. I always take the time to get the axle loose from the hub first before I say it needs a bearing so I don’t have to deal with a time-losing surprise.
EGR:
2.4L Galant and Eclipse, the EGR valve goes bad.
3.0L eclipse, it’s the solenoid assembly on the end of the intake manifold. Usually the little plastic vacuum cannister that’s part of it leaks internally and that is available separate on some models.Fuel filler necks on older Eclipse, Galant, and Endeavor tend to rust out. Sometimes it’s a leaks when filling, mostly makes evap codes first. Endeavor has a open recall on it.
Oxygen sensor codes, just replace the sensor the code is for whether for heater/range/high/low/whatever.
Valve cover gaskets fail rampantly on older 4 and 6 cyl. They will leak externally and into the spark plug bores and cause misfire codes. Sometimes original gaskets are really stuck in there and take forever to remover. In that case, burn them a bit with a torch all the way around and they’ll come out alot easier.
04-06 lancer Cats go like crazy making P0420 codes. Dealer sells a manifold/cat kit with all the gaskets and fasteners for half the price of only the manifold/cat from the parts catalog. The kit part numbers are listed in a lancer TSB for the problem, which also states the car should get a ECM reprogram that will prevent the new cat from going bad prematurely.
Older Galants that the heat stops working often have a faulty water shutoff valve causing it.
Current gen Lancer Evolution and Ralliart Service all wheel drive warning on instrument cluster almost always means the AWC/4WD control pump, which is guaranteed to fail eventually. It is prone to problems with corrosion and mounted behind the R/R wheel with no environmental protection.
Current gen lancer outlander has a ceramic donut-type gasket between the downpipe and manifold that routinely causes exhaust leak concern, or they complain the car is just loud. The other loud complaint that is also very common is that the air box is not assembled correctly after the filter is checked or replaced. The hinge tabs on the bottom won’t be engaged and it will be open there allowing unfiltered air in and sounding like it has a aftermarket intake on it.
All The 2.4 mivec engines in galant/eclipse/old outlander have weak balancer belts. The timing belt lasts well beyond the 60k interval, but the balancer belt is a gamble. Doing a timing belt and leaving the balancer belt is like having surgery to remove cancer and leaving most of it in there, but people seem to be doing it all over the place. Maybe they think the small belt doesn’t matter as much as the big one. All the timing belt problems are either cause of a broken balancer belt jamming up the timing belt or a aftermarket one breaking.
Old Outlanders and Endeavors have bad lower control arm bushings in the rear that cause really choppy rear tires and clunking. The Outlanders end up needing all 3 arms on each side eventually and the bolts will be seized in the bushings and need to be cut out and replaced. The outlanders also get loose rear sway bar bushings and differential mounts that clunk and slap around.
Older 4 cyl galants and eclipses have radiators that leak when the top tank cracks near the radiator cap and starts spraying.
Newer Galants have special $800 radiators with a DOR coating. If it has a electrical connector to the radiator between the two coolant fans, aftermarket does not make a correct radiator at this time. The sensor cannot be removed without breaking it and it will cause a CEL.
On 2006+ 3.8L Eclipse, Galant, and Endeavor, the cat on the firewall side goes bad alot and expect this to be a PITA if you get one. Take everything out of the way, even the heat shields around the steering rack, and you can dance it out of there. It’s really shitty on Endeavor because you have to remove the transfer case too which has coolant lines to it.
Lancer Ralliart and Evo with twin clutch tranny and poor oil maintenance get stretched timing chain causing related codes and sometimes no-start.
The Getrag TC-SST twin clutch trans in current Lancer Ralliart and Evo MR is problematic in general and astronomically expensive to service and repair. They produce alot of internal metallic dust which causes problems with the clutch set and valve body, but offers higher performance that the manual.
Older cars tend to have the radiator hoses on the engine side leak due to corroded aluminum hose nipples. We replace the radiator hoses and clean up the corrosion with emery paper.
May update with more things. I’m trying to just think of older stuff out of warranty.
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Warranty for years has paid more to fix Lancer Evolutions that all the other models combined. Most of those problems are due to customer abuse or neglect. I actually didn’t even know we had a 10 year warranty, just 100k powertrain. Evos are only 60k and still cost Mitsu that much.
A couple other things:
Endeavor rear hatch/liftgate handles fail. There is a separate release handle/electric button for both the glass panel and the whole liftgate, but they both stop working even if only one is bad.
On Galant/Eclipse 2.4L, the engine has balance shafts hooked up to the timing belt. If someone who doesn’t know any better does a timing belt, they can screw up the balance shaft timing and make the engine shake/vibrate badly afterwards.
4G Eclipse (2006-2012) with the 2.4L 4G69 engine with manual trans has failure of transmission input shaft bearings when driven aggressively. I made a video of repairing of this problem since I do it so often:
Fopeano may be able to elaborate on this but in the 2nd gens they had a crankwalk problem. This was caused by excessive crankshaft endplay on manual transmission models where the pressure from the clutch assembly would prematurely wear the engine bearings.
That is a well-known problem, but not something I’ve ever dealt with personally. Being in a dealer, those cars are too old/modified to be coming in normally. I’m sticking to things I have experience with here, in case somebody has questions about it on their car. There is a lot of information about the crankwalking problems out there.
That does remind me of another thing I ran into on a 2G, but applies to older Mitsubishis in general. Because of the Alternator FR circuit (the wire that switches the alternator on) being routed thru the battery light and connected to the brake warning lamp, your alternator will not charge if the battery light bulb is pulled (or open circuit otherwise) AND the brake light is also on (low fluid/parking brake on). I know that sounds wacky, but the brake light being on will ground that FR circuit before it gets to the alternator to turn it on.
I started driving Mitsubishi cars in 1992 the first being an AWD DSM badged as a Plymouth. That first vehicle wasn’t a car, it was a automotive education. Nearly everything on it failed at one time or another. The efforts of the Talon Digest message board, where I was a member, resulted in the vehicle being recalled due to a transfer case issue.
A kid that lives next door was wanting to get into the automotive field. I told him to set up shop repairing Mitsubishi hydraulic differential pumps and offered to show him how to do it. These things cost a fortune from the dealer and can be repaired but no one in the country was doing it. Instead he is now working for a fencing company.
Anyway, I consider the Evo I now drive to be the best car I have ever owned and maybe the best car there is. How Mitsubishi was able to go from a rolling disaster to a supremely dependable car using many of the same parts is nothing short of an engineering miracle.
As for crank walk in the second generation DSMs the automatics crank walked too. They were just bad engines. The earlier engines like the one in my ’92 didn’t have this issue and the only solution for a crank walked engine was to go with the earlier engine which was a direct swap.
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