Wow, I wonder if we might see those prices then further north. Supply and demand for these types of cars suck around here.

 

How is throttle tip-in? Does it take a second to wind up, or is there instant thrust that peters out? Much appreciated...

 

I'm going with coatings burning off. Turbo really heats things up and you get some weird smells. Or maybe just clutch plates breaking in.

What are you gonna cross-shop?

 

Your coatings theory is logical.

I'm probably going to get the Ralliart, but I'll drive just about anything I can get away with testing between now and whenever I decide it's time to do something. Drove a GTI, and liked it, so I'll probably check out an R32 as well. Drove a Legacy GT and thought it was decent, but the automatic trans wasn't anything special and I don't drive stick (but I'm working on that). Other than that, I don't really know -- the WRX doesn't really do anything for me visually, even if I did opt to go clutch-and-stick manual. The MS3 is front wheel drive, as is the Cobalt SS, so I'm not really thinking of them, and the Cobalt isn't terribly nice inside anyhow. We'll see where I end up, but I'm pretty sure there's a Graphite Gray Ralliart in my future.

 

She goes. Didn't really get to drive it in attack mode like I prefer to do, but it felt pretty strong as far as I was able to see.

 

i took my first test drive of the new ra , and let me tell that this car can really move , and the handeling is much better then the older ra.
but im still going to wait till the car come down in price and is out a lil longer

 

Yeah i used to work there. Dont work there anymore. That place sucked!!!!!

 

I did forget one gripe when I posted my writeup earlier, but it's a mark against the dealership, not the car...

They bundled in a $995 "Protection Package" with the car...
- upholstery treatment (I can understand that one, but it should be optional, and for ****'s sake, it's a black interior...how badly can I stain it?)
- door edge moldings (basically rubber stripping with adhesive)
- wheel arch moldings (same material, and already falling off a bit when the salesman brought the car around for me)
- pinstriping (fail)

To be completely honest, there's almost no cost to the dealer in that package and none of it stuff I would be willing to pay for. It's basically just a bull**** way of padding profits on an in-demand car.

 

Mitsu and other manufacturers ought to pull the plug on that kind of crap. At least with the "market adjustment" you know exactly the actual value of what your getting. Both of these tactics just put people off and hurt sales long term.

 

Yeah, I was pretty turned off by that. I hadn't really planned on making my purchase at that particular dealership anyhow, since they're not close to home for me, but that was probably enough to make sure I won't do business there. It should be interesting to see if my other local/"local-ish" dealers pull the same stunt.

As far as the "market adjustment," the Ralliart is not a car I would be willing to pay over MSRP for in any way, shape or form. Don't get me wrong -- I liked it a lot, and I think it's a contender when I'm actually ready to buy, but I'm fairly certain there will be plenty of RAs to go around once the initial "just released" scarcity is over. Frankly, I want to give everyone a year with their trick new SST gearboxes and see how many of you break your toys. I don't particularly care to be Mitsubishi's guinea pig.

I know I've seen a few guys floating around in this thread who are local to me (Lehigh Valley/Poconos). Let me ask you -- if you've done business with Mitsubishi in the area before, who did you use, and how was your experience?

 

Rockville Got 4 in today. I was there as they got them off the truck. Couldn't drive one yet, there gonna have it ready for me tomorrow night. None had recaros or navi. Also I found out there will not be a sunroof option. Apparently that got dropped.

 

Pretty sure they're either grossly misinformed, or lying.

 

I wouldn't be so sure about them not having a sunroof, I think they're just trying to move what they have. The 10 that Maywood NJ has also didn't have the Recaro package like I wanted and they tried to talk me out of it. The navi is a dealer installed option.

 

I've checked around and the mitsubishi documents list the sunroof only with the navi package, not the recaro. I'm trying to find a test drive with the navi package but all the ones so far are base model, no recaro no nav.

 

It looks like most dealers are just getting completely base cars for now.