Has anyone heard of Research Design Specialists in Cypress? They are supposedly looking for EVOs for Mitsubishi to do long term emission testing. They basically take your car for a week to do emission testing. They give you a rental car and $300. They say that they will only be putting about 100 miles on the car. Let me know if anyone knows about this. Thanks.

 

they better fix the cars they are beating up...... i think its an excuse to drive an evo hard.

 

sounds like a scam

 

Same thing I thought.

 

I have heard of this type of a thing a little of a year ago. It sounds like a scam to have "rental" evo for a week if you even get it back. Most companies that are doing research have thier own test cars and ask to borrow them. I would stay away from this if I was you.

 

^^ Not only that why would you want someone else to have your car for a research!!!!!.

 

It's not a scam, Mitsubishi is required to do emission testing (as is every auto company) on models that are 3 years and X amount of miles. Mitsubishi Pays a outside engineering company to perform these test (I'm in Toledo and Boshart in Ann Arbor does the testing here) and report there findings to the EPA. They will remove the rear driveshaft so the car is fwd only. They (mitsubishi) will extend your drivetrain warranty, replace any worn emission components, give you a rental car and pay you to use your car for testing. Boshart said the car would not be used on the road only inside the lab on testing equipment.

 

Actually, the company is called California Environmental Engineering in Santa Ana. RDS was a marketing company looking for people to do a marketing focus group on EVO and STI drivers. My bad. I just have way too many companies calling me about stuff like this. Anyway, if anyone has heard of CEE, please let me know. I am calling Mitsu headquarter's to double check on this.

 

Try posting it in Socalevo.net, I'm pretty sure you'll get more response that way

 

Search, its been talked about before - I know, I was asked to do it also for the MI EPA. And have posted on this before.

Put it this way, my mothers (at the time 6000 mi, new) Galant GTS went in, was tested, and came back with a $300 check...then died about a week later. One of the sparkplugs was f'ed...somehow...dont really know how or why...but I wonder...

I wouldnt let any engineer jackass touch my car, not unless I was in it, and could easy beat them if they did something stupid.

Q: Is $300 worth a new clutch, TC, or engine?

A: No...

 

[QUOTE=SmikeEvo]I wouldnt let any engineer jackass touch my car, not unless I was in it, and could easy beat them if they did something stupid.


Exactly! Letting anyone have your car is very dangerous. What if some yahoo decides to take it home one night? Or what if they test your car to destruction?

If Mitsu needs used cars for testing, they can buy them on the open market.

I still think this is some sort of scam.

 

Well the program is run through Mitsu, and I just talked to the Vehicle Verification Manager at the Cypress headquarters (Jim Buxton) about this. They use CEE to find them the cars, but the actual testing is done at the Mitsub R&D lab. They offered to let me see the dyno lab to reassure me about what they do. They mainly run it on the dyno to check for the emission levels. I am thinking about it.