I find it funny people instantly claim that Subaru has a better build quality! I've watched many rally races were Surbaru's broke down and were sucking tail pipe while Mitsubishi's taken first! I can speak of both pre and post Mitsubishi's as I've owned 2005 OZ, 08 GTS and a 08 X GSR. I now own a 87 Starion/Conquest and my Dad owns an 89 Mighty Max as well as a 2008 Endeavor. At the moment I'm having issues with the Starion, it set for a solid 15 years and I'm trying to play catch up on all the maintenance the former owner neglected to take care of. The Mighty Max is a beast, once again the only issues I've had with my Mitsubishis were maintenance related, master cylinders, slave cylinders, gear oil, engine oil and filters... Stuff most people never think twice about but eventually cause something catastrophic to go wrong! I'm not saying Subaru are junk but a Mitsubishi is just as good if not better!

The truth is, there's far more sports/race cars made by Mitsubishi than Subaru, Surbaru are mainly grocery getters where Mitsubishi has produced many sports/race cars! Galant, Starion, Eclipse, 3000GT and the EVO are to name a few. Mitsubishi supplies cars to a certain brand of people, unfortunately it seems like some of those people like to stick their fingers where they don't belong. They think their hardcore tuners when they have a GED in backyard mechanics. The issues I've had with my X could have been resolved the first time had their REP not been a jerk!

P.S. The clutch "IS NOT GLASS" if you don't launch from a dig trying to impress your boyfriends, the syncro's suck, new gear oil would probably help that issue as well?

 

Are your friends drag-a-holics and launch awd cars all day? Or do they really track there cars occasionally and suck at shift timing?

 

I've owned a WRX, an STi, two DSM's and an Evo 10. Even when i had the STi, Evo's seamed like a different class, however, the ride quality in the 8's and 9's was not nearly as good as the STi. That all changed for the 10.

Reliability, well, the only car that gave me any problems was the WRX at 80k miles the ECU needed flashed. It was mostly stock. STi never had any problems, and it was stage 2. Gas mileage sucked and it looked like the Sailor Moon version of a sports car, but nonetheless a fun driver.

I'd still take the 10 any day, over any of those.

 

At times I don't have the best shift timing, we all hesitate or shift to fast at times were not The Stig or Colin Mcrae and I still never had issues with my transmission rather than it being jerky from 1st to 2nd, I always wanted to shift faster than the transmission wanted me to.

 

I went from a 06 sti to a 05 evo viii. I never really experienced any problems with the sti and it wasn’t stock I had a big turbo and all supporting mod's running 1000cc injectors. Ever since I bought the evo I've had nothing but problems with it although I’m making a lot more power it is not anywhere near as reliable as the sti. imo of course

 

First of all Mitsubishi is ranked #6 in overall reliability and Subaru #13 according to Consumer Reports which are both above the industry average. Keep in mind that you will never get Civic like reliability on a turbocharged AWD car do to more complex mechanical parts that can fail.

Many 07+ STI's have ringland issues stock or modded. Do a search at NASIOC on 'ringland' and take a look at all the pages of threads. Search for ringland here and you will see a couple and most are in discussions about Subarus lol. Some 08 STI's required transmission replacements due to 2nd gear failure in fact Car & Driver (a good read here; http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...d_test_wrap-up) had to have the transmission and engine replaced on their long term 08 STI test car and I believe Road & Track or Motortrend also had problems with their long term 08 STI's while every long term EVO has been problem free for all mags. Heck I believe a few 08 STI's have had electrical fires with one burning down completely do to a faulty headlight circuit. Subaru has had some quality issues with their 08+ models including the 100+ 09 WRX engines that had to be replaced due to bearing failure.

They both have bad paint and the EVO X has a handful of small issues but really major failures of components hasn't been that widespread. If you plan on staying stock STI and EVO X will both be fairly reliable but if you plan on modding I would stick with the Mistubishi.

 

is all depends on the own, how he keeps the car in shape.

 

THis is what made me by the X. I was a member at iwsti.com...did lots of research and wanted to buy an STi over the X. A buddy i know bought an 08or 09 WRX and he had the ringland issue..they covered it under warranty but it scared me from buying an STi, especially when i did my homework reading the horror stories on the STi forums and the stories about the 07's. I bought my X used with 9000 miles, im up to 21000 miles now. Always serviced, and still stock. No problems except for my Recaros seat staples, and the silly recalls, oh i had a rattle sound under the hood too, but all was taken care of by warranty. Im very pleased with the X so far, ive owned all Acuras Legends, 3 Honda Civics, and an Infiniti G35...i was scared to leave Honda because i like reliable cars, but so far so good. We will see if it can ever top my 91 Civic hatch record of 212,000 plus miles on the same engine(died when i crashed)

 

if we could only get the STi 6 speed...

 

I've had a couple of cosmetic issues (brakes, wing) with my Evo, and not much else. I had to have my lock cylinder replaced because it started to get difficult to turn the ignition key. It never stopped working, it just wasn't as smooth as I thought it should be. Mitsu agreed and replaced it under warranty. 52K miles on my '05 that I bought new. From my experience with Mitsu from 2000-2006, the first three years of Evos were very strong mechanically - only a few cosmetic issues seem to plague them. I never seemed to hear the same from Subaru. There seemed to be more complaints of significant driavability issues on their side like bad engines, weak transmissions, and that the vehicles did not seem to age as well. I have no doubts that the X is just as solidly built and better the STi.

 

If you want to go fast with simple bolts on a evo is the way to go but they need to be maintained more than a st the sti stock drive train is built very well but does not respond to good as mods as a evo does..so it depends what you want to do I have friends who beat the **** off their stis & the run fine

 

Sounds like you bought the 05 Evo VIII used... could have been caused by the previous owner(s). 05 Evo VIII problems weren't / aren't very common.

 

Make over 300 whp on a subie and there goes your halfshafts, STi trans is completly different beast from evos. Dont forget we have tcases, where subies are rearwheel drive based trans (no tcase) so thats why everyone thinks sti's have "strong" trans. I dont care what anyone says evos are verystrong cars and respond very well to anything from maintance to upgrades. Put a cold air intake on ur subie and you get a check engine light, let alone they are a pain to tune on stock ecu.

 

If its a modified car, depends highly on how its modified or who tuned it and how.
Also the other big factor how it was maintained.

The car in basic form are i think equal. Both of them has ups and downs. But end of the day they are very very equal.

 

For what it's worth. I had a 04 STI (original owner, with proper break-in) and by the time I sold it had 40k on the clock and consumed a quart of oil every 1k. That's why I bought a EVO.

Can't comment on the EVO X, since it's still brand new.