Howdy!

I'm seriously considering a 2014 Evo. [Honestly and practically, I should buy a truck, but that is apples and oranges]:

I believe I have made up my mind, but I have to questions. Flame away!


1) I test drove an MR. Neat idea but underwhelming.

If YOU had your druthers, would you get an MR or a GSR? (I know).


2) At this point in the negotiations, dealer is stuck on MSRP.

Is this normal? Suggestions?

THANKS!

 

I had an sss/sl gsr X. Best of both worlds.

 

Hmmm.

I don't even know what that is. Hee.

But, if I get the GSR, that spoiler is coming off.

 

It's the sight sound sunroof leather option. I may have 1 too many S's in there

 

i'd get the GSR. 5 speed is more fun to drive.

If they do not want to budge on price, walk away from the deal. Try another dealership

 

 

GSR. The SST trans in the MR is a pain in the ***. If you plan to try autox or track events, you'll hate it even more.

 

Thanks Chu. (and Makunge)

That was my feeling. I didn't like it.

Only if you could turn it off, full manual.

My first car was a little civic Si. Long ago.
But we had great fun with it.

If I buy this vehicle, I tell the engine what to do - otherwise, no sense.


Regarding dealer, I've yet to shop, but the ones in my area are affiliated.

I could go further in distance, but I like minimal BS.

Suggestions?

 

When I purchased my old x my local dealership would not work with me on the price. I dealt with a dealership about a hour north of San Francisco all via phone. When I flew down all paperwork was already completed. I simply walked in and drove away. I know south coast still works deals.

 

buy at the end of the month when they are trying to meet their sales goals.

 

This is just my look on it.

I'd go MR all day every day. You'll hear plenty of people complain about the SST because some people are still stuck in a world where if they walk up to a car that even looks "sporty" and it's not a gated manual the car automatically sucks. I've seen it numerous times. Some people just can't get past the barrier of needing to be able to sidestep a clutch. (Something you can easily replicate with an MR if you know how to launch it). I can't tell you how many immature kids (and even grown men) I've seen at car shows or at car lots that look in the window of a beautiful car and see an automatic tranny and just go "Piece of crap."

MR has the better suspension, it has a more luxurious look to it and more luxurious features, and is all around just a better car, in my opinion. But you'll get the people who cry out "GSR is for modders and those who are serious about Horsepower." Honestly the way I look at it, it doesn't matter which way you go. The GSR may hold up to a little more power compared to the SST before failing and needing an aftermarket staged racing clutch put in it to hold the power, but you can do the same for the SST and buy a clutch kits that will keep your tranny chugging along no matter what your HP is at the crank or your WHP, just depends on how much money you want to spend for the kit for (X) amount of horsepower/torque for your build.

If you start wanting to get serious about modding your car and you do it BEFORE the factory warranty runs out, have fun paying out of pocket for all the repair costs. Down the road if you want to modify an MR, you can get just the same performance out of it as a GSR. The only difference is it will put down slightly lower numbers on a Dyno because of the tranny, but this is negated by the fact you can shift with your foot pushing the pedal through the floor, and no one outside of professional WRC or race car driver will outshift you, added to the fact there's no loss in RPMs, momentum, or boost, because you can shift at WOT. And I mean, MR does stand for Mitsubishi Racing. There's a reason that badge is on there. People can argue whether or not it's lost a little of that heritage through the different generations, but that's another topic.

I like the MR because it's practical. I've shifted enough gears, and I could care less if I shift another. With the MR you can drive it in bumper to bumper traffic and not have to worry about some jerkoff getting a quarter inch off your bumper while your sitting on a hill, having to shift every 3 seconds in a traffic jam, all the downsides to having a gated manual. With the Manu-Matic, you just keep it in auto mode when you're cruising, and when you want to have some fun, you slap it over and shift like a standard.

As I said, the main complaint you'll hear is "The SST can't handle the same amount of power." But what you don't hear is half the time the clutches on those GSRs running large amounts of HP and Torque aren't stock, and if they are, they need upgraded for faster 60', and they'll fail a lot sooner than they normally would under OEM load. So either way you're going to be looking at a tranny upgrade if you're looking at modding your car out to put down some decent amount of power and not have to worry about the transmission coming out from under you.

It's just up to you and your personal opinion and taste, and what your plans are for the car. As I said, I went with the MR because I'm tired of shifting gears, and to me having the ability to switch back and forth between an automatic and what is as close to a manual you can get without having one is perfect for me. I could care less about having that third petal just to sidestep a clutch every now and then. And for a little bit of money I can upgrade my SST to hold the same amount of power that a GSR's manual can. And to me it's more luxurious, and it's a LOT more practical, especially if you'll be using it as a daily driver.

I also noticed you said something about them not budging on sticker. I can tell you I paid right around 42,900 for mine, and that was before financing. But I paid off the remainder of my 2010 Lancer and put 20% down on the MR in cash, so I only ended up financing something like 36k. And I was dealing straight with the general manager, and he even took me back into his office and showed me his spreadsheet. He made about 600 bucks off the sale of my car, so we were getting down close to the price of the actual car around that price. This wasn't my first rodeo buying a car, and laid 10 grand in 100 dollars bills on the table and said I want that MR. And when they started their little "well that's pretty much the price of the car" I said, "well then have fun having it sit here all year and never selling it," and headed for the door. Then they started talking. You just have to know how to play their game. Around where I live, they'd be lucky to sell 1 Evo a year, I don't know where you're buying it from and if its a high volume dealer, but Evos don't get sold every day, so use that to your advantage.

He even had it stickered lower than what the MMA website's MSRP was for the same car with the same options, and I brought him down even further. The only options my car doesn't have is the backup camera and the upgraded Navigation system. Other than that, it's fully loaded. So maybe that will give you some sort of baseline to go off of. If he's wanting more than 43k for it and your options are similar to mine, walk away from it and find another one, because as soon as they see you walk out the door they'll change their mind right quick and decide that coming down a little bit is worth it. You'll either get a phone call, or they might stop you before you even leave the lot and tell you they're willing to work a little more on the price.

 

contact south coast mitsubishi and speak to sam. i bet he can help you out.

 

is the trans in an evo X weaker or stronger since it has that auto option?

 

And to add another opinion, go GSR. Sounds like what you want anyways. As far as MR better suspension. That's an option if you never plan to mod which would be crazy. Too much potential to not mod. GSR suspension is fine. But mod later with coil or stiffer lower springs. Rear sway, RCK and a "performance" alignment and the car will out handle most drivers. You don't need leather, sunroof or even the cool headlights that are only seen at night unless that's important to you. I have always been a huge leather fan. BMW and my land Rovers were full of it. But the Evo just looks better without the leather. Adds a little more "rawness" to the car.

I have had my 2012 GSR for about 1.5 years and haven't regretted it. Not even in So. Cal traffic. Don't get me wrong, the MR has an amazing trans. Just need the third pedal and my hand on the stick to give it that little bit extra immersion. Plus you can help buck the stereotype that Americans are too lazy to drive sticks.

11th commandment does state "thou shall not drive a sports car that shifts for you" can't argue with the commandments.

But really, and this is the most important part, nobody can tell you what YOU like. A poster above pointed out all the reasons to get an MR and his opinion is just as valid as mine. The reasons he gave for buying the MR are the reasons I didn't. Just different opinions. I wanted something that felt more raw, less refined, more engaging. I went through my luxury stage in the past and I wanted less of it now.

Both valid opinions but YOU need to decide what you want. It's your money and you have to drive it.

 

That's about the best advice you're going to get, and it's pretty much what I was trying to convey in my post. I can talk 'till I'm blue in the face how you should buy an MR, another guy can talk 'till he passes out about how you need a GSR. You're not really going to be able to go off someone else's opinion for a solid answer to "what one should I buy?" You can use the feedback and information they give you to help you decide, but that's about as far as asking someone can go. It's just important you get what you want, and get it as cheap as you can. Because when it comes to expensive performance cars, you rarely get to buy several of them, and it's a once in a lifetime thing. (Unless you're just ungodly wealthy). So just be sure you get EXACTLY what you want. Get every option you want, the color you want, everything, because once you sign your name on the dotted line, that's that.

When it comes down to trim levels, the difference between them is easy enough to find out. Plenty of blogs, performance sites and car websites (Edmunds, etc.) will give you a very detailed breakdown of each trim, and compare the two. When it comes down to it, either way, MR or GSR, you're getting an Evo, and that's the important thing. Just be sure to get an unbiased opinion, and read several different sites that have the information and reviews on them so you can get as much information as possible. Some sites and companies that do reviews can be biased toward one trim or another, or to an even larger extent than that, some companies can be biased against the entire car, or the entire company. I know I've read some websites that have reviewed an Evo, and make it sound like complete crap, or say false or over/under exaggerated things about the car, and there's several reasons for it. For example, it could be something as simple as the person doing the review on the car, who drove it, did the testing, and is writing the review is a Subaru guy, and likes STis more, and therefore they're gonna put down Mitsubishi as often as they can get away with. Or it can be a bit more complicated and in-depth.

For instance, maybe they receive ad revenue or funding from other car companies, and they want to keep that money, so they put down other cars to keep whoever is funding them happy. Just for the sake of argument and as an example, let's take Chevy. Let's say some website/company is reviewing an Evo, and this company receives money from Chevy either through running Chevy ads, or because they do a lot of Chevy cars. But whatever the reason, Chevy pays them. So they go do their testing on the Evo, and this little 4 door Japanese import sedan that costs $38,000, performs better than a 3LZ Z06 Vette that MSRP's (base with no options) for $85,455. They're going to either put up false numbers, or put up the actual numbers, but run down the car in every other area to make it sound like crap just so they don't **** off Chevy, and loose Chevy's funding. Things like this do happen. And when you have cars like Evolutions that can compete with cars that are 3 times the Evo's price (or even higher than that) it's a real concern.

Anywho, the final choice is basically up to you and what you want. As I said, you can get the side-by-side comparisons of the trim levels easy enough, but when it comes to asking people what trim you should buy, you're not really going to get any sort of helpful information, because the information you're going to get is all relative and based off that person's unique opinion. In the end, it's your money, and your choice.

Only bad part is, I know sometimes it's hard to go test drive an Evo, because most of the time dealerships won't let you drive the things until you're ready to sit down and do the paperwork, or you've already bought it. Part of this is because the cars cost the dealerships a lot of money just to have sitting on their lot or in the showroom, and they don't want some random guy wrecking the thing. It's also because dealers get every kid around a tri-state area always coming in "wanting to buy" when in reality they could never afford it, and the person is just coming in wanting to joyride an Evo. Some dealers may have dedicated dealer cars meant for test drives if you live in a big city or they're a high-volume dealer, some might only let you test drive after they've run your credit, validate your income and income/debt ratio, and they know you're serious about buying and aren't just there for a joy ride. While other dealerships just refuse to let the things be driven, peroid.

For instance, I never got to drive my MR until I had already signed my name on all the lines on all the paperwork, and bought the car. I mean given, my MR was on the showroom floor with like 20 miles, and it would of been a lot of work just to get the thing around to test drive. But I already went in knowing I wanted an MR, and I knew it was a showroom floor car, and hadn't been driven by 10 people just wanting a"test drive" and I was buying a car that had the dog crap run out of it. And if worst came to worst and I bought it and the thing was a complete lemon, in the US you've go the Lemon Law to protect you. So me not test driving it before I bought it wasn't a huge deal. But whereas someone like you who hasn't made up their mind, a test drive for both trims can make all the difference in the world.

The best thing you can do it just get non-biased 3rd party reviews (People/Companies that buy, or are given the cars by Mitsubishi, to test drive and to review), and then ask yourself what YOU want, and go from there.