Hello All,

2011 GTS manual (blue) owner for about a week and have a few questions:

-Did they fix the paint problem?
-Do rocks still kick up and dig the rear door? (I have a ding with only 600 miles on the car. It looks like it was a stone. It didnt go through the color but went through the clearcoat and put a little indent).
-What can I do to prevent this?
-Is the high pitched noise (not loud, sounds like a little tyco RC car) that accompanies the engine noise normal when going above 40mph? What is it?

 

1) No they did not fix the paint issue, Mitsubishi did not see any problems or flaws in its paint process.

The real story is, the paint on Mitsubishi cars are decent. Unfortunately, there are certain sections of the car where they paint is very weak when impacted by rocks and debris. The hood unfortunately is made of medal and when hit, the bond of paint to metal isnt very strong and your likely going to see a very large amount of paint leaving the hood on impact. Case and point, the evo has the reverse problem. The hood is fine and doesnt not suffer from severe paint issues because there is a layer of plastic under the paint and primer. Paint bonds very well in this case.

When I sent a formal letter to Mitsubishi, I did get a call back but was informed that they did not need to make changes to their paint process. `Mitsubishi, adheres to the highest paint standards in the world and utilizes state of the art paint facilities.` Not the answer I was looking for but hey. I tried.

As of now, there is no production changes being made to the paint

2) Not as much, Mitsubishi implimented a body styling change to the side skirts that somewhat reduced the amount of impacts in the rear door lower area. Its not perfect, but its an improvement. This change to the side skirts occured in late 2009 production. your car should be good.

3) If you had a CVT, I would say yes, but for the manual I cant not say for sure. Address the issue with technical staff, or take a second vehicle out for a test drive at the dealership with the intent to verify.

 

After three years, I have no complaints about my paint. But that might be because I take good care of it every year. I dunno.

The only stone chips I have are on the hood and side mirrors. Maybe on the front skirt. Anything else I have is due to my bad driving skills lol

My car doesn't have a high pitch. I wish it did though. My friend's Cobalt with a stage 2 turbo kit screeches at around 4000 rpm and sounds sweet haha.

 

Thanks guys. Good to hear the sideskirt problem is partially resolved.

Spydahman- do you have a gts manual?

I guess I could try a technician. The noise persist, but hasn't changed. I think it might be a normal sound.

 

Got another question for you guys:

When I have my car running and i get out and look at my muffler tip, it sorta shakes... i can't think of a better description then that. Is this normal?

 

How about a rattle coming from the rear after about 1000 miles? Is that normal? I'm assuming and hoping its the rear deck/speakers. Easy to fix if thats the case?

 

Where is the rattle coming from? I have a thread about a noise in the rear but it sounds kind of like a barely noticable clank. Started after I got new wheels though so I just assumed it was that.