Hey tipoytm you may want to remove Amby's quote on your siggie, the Civic's build quality is in fact better than the Evo.

 

^ Are you refering to the whole car or just the powertrain/drivetrain itself? Cuz I believe that quote came from the time when the discussion centered around the the engine and how it is able to withstand abuse from Ryan's racing.

 

There, changed the sig for you. :-)

 

Ah, I see, you have a point tipoytm. You jumped in so late that we just took it as another argument and continued with the chaos.

And I see your point on your post as well. Yes, the RA shares many of the tried-and-true parts from the Evo line-up.

The WRX may not share as much with the STi as the RA shares with the Evos, but that's because Subaru has designed seperate, equally high-end parts for it.

 

This is the whole quote. Note the bolded sections where amby clearly specifies he's talking about overall quality, and not just "go fast bits"

 

I've never seen anyone claim the RA is a Evo9 in disguise either. And this is the core of this argument. Amby believes its his job to make sure we don't "think" anything that's wrong and correct us as such. But Mitsu's engineers saw fit to bless the RA with proven Evo9 componentry, not dip into the bargain bin and fit it with Outlander diffs. Given their past track record, I'm sure they designed the car in a way to take advantage of these advanced components, not just slapped them on there to make the forums happy. No one claims the RA is a Evo9, that's just BS and arguing it is just OT and dumb.

And while we are on the subject of dumb, the day Honda builds a turbo AWD Civic based sports car that competes directly with the Evo is the day we can compare reliability between The Mitsubishi Evo and a Honda product, but until then it doesn't mean squat that a Civic tops an Evo in "reliability" surveys. Since some us like to make silly analogies, the Civc probably beats the Apache attack helicopter in reliability ratings too, but the Apache is still the best at being an attack helicopter. Which one would you rather be in if you were in Iraq? As far as road courses, time attack and drag racing involving production based/non tubed frame cars, and on the street, I'd rather be in an Evo.

 

I never actually argued about the whole car... Only things I've mentioned (and cared about) are the Evo's "performance" components on the RA, I never went off topic and out of what was covered on the "debate". That was the focus of the argument. Throwing out an opinion of the whole car's reliability (like the car's paint or internal plastics?) is another topic which I absolutely could care less about.

But to be fair, I've changed my sig :-)

 

Well said, I'm no good at words... but this is exactly what was in my head the whole time.

 

The old marketing copy was WRONG and got propagated through many outlets (Road & Track, Edmunds and just about every online press release), saying that they use the same exhaust, and all the other stuff people are arguing about.

Later releases specifically mention that the Mitsu rep states "No, no, the RA is not a detuned Evo, consider it a tuned GTS" (Source: Road & Track, it's in the comparo of turbocharged small cars, the one where the Cobalt places first and the RA places last). The details on the exhaust being different were disclosed till members and tuners actually looked at trying to swap things.

Seriously, whoever wrote that past page 4 this thing would turn ugly deserves a cookie or something.

 

^ Hey, I'm just your average mag/online pub reader and as such get all the "reliable" info from them.

Mitsu rep states "No, no, the RA is not a detuned Evo, consider it a tuned Ralliart". - This is already known to everyone that the RA is not an Evo (rinse, repeat). Fact remains, it still has the same powerplant (4B11T)... but just with a much less aggressive tune (or what some would consider "detuned") to compensate for the less aggressive supporting components (ie. smaller turbo, intake, etc.)

 

Let's be honest. Marketing is a tricky thing. In the UK, they used to sell a Ralliart-esque car called, I believe, an Evo 250 or something like that - can't remember. I think a lot of the Evo owners despised the association of the car with Evolution as it was dubbed Evo-lite, etc or a "fake" Evo. I'm thinking Mitsu publicists don't want a repeat of that, so they are calling it a tuned GTS, which is fine, doesn't matter to me. I know what hardware the car has, and I'm pretty sure the engineers who built the car would agree that there is more Evo in a RA then there is GTS. But if Evo owners with big egos need to feel safe and secure in their beds at night that they have what is undeniably the top of the food chain of Mitsubishis and not have a lesser car associated with it, and brand managers are sensitive to that, then so be it. It may also keep the car from unfavorably being called the lite/budget/stripped down version of one thing but instead a buffed,tuned, modified version of another. The latter is more positive for marketing. The unfortunate side effect is OT, trolling Subaru owners circling around to make sure nobody gets too excited or proud to own or being a fan of the RA.

 

Well, amby was talking about the whole car in general. So you should probably change the sig all together.

 

Curious to know how much of the RA is Evo and how much is GTS. Did you not watch those two videos?

Interesting too that the two guys defending the Evo against being basically a gently tuned RA are the two Subie guys Sure, major components are shared between the Evo and the RA, that can't be argued. But turning an RA into an Evo for the difference in price between an RA and Evo would be impossible. And that's the only argument I'm making. I'm not even bringing in how much I hate Mitsu to this argument.

Point is, the OP hates the looks of the WRX, so that's out. Worried the power may not be enough in the RA, so will need a tune out of the gate. Then perhaps it will be fine. If not or if the power is a big concern, someone suggested he look at the MR instead. Simply getting the RA to have the same power as a factory MR will take more money than just buying an MR.

 

I disagree. "Separate but equal" worked for Plessey v. Ferguson, but it doesn't work for cars.

I think people here need to recognize that there is a difference between quality and performance. They are not mutually exclusive, but they are not mutually inclusive either.

In terms of quality of components, the EVO, RA, STI and WRX are probably on equal footing across the board. There will be variances from model to model, and part to part, of course, but overall, the quality is similar.

In terms of performance, a large number of parts on the RA and WRX lines don't come close to the EVO or STI lines; however, and this has been my argument the whole time: The RA shares MORE performance parts in common with the EVO line than the WRX has in common with the STI line.

The RA has a majority of the driveline in common with the EVO. Front and rear helical differentials; ACD; TC-SST (with taller 5th and 6th gears, making the bottom four the same ). What is it missing? SAWC, AYC and brakes if you want to count those.

The WRX DOES NOT have the 6-speed STI, the front and rear helical differentials; the DCCD; the STI brakes. Are the WRX's driveline components the same quality as the STI's? Yes, they probably are. Are they anywhere near the performance level of STI's? Not a chance... not even close.

Someone made the argument earlier that a driver isn't going to notice the difference in these components during daily driving, and they are probably right about that. But just think about how ridiculous that comment is. Whether you use it is irrelevant; knowing that it is there and knowing that you got the most performance value for the money is what matters.

The other area of my argument about the superiority of the RA over the WRX is that, the areas where the WRX is weak compared to the RA are difficult to address. The areas where the RA is weak to the WRX are EASILY address. Power? No problem. Rims/Tires? My mom could change my tires, and she knows enough math to figure out that 17 lb rims are lighter than 26 lb rims. Brakes? It's less than a year and people are already coming out with bbks, upgraded pads and ss brake hoses. I/C? We could just bolt on the EVO's I/C along with some aftermarket hard I/C pipes.

Feel free to disagree with what I've said, but the facts speak for themselves. Everything else is an opinion and probably being spouted by "gadfly" bent on sensationalism. There is a reason I don't actually see half the posts in this thread, and I am okay with that.

 

An MR can be had for just $400 more than an RA?

I'm sold.