How reliable a car is the Mitsubishi Diamante?

Answer 1

My wife has a 2003 Mitsubishi Diamante and I have to say that it is BY FAR the WORST car I have ever seen. The brakes seems to need service (new pads) every 5000 miles, fuel gauge has never worked correctly (we have given up and just reset the trip meter and fill up at 300 miles), have to replace the o2 sensors, transmission had to be rebuilt, it just never seems to idle correctly...the list goes on. The worst thing (and apparently many others have had the same problem) was a major leak in the heater core at 55,000 miles that soaked the inside of the car in addition to flooding the ventilation system. A mess to say the least. Currently, the car has 83,000 miles and I honestly cannot see it hitting 100,000. For the record, I am a weekend mechanic, am pretty good at car maintenance and at least VERY good at taking care of cars, so far as sticking to a maintenance schedule. It doesn't matter with this car. It is just awful. I drove $1000 cars for years and would go back to that in a heartbeat. I never had this much trouble, even then. STAY AWAY.

^i wouldn't put too much faith in this guy as he is globally generalizing based on only owning one car. I work exclusively on maintaining and performance modifications on the diamante and 3000gt platform. the second gen diamante is not a terrible car by anymeans in fact the bang for the buck is unsurpassed! Sorry for his bad experience but i have one with 150k miles on it as my dd and it has only needed basic maintenence EVER! i think his problem may be that he is assuming he knows what he is doing with these cars (they have to be cared for very specifically often with specific fluids) and screwed it up worse. (also 50k in between pads on multiple occassion with these cars, get quality products and they treat you right)

I have an 03 Diamante also, and by far, it is the BEST car Ive ever owned in terms of maintenance and reliability. In saying that Ive had a 89 Mazda Familia XG Turbo, 94Pulsar GTiR, 98 BMW 318i (which was the worst of them all).

Its low maintenance, quick and decent sized for a family sedan. Maybe because the Diamante was Australian assembled?? or maybe because we got it brand new. I feel sorry for that guy whos Diamante was giving him crap, but as for mine, its been a great car. Even pimped it up and looks SWEET!

I have owned 2 Diamantes, one a first gen 1995, and a second gen 2001, these are not drive and forget type cars, they are classified as semi-luxury, and they have to be maintained to factory specs. My first the 1995 was the best it was reliable, and handled unbelievable. The worst nightmare on the 1st gen was electronics, on the second gen they were improved, not as many failures, etc.

Probably the best used semi luxury bargain out there because they depreciate so much, which is standard for a Mitsubishi. When Yugo was available in the states it had a higher customer satisfaction rating than mitsi. The Diamante that was produced in Australia was called the Verada, and was not imported to the states, I had one when I lived there, and it did seem well built. Sadly mitsi has had some great ideas but their quality control is probably the worst their is. I have my 4th 1st gen Eclipse GSX, AWD, which is now a fast and furious tuner car, great idea, bad quality the hallmark of Mitsu.