The less said about this car, the better. I absolutely hated this car, and bought it only because the price was right. I love Mitsubishi vehicles as a whole, but this was not their best attempt. The older Diamante, with its E34 5-Series-inspired styling, was much more attractive, at least in my opinion. To me, this is the car that spelled the downfall of Mitsubishi.
After years of building quirky, electronics-laden cars, they tried to appeal to a broader audience by building a faux ES300. If you’re going to try to copy Lexus, at least try to copy Lexus reliability. Older Mitsus were oddly styled and often unreliable, but they had character, albeit the kind you either loved or hated (personally, I loved it). I don’t mind an unreliable car that has character (there goes that word again), but when it’s bland and still a piece of shit, that’s when I have a problem.
At only 100K it burned and leaked oil (which should be no surprise to anyone familiar to the 6G7X line of motors), had a dash that lit up like a Christmas tree with warning lights, had electrical issues galore, clunked and rattled like a 30-year-old taxi cab, and it neither rode nor handled particularly well. The only positive things I can honestly say about the car was that the motor and transmission were smooth and the seats were very comfortable. Give me a Galant VR-4 or Tredia Turbo (remember those?) over this any day. Not my smartest automotive purchase, by a long shot.
How effin cheap was it? Or did the dash not light up until after you bought it?
Sounds like it beat walking…..but not by much.
There was a car yard on Sydney’s Parramatta road named that but it was too close to the rail station to sell me a car they werent that much better than shoes
Like you, I found the original Diamante quite attractive. At the time, I followed a general automotive discussion board and one of the contributors bought one that turned into an ownership and warranty nightmare almost immediately. It is sad to watch love turn to hate so quickly and publicly.
These never did it for me.
This is surprising to hear. My uncle in VA had one (maybe a 99?) and he traded it in for an Acura in ’03, and actually claims to prefer the Diamante. His was a golden beauty with a tan leather interior and all the bells and whistles. He didn’t care for the frameless door windows(they did rattle on rough pavement and whistle at high speeds), but the car was solid and relatively trouble-free. He decided on the Acura because at the time there was an amazing lease rate he simply could not pass up. But I think he regretted it.
We have loads of Diamantes in NZ most used Jap imports though some models were imported new from Aussie where its called a Verada. I hired a 03 Diamante in melbourne ok to drive in town and on the freeway but we took it up the Dandenong ranges big mistake talk about understeer, i was glad to hand it back.
Yuck-another example of what we in tha auto parts biz call a ‘Cringe car’. Every time someone calls asking parts for one these, we cringe. Parts are a pain to locate. When they are located, they cost an arn , a leg, and various other parts of your anatomy. Reliability? I think something from the deepest, darkest days of British Leyland is more reliable than one of these. Mitsubishi really blew what was left of their reputation with the Diamante.
The co-owner of a company I worked for a few years in college traded his ’87 E30 325 5-speed on a new, automatic Diamante LS in 1991. I was shocked, being obsessed with German cars at the time. I was more shocked when I drove it, and discovered it was cramped and completely characterless. I didn’t understand how he could have test driven it and went through with buying one. I wound up driving it from time to time and never warmed up to it. I used his 4.0 Cherokee Sport to make deliveries pretty often, and he’d let me use the BMW too. The one car he never offered me was his ’84(IIRC) Mustang GT convertible. He must not have hated the Diamante though, as he had it for at least the next five years.
I loved the look of the original Diamante, the later ones were still OK. Was it really a Lexus ES competitor, though? This is an honest question, I have no idea. I do know that when they were new, it was something like their flagship product (think Diamante=Caprice, 3000GT=Corvette). Mitsubishi as a whole kinda ticks me off, even though I’ve really liked lots of cars they’ve built. Something about a Japanese car with British-Leyland build quality seems really deceptive and insincere, I dunno…
It was intended to be, but fell pretty far short of the class benchmarks. That was a shame, too, because the first-gen Diamante was a looker, inside and out.
One of the car mags (I think it was Automobile) ran a comparison test between a new Diamante and the 1992 Acura Legend. The Diamante fared okay, but still ran a distant second out of two. The magazine’s consensus was along the lines of, ‘everything that exudes quality in the Legend, looks and feels faked in the Mitsubishi.’
Again, that’s a shame, because the early 90s were pretty heady times for Mitsubishi. In addition to the Diamante, the 3000GT/Dodge Stealth was getting decent reviews, they were selling all the Colts and Mirages they could build, and even the Galant was fairly well-liked, especially in VR4 trim (forerunner to the Lancer/Mirage-based Evo.)
http://forums.acuralegend.org/motor-trend-g2-articles-t16151.html
Looks like the Diamante does really well in this Motor Trend comparison test.
I currently drive a ’98 Magna, which is the same body shape but with a 4 cyl 2.4. It isn’t the most exciting car in the world, but it is rock-solid reliable and pretty well put together. Reasonably good on petrol, tows well and battered enough that I don’t care when the wife puts yet another parking dent in it. I’ll keep it until it dies, or bores me to death.
Yeah magnas have been free to a good home forever a 4 banger manual is the best choice of a bad car, a friends daughter campaigned one for several years untill the roof rusted off, Disposing of one by selling is a mission
When I worked at an auto auction one summer (1994), we would get in fleets regularly. Some were GMs, some VWs, and some Mitus. The cheaper Mitsus weren’t bad, the Expos, Galants, etc, but the Diamantes were detested by the crew. Why? These things had a habit of being hard to start, cheap feeling, and just as overall POSs. The dealers buying the cars at auction didn’t seem to like them much either.
Well, any neglected car is going to be a piece of shit.
When’s the last time you saw one of these?
Now I know the wagon was imported from Australia, I can’t remember whether the sedan was too or whether they came from Japan.
I think these cars show Mitsubishi can’t design a valve guide or oil seal to save their lives, they all blow smoke. I think it was roughly in this era that it was discovered Mitsubishi had been concealing defect/quality issues from either management or the Japanese government.
Oh B3Quattro, it could have been worse. Could have been Olivier Boulay’s hideous ’04 facelift version with the ungainly nose (beak?). I actually liked the styling of the 95+ model, but that beaklift was terrible. I presume y’all got it in the States?