Hi folks,
i am currently considering buying an evo, something like the fq300 or 320. Now i dont know much about them, so looking for as much advice as possible when it comes to buying/viewing one? What sort of things should i look out for? what are the running costs? ( i know they arent cheap, but whats usually recommended for maintaining one of these cars?) why is it on pistonheads, most folk are selling them between the 40-60k mileage range? Is this where they take a dive in value? Performance?
Any advice appreciated.
Cheers,
Jamie
Later evos (7 and up) are fairly reliable with no common faults apart from knackered AYC pump. The car will have three modes for the ACD (ACD uses the same pump as AYC),tarmac, gravel and snow. When the car starts make sure that all three lights come on, then two should go off and leave only one remaining. Drive it for a few minutes in each mode and make sure the light for the mode stays on, and all three don't come on at once.
They are due a "big service" at 45k and 90k so you'll see a lot for sale just before those marks as it's about £700 give or take and people just don't want to pay it. They don't dip in performance more than any other car, but if you're buying a 70k car remember it's probably on its original suspension still so might not be as sharp as when it came out the box.
Running costs are obviously insurance...tyres are about £100-£150 each depending on what you want (good road ones will cost you no more than £120ish and last around 10k),services are every 4.5k but they're only about £200-£400 each if you go to an independent specialist. Other than that, it's mainly brakes you'll be buying every now and then, again £300 to £500 maybe depending what needs done. MPG will be about 20/28 for normal driving/motorway...on track (or anywhere at constant WOT) it'll dip below 10 mpg. Chances are your AYC pump will fail at some point and that's about £250-£500 depending where you source one from (£2.5k if you get it new from Mitsubishi). The clutch will last quite well as long as you don't launch it, but that'll be about £1,000 give or take every 50-80k. Bodywork on the later ones is crap, it'll stone chip easy, the lacquer will peal from the carbon fibre and look shoddy so if you want it looking nice you'll be spending a few hundred on that every 3-5 years.
