Not impressed with the new 08 Lancer GTS
 

I know the 09 will have the ralliart wtih 2.4L stead of the miivec 2.0L currently in there.

I went to look at this car with the sister out law cause she likes the car.. and originally I liked the car too. AFter taking it out for a test drive.. I"m very dissappointed. The CVT Transmission reminds me of my hydrostatic riding mower..

The test car we drove had only about 1200 KM on it. It already exhibits some body panel rattling and the edge of the door panel is kinda popping out. I"m hearing what sounds like cat converter shield rattling ( or it might be coming from the transmission. )

Road Noise ?!?!?! Holy frig. I thought my Domestic car has bad enough road and wind noise.. this thing was many times above that.. I"d go deaf in a long road trip. ( sounds like pushing a grocery cart at 60km/h with all that road noise ) It does have a very tight turning radius though.

The engine layout.. frig.. I sure as hell wouldn't want to work on it after the warrenty. The alternator and water pump requires basically tilting the motor at least 45 degrees to get to. They definitely left room in the back of the enigne for future Turbo however though.

I think I will wait for next year's model and see if they did any improvement, and new engine options. I guess however you can't really complain since fully loaded is around 22K.

I mentioned to have her Lease the car since no one will want to work on it after warrenty in the household and the dealer says the alternator is about $260.. WTF ?!?!?!?!

first of all i would suggest you learn about CVT transmissions before you bash how it "feels".
second, its a 22k car! its a POS grocery getter, why do you expect it to have bmw levels of quality?

dont forget its just a new dodge stratus in a different body ;)

Yes I know what CVT is the RPM stays the same in a sense and the tranny varies the ratio.. so it doesn't have fixed gear ratios like typical transmission.. yadda yadda yadda.. ( it's the same idea as hydrostatic transmission thanx.. and thus the referal to it )

I do know for that price 22K fully loaded sounds like a good deal.. there isn't much out there in that price range fully loaded.. and no.. I didn't expect A++ quality.. but I thought it would have better quality then some of the cheap domestic groccery getters that everyone likes to pick on.. :dunno:

I would definately hold out for 2-3 years to let Mitsu refine the car a bit. Its bound to have problems in its first cpl years of production. I wasn't too impressed with it either, but I didn't set my hopes high to begin with.

I aswell took the car for a test drive, and I must say its really not a bad car. My main problem was the quality of interior fabric. There's no leather option, and the cloth interior feels like sandpaper. Yes the CVT transmission is a bit louder then i expected but once you get the system bumping, who cares lol

I would advise against getting the gts model only because, your paying much more for only a few small things like a gigantic wing, and air dams. The only thing thats not a cosmetic improvement is the stabilizers. The base model is definately worth it though. You get 4 disc brakes and the mitsubishi warranty, plus 150hp, all for under $20,000.

wait a few years until the evoX comes and it wont be a peice of junk and it will look even better than the lancer

as has been said already there will always be a few problems with a first year of a new gen car, especially going with the CVT.
If you are looking for quality and a nice car, look at an 06 OZ/Ralliart. I love mine, and the ride is a lot nicer than the 08 I found. I love the 08, don't get me wrong, but I think that they need to make a few improvements before I would consider trading mine in.