Austarion

This post may come as a complete shame to every member here but some things must be said. Lets face it I love starions as much as the next guy. But basically they are old, unreliable, expensive and basically just not that quick.

I began to lose faith in the Mitsubishi thinktank called the "starion" at the begining of this year. After losing all my savings on a $2500 engine rebuild I thought about what is the car REALLY worth market value? Maybe the not even the money I just spent. Later I wore the engine in and thought it was pretty good. Stopped at the lights a v8 Calais from the VL series pulled along side me. It killed my car, it wasn't my shit driving it was my car.

Why do we spend so much on these shit old cars?
Why can't I stop?

Seriously I been a memeber here for about a year and most of that time my car hasn't been running! My mates cars all work ALL the time.

Are we wasting time on shit boxes?
Could we get a class action against Mitsubishi poor engineering?

When our cars do run anyone can smoke us. A standard granny driving VS common-hore will beat us in a straight line.

Don't get me started on cornering...they just aren't THAT good.

I'm sorry for this blasphame I'm just sick of these cars! Maybe I'm just more sick of the fact that I can't stop loving it despite it's flaws! Seriously I drove an XR6T but still I'd prefer the starion, what the hell?

I've been all over the place I know. I just don't want us all to lose all our money and pride over these cars anymore.

Cheers Dave

madeofmilo wrote:This post may come as a complete shame to every member here but some things must be said. Lets face it I love starions as much as the next guy. But basically they are old, unreliable, expensive and basically just not that quick.

Cheers Dave

Dave,
hey man sorry you feel that way. Gee my experience with the Starion over 13 years of ownership is that they are old, reliable, cheap to keep going and pretty damn quick for what they are.

Just ask the guy I smoked the other night in a riced up Honda S2000, god I love doing that in an old car :D

Maybe the lesson here is it's not a good car to own if you can't do the mechanical work yourself. I think my JA has 270,000Km on it now.
The cars are 23 years old things are going to be wearing out.

madeofmilo, i dont think you are the only one that feels this way.. most people on the forum who have starions that keep having things go wrong, just dont feel too good when they spend most of their time and money on them.

i cant say i feel the same at this point, as my starion ive owned for a little over a year hasnt given me too much hassles.. all ive had to do to mine was a turbo rebuild and clutch.. and she runs great

i do feel you when u say when they actually run, they aren't as fast as cars in the same category.. but u have to remember that these things are like over 20yo as opposed to 180s, or 200s which are only around 10 years or younger..

Why do we spend so much on these shit old cars?
Why can't I stop?

thats because of the love you have for them, but sounds like your losing it..

A VS commodore beats you in a straight line, ur Starion's broken man.

I reacon Starions cornering ability rocks.

I still cant think of a reasonably priced car i'd rather have.

If your car had as much power and tourqe as that 8 cylinder you'd have won for sure.

Some people are just unlucky when it comes to Starion's, Hope my luck holds up :)

Dave,

It's a bit sad that you feel that way, although to some degree understandable. The problem is if you buy one of these, you really don't know the history, or what problems are lurking in the background.

I've been somewhat lucky - my first Starion (which I still have), I acquired when it was just five years old, and I've kept it maintained for the last 17 years. During that time, I've found it to be very reliable - and it's been my daily driver all that time. It's been through only one engine & gearbox rebuild plus paint job, and it currently has 397,000 km on the clock. Sounds a lot, but it's still in great nick inside and out. Sure, there have been the few niggly problems, but ulitmately (at least for me) they have been minor (one might even say silly) faults.

Since (a long time ago) I switched to doing all the work on it myself, I've learned an awful lot about these beasts, which I certainly don't want go to waste. My second Starion (picked up last year), I bought as a parts car, but decided it was a waste to cannibilise it when there are so few of them left on the road, so I fixed it up and got it licenced. This one has given me a little more trouble, but ultimately it's still running well 98% of the time.

Bear in mind that there are quite a few Starions out there generating plenty of horses at the wheels. They are becoming very rare now, and I certainly don't intend to part with mine in the forseeable future.

It might pay to get a cheap, reliable runabout (read: not fun) for a while, take the Staz off the road and give it a good once over without the pressure of having to use it to get from A to B every day. You may find that you'll locate and fix a few potential problem areas, learn a lot in the process and get the beast running reliably.

Starions don't let go of their owners very easily, you know

mrb1 wrote: Maybe the lesson here is it's not a good car to own if you can't do the mechanical work yourself.

Amen to that! I shudder to think of how painfull & expensive it must be to someone who can't or doesn't want to fix things themselves. My JB has been nothing but reliable and most money spent on it is by choice not necessity. I bought wisely and didn't buy a shiny thrashed example, but the peeling, stock, looked-after one. Any repairs I have performed are only to be expected from a 20 yo car.

I must admit to recently having thoughs of selling and moving onto something newer & faster, but most importantly tow-ability.

I never had any trouble with VS commo's when my car was stock, and my car can out-corner anything else that i've ever driven.

As for reliability, i got mine about 3 years ago on 137000km, i've just passed the 200000km mark now, and it's been pretty good. Most of the problems its had have been my fault rather than the cars.

For the money that you can buy a good 2nd hand starion, there's not much else that comes close.

For the time that they came out, there's not much that comes close.

As for your acceleration troubles dave, do you have a copy of your dyno graph? I seem to remember you saying you had 100rwkw, which for gas is pretty good, but i'd like to see the power curve and torque, because there's no way you should lose to a VS commodore with figures like that. You'd have a better power to weight ratio and shorter gearing

My widebody has been so good to me, only problems I have had were caused by the guys who upgraded it.

As for my old JA though, that thing did keep breaking, but I tell you what, the car held on to the last second and beyond before it gave up. Now no other car that I know has ever done that. They all give up the second somethign starts to play up. But the starion had to have MAJOR issues to stop it. And my JA wasn't a very good example of a reliable car at the time. Problem was I bought it when it had everything wrong with it.

So I would presume you had the same thing. You got a bum of a car.

And as for loosing, my stock starion would beat an XR6T and XR8 and done up 180SX, and now with the few mods, it keeps up with my dads modded VX GTS commo and that has something like 350kw at wheels, and mine only has 170hp and wheels in 4th gear. They are not slow

Man, i think we all have felt like you from time to time. Im on my 3rd starion now. Something keeps drawing me back to them. Ive loved them since seeing one compete in the rothmans rally of nz back in 86 or 87 driven by penti arikila i think(not sure if i spelt the mans name right)

I had the whole event on video up to 7 years or so ago until i leant it to a mate and he left it in his car. Melted the bloody thing. Havent been able to get another copy since.

for me its definately something thats unique. Your right there are better, faster cars out there. There is not doubt in that. But ive never wanted to drive whatever everyone else is driving and the car does have some style.

Yes they are getting old and technology has come along way since. But there are some nice examples around that make heads turn and a lot of people ask what is that?

Unless you buy a starion that has had some money spent on it and looked after you have to be prepared to spend some coin and or time on it.

If its not intercooled then intercool it. Change the shocks, suspension bushes, steering components to make it feel tight. My first starion with 50K on the clock handled awesome.

They are underpowered standard but theres quite a few running around with 150+ kw @ the wheels with mods now.

theres quite a few now with engine conversions and its only my opinion that this is the way to go. I was surprised at how easy it was to get 234kw @ the wheels with my sr20 conversion considering internally is standard bar forged pistons and trust head gasket and i can buy heaps of shit off the shelf for it.

But its all money and time and I do have a daily driver so my staz is only a weekender which helps with the stress.

having a daily driver built in the 80's no matter what make the car is has reached the point in its life that its going to be questionable for reliabilitly without replacing a lot of bits.

I hope you work out whats best for you mate i just hope that it doesnt get parted out like so many starions, reducing the actual running examples.

JPC wrote:
It might pay to get a cheap, reliable runabout (read: not fun) for a while, take the Staz off the road and give it a good once over without the pressure of having to use it to get from A to B every day. You may find that you'll locate and fix a few potential problem areas, learn a lot in the process and get the beast running reliably.

Starions don't let go of their owners very easily, you know

I have to agree totally with this.
Seriously, you still love the starion (You still preffered it over an XR6T!!!!)
Get a crap car, put the staz in the shed, and visit it once a week... look it over, make plans about the way you want it to be, handle, perform, look, etc...
WRITE out a list of goals once you have the picture in your head
(You must write it down, put it in black and white, and put it in a prominent place... ie fridge, back of toilet door, etc)
Then focus on researching every detail needed to fix the car the way you need it to be, concentrating on one thing at a time, ie suspension only, then when thats done move on to interior, or whatever...
Find the mods that fit into your budget, and go for it!!!
Don't even think of putting it back on the road until you have got what you want....
When you do.. you may have some unforseen teething problems with getting it going again... but these things are usually minor.(STICK WITH IT!!)
Then you can drive around, content in the knowledge that everything that needed to be fixed or modded has been done.... and should give many hours of pleasurable, trouble free motoring....

My starion has been very reliable, and has plenty of power for the street, I could go for more, but it isnt necessary.... Commodore drivers don't even bother trying it anymore..... word gets around eventually..... once you have it running right...

If you really feel you have had enough.... Try not touching it for 3 months... then take it for a drive.
If you still feel you have lost the love...then maybe it's time for you to move on
I hope reading this helped you make a decision on what to do.
Good Luck

Chris 83JA wrote:As for your acceleration troubles dave, do you have a copy of your dyno graph? I seem to remember you saying you had 100rwkw, which for gas is pretty good, but i'd like to see the power curve and torque, because there's no way you should lose to a VS commodore with figures like that. You'd have a better power to weight ratio and shorter gearing

Dont forget the extra weight of the gas tank.

hmmmm i am goin through the same trouble as you.... i do the work myself but seems when i fix something.. something else goes.. its never ending... but i dont know about them being slow.. i mean for a 8 valve.. single cam.. 20+ year old baby 4cyl.. they do one hell of a job.. i loose faith in the starion alot of the time.. sometime i feel i just cant be fucked with it an want to sell it.. but i will never get the money i spent on it so its no use... hmmmmm well against a vl commodore 5litre... well u dont know what he has done to the engine.. doesnt take much to get the v8s hoppin... but the vs- commodore.. well u must have some more gremlins.. i havnt done much to my car..exhaust, IC, an with no 2nd gear i can still beat my mates vs commi.. hehehehe he ran a 15.9 so i am happy with that........

mrb1 wrote: Maybe the lesson here is it's not a good car to own if you can't do the mechanical work yourself

If you can't do the mechanical work yourself then don't own an old car! A starion is no less robust than any other car, and is tougher than many. The engines, turbos, gearboxes and diffs are really quite strong and will go for many years with just routine maintenance.

I think the key to owning any old car is not just do the routine maintenance yourself (ie oil and filter, airfilter, fuel filter, sparkplug, coolant changes, etc) but to do preventative work. If the car is cranking slowly in the morning then investigate it, check the battery and alternator. If radiator hoses are getting soft then replace them, it's cheaper than a new engine after you cook it.

I know of one starion driver who had a starter motor playing up, sometimes it just wouldn't crank when he turned the key so he would just keep trying. Eventually, after several weeks of this, the car just wouldn't start at all. That owner sold his starion claiming they were 'unreliable'.

Starions just aren't that fast - this is completely true. A 1982 factory starion made 125kw when a 6cyl falcon made about 90kw, back then they were really fast. A standard falcon today makes 182kw (about the same as a late 90s HSV clubsport), time has marched on and have not been kind to early 80's sports cars. It's sad news, but there is a cure. With high flow exhaust, a good intercooler, turbo upgrade, multipoint, aftermarket management these things can absolutely fly. It costs money but you will embarrass some much more expensive machinary!

mate wat would u rather drive an 88 model bommodore or a starion think about it does the vl have the luxury no

Cross over to the dark side ?



NB: 'Mitsubishi Cordia Turbo vs Mitsubishi Starion Turbo' and then 'Record blower Turbo Cordia' :D