Hello from Germany

[M-K]

Hi there,

I'm Matt from Germany and I stumbled upon this really helpful forum a couple of weeks ago. Currently I'm looking for a small, cheap car with CVT for short distances (< 5km) in dense urban traffic, so the Mirage - or Space Star as it's called here - is perfect for the job.

My other car is a 10 year old Toyota turbo diesel which is perfect for long distances and I absolutely love it (very responsive and gets a great combined mileage of ~6l/100km), but drives me insane in the city with tight parking spots and stop-and-go traffic. Because public transportation isn't an option (it takes forever to get anywhere from where I live via bus or train, but only 10 minutes with a car) and a 2 car solution is way cheaper than getting a hybrid that still doesn't combine the best of both worlds, I may go for the Mirage in the near future.

Best regards

Matt

[MetroMPG]

Wilkommen, Matt! Another country heard from (I wonder how many that is now... I should check).

A <5km trip would have me eying my bicycle, at least in nice weather!

Have you tried a Space Star yet? Seen any on the road? I'm curious where its price fits in your market. (EG: In Canada it will be one of the 3 least expensive new cars available when it goes on sale this month.)

- Darin

[kalifornia]

howdy

[M-K]

Hi,
sure I usually ride my bike for distances that short within town, but taking the bike in two directions (toward the nearest city and a huge industrial complex), driving on the road would be suicidal with all that traffic and mindless drivers. The Mirage / Space Star would also be helpful for lugging elderly relatives about or getting groceries, also it's almost impossible to find a parking spot for a mid sized car (Toyota Camry / Avensis) within the city limits nowadays. Sure, I can get a spot if I *really* try, but I'll sure as hell also get another dent from the door of the car of the nice person parking - way too close - right next to me.

Nope, I still haven't seen a Mirage / Space Star "in the wild". There are quite a lot at the local dealership, but they're all manual, so I didn't drive yet. The CVT versions will show up in the next couple of months (only a small quantity of automatic transmissions seem to have been on sale here, mostly delivered to dealerships as showcase models), but they expect to sell a huge majority of MT models.
My first car was a '97 Mitsubishi Colt, so I pretty much felt at home in the Space Star right away... an odd feeling... the Space Star shares a lot of knobs, buttons and materials (the hard, cheap looking / feeling plastic surfaces but hey, it's a budget car, so that ain't a problem IMHO) which are identical to a 16 year old car. What I found really annoying - just from sitting in it - are the reflective surfaces in the middle of the console around the stereo. I hate those surfaces on consumer electronics for collecting finger prints, so why would anyone want to use that in a car, where reflections should be kept to a minimum for safety reasons. Well at least the windows are tinted, so light can only hit that spot from the top of the wind shield and the front side windows.
There are nicer and also cheaper cars on the market (VAG's Up/Mii/Citigo for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vw_up), but they all lack certain features the Space Star has (automatic AC, CVT, start-stop system, etc).

Sure, I'll add the current prices to the other thread!

Matt

[kalifornia]

regarding the reflection in the windshield, alot of ways to eliminate that. some super fine sand paper or even maybe some steel wool or you could look for some flat black adhesive decal or krylon makes a flat black spray paint for plastic.

[M-K]

@kalifornia: Thanks, I'm absolutely sure, that this is the first thing I'll change on the car, if I'll order it. All those glossy surfaces everywhere... I really don't like that development. It was a silly trend with electronics to begin with - luckily computer display manufacturers are finally switching back to non reflective panels, especially in mobile computers (except Apple of course ) - and now car manufacturers pick that trend up where electronics left off.

[m4v3r1ck]

Hi Matt, go to Holland, there's 2 Mirage/Space Star in The Hague alone, haha it's gaining popularity in Holland. I have tried the Aygo/Peugeot/Citroen and it makes too much noise inside. Even for short distance use it's annoying.
If you have any question you can pop it up we will gladly answer them. I'm using my Space Star for economical reason, but still keep my 2.0L Mitsubishi Galant for the comfort ride to Germany to get Curry wurst and to escape from my stress.

[Daox]

Welcome to the site Matt!

[M-K]

Hey everyone!
@m4v3r1ck: Heehee, I may have to do that, if the dealership doesn't get a CVT equipped Mirage some day (I'm way closer to the Czech Republic and Austria though). Yeah I had a 1.0l Citroen C1 as my company car a couple of years ago and it really was a piece of sh... it ran ~170kph though and the heater was great... one particularly annoying thing was, that in winter, all the ice and snow from the road would completely fill up the wheel house (nothing is covered down there) and I had to knock out huge, solid chunks of ice every couple of days.
By "escape from my stress" you mean "take a ride on the Autobahn"?

@Daox: Thank's a lot!

[MetroMPG]

What I found really annoying - just from sitting in it - are the reflective surfaces in the middle of the console around the stereo. I hate those surfaces on consumer electronics for collecting finger prints, so why would anyone want to use that in a car, where reflections should be kept to a minimum for safety reasons.

That is funny - the marketing material calls it "piano black" treatment, and a lot of reviewers seem to be eating up the marketing! I call it "shiny plastic", and tend to agree it doesn't make a lot of sense. (Though to be fair, I haven't seen it in person yet... and I did play piano when I was a kid, so maybe it will appeal to me after all! )