Hello, I'm a new owner of a 2018 Mirage ES hatch with the 5 speed manual, and so far I love it!
I used to drive a 2008 Smart and I loved that thing to death, but after 3 separate collisions and multiple repairs that got steadily more and more expensive (Mercedes dealer serviced, and priced accordingly!) I gave up on my Smart in January with 120k miles on it.
After my experience with the Smart I knew I wanted another 3 cylinder car, but one that was a bit more practical than the Smart was and hopefully cheaper to service.
I knew that Mitsubishi made the engine for the Smart Fortwo and I never had a single drive train issue with the Smart during my entire ownership tenure of that vehicle so I knew it had to be a Mitsubishi as my next car.
I signed the paperwork on my starlight silver metallic Mirage ES hatch this past January and have put 4500 miles on it so far, and having a great time, and the gas mileage, oh so sweeeeet.
The ONLY gripes I have with this car is that reverse crunches unless you are oh-so-gentle with selecting reverse, but even then it sometimes still crunches like a you-know-what, and when you engage the AC it's like kicking this poor thing in the nuts, when I need to achieve highway speeds or merge i shut the AC off to get more power!
lol, it's not a big deal but I bought this thing for the new car reliability and gas mileage and so far pleasantly surprised by this thing.
Onwards and forwards!
-Sphinxrider