Decided to gamble on the little car that every reviewer hates

[Dodge Aries K]

Yeah, hopefully they'll fix the car sometime in the nearish future.

I'm more angry about the damn chips in the paint. The polar vortex kicked this thing's rear I guess. I never drive behind salt trucks but I did have one go flying past me on a two Lane road and it pelted my poor car. So I have to find a touch up pen somewhere and hopefully get a refund for the garbage paint protection the dealer sold me that doesn't do anything to protect it.

[Fummins]

I wonder what the paint protection was supposed to be? Was it in the form of a prayer or a placebo? We should have one of those ugly plastic bug deflectors or 3m clear film on most of our cars at work. The front edge of the hood and above the windshield takes a beating rust spots everywhere. A few cars even have holes in the bumper covers and mirror housing from taking rocks!

[Dodge Aries K]

It was some crap they used on the car called Cilajet. It wasn't cheap so I was hoping it would be good. Apparently not haha.

[Mark]

It was some crap they used on the car called Cilajet. It wasn't cheap so I was hoping it would be good. Apparently not haha.

I have no time/respect for dealerships that try to push expensive add on products/extended warranties. My tolerance for that is ZERO. I am not trying to throw salt into the wound. It's just not something that I am willing to tolerate any more.

I am at the point where I wouldn't even visit a dealership without knowing their "out-the-door" price first. Holding them to that price eliminates any garbage they may want to add. You can tell a lot about a dealership by making this one little simple request first.

[Scratchpaddy]

Sounds like they waxed the car for you. Oh well. Live and learn.

When I bought mine, I paid 3x what a decent shop would charge for window tint because the dealership had already applied it, and it was the only car in the whole state that was the color and trim level I wanted. I wish I'd tried harder to get the price down, but it's over and done. It was still a darn good price for a new car.

[Dodge Aries K]

Yeah, they suck. I have an interior protection thing too that covers if the seats get ripped or stained or anything. If they want to be dicks about the paint stuff then I'll seek my revenge on them. I already called Mitsubishi and told them my disapproval about the dealer practices and that I was upset about waiting two damn weeks before being told that there is no clue when my car can actually be fixed so someone from Mitsubishi is supposed to call me tomorrow and I will happily tell them about how much I hate the dealer I bought this stupid car at as well. (Without naming names, it's the so called 2nd largest volume Mitsubishi dealer and it's in Madison Wisconsin.)

[klroger]

You have to be careful of the add ons. They wanted to charge me $89.00 for Nitrogen in the tires. I said NO. I got the sales story about warranty & I said "The air we breathe is 78% Nitrogen, why would I pay extra for it". Also the wheel locks, etc... Be careful & think about what they are trying to up-sell...

[Dodge Aries K]

Well, I had to get the stupid paint and interior protection as part of a promotion where they overpaid for a garbage trade in ($4100 or something like that for any trade in) Long story short, even with the garbage add ons I got the car for 12,500 out the door minus tax because I have to pay that in Illinois and the car came from Wisconsin. So not the greatest deal but not the worst. At least the garbage Dodge Spirit I traded in died after it went there. I only paid $280 for the Spirit and they probably scrapped it for $100 if they were lucky.

[Mark]

My car buying experience –

I called White Bear Mitsubishi in the Twin Cities area. The manager of the dealership answered his own phone. Months earlier, they were selling new 2017 Mirages for $9500 on cars.com. I told him that I wanted one of those. He asked me what color, because they were sold out. As we are talking on the phone, he is searching for cars. I instantly realize this dealership is legit! He even told me how I could get these cars for $9000 brand new. There was no negotiating price. He was just telling me up front what he could do for me.

This was October of 2017. I didn’t have the time to drive to the Twin Cities, & I hadn’t even sat in a Mirage at the time of that first call. I had two daughters get married that summer (one of the weddings was in Finland), & my mom had a serious surgery. Spending time at a dealership was not a priority for me. Yet, I was still interested in getting a Mirage. I also had to make a choice between an ES or pay a little extra for a SE manual. Given my height, he suggested that I go Madison & sit in one first (compare the 4-way adjustable seats of the ES to the 6-way adjustable of the SE).

I visited Madison twice. The first visit was to sit in an ES & compare it to a SE. The second visit about a week later was to test drive a 2018 ES (manual). I already knew Madison’s “out-the-door” price for a 2018 Mirage ES (manual) prior to my first visit. At the time, Madison wanted about $13,500 out-the-door. I asked them if they were willing to find me a discounted 2017. I heard nothing but excuses from them.

The next day (Tuesday) I email the manager @ White Bear. He asked me for my top three color choices. About 2 hours later, I get an email back. He found my first color choice nearby, but the car already had Bluetooth, center armrest, and pulse lighting options installed. He asked if I was willing to pay $9,299 for that car, or should I have him look for a $9000 one instead. I settled on the $9299 one he already found.

This is how my car purchase went down. I had a behind-the-wheel lesson @ 8-10 am that coming Saturday. I told White Bear that I would be home by 10:30 am. Keep in mind this dealership is about a 4 hour drive from my house. I get home @ 10:25 am that Saturday morning. The salesman is in my driveway with my new car, & another employee (that washes/cleans cars for them) is in the salesman’s Outlander Sport. We spent about 15 minutes @ my kitchen table to complete the transaction. I wasn’t asked about any extra add on products or extended warranties. The dealership gives a lifetime/unlimited powertrain warranty for free anyways. There were no surprise charges. I was quoted $10,153.73 “out-the-door” (that's everything - tax, license, new Wisconsin plates, etc...), & that is exactly what I paid for a brand new car. I wouldn’t even call it an “out-the-door” price, because it was a “delivered to my door” price. If they tried to pull something, their time would have been wasted that day not mine. They drove the 4 hours back to the Twin Cities that day, & I went bow hunting behind my house that afternoon.

This is an example of one Mitsubishi dealership that isn’t even willing to try, & another that goes way above and beyond! I shop for a car with my laptop. I have better things to do than waste my time at a dealership. Customers call the shots not dealers in my mind. I can usually sense a “red flag” with one email to a dealership. Why waste my time with someone like that? I used my local Mitsubishi dealership for a test drive. I wish it could have been more than that, but that was their choice not mine.

Even though I bought the car from MN, I got it for a little less than first quoted because I paid Wisconsin's sales tax (which is less than Minnesota's). Not all Mitsubishi dealerships are equal, & that is why I think they should price their cars better to begin with. I wasn't going to pay more than $10,000 for a 2017 Mirage, even if it meant waiting for a used one. Once I realized I could get a new one for $9000, I became more serious about purchasing one.

One last thought - Had I qualified for the military or current Mitsubishi owner discounts, I would have gotten this car for well under $9,000 brand new.

[Dodge Aries K]

Oh believe me, I know all about White Bear now... After already buying the car. Would have totally went through them instead if I would have known before hand. Trust me on that. My sales experience with the Madison dealer was one of the worst car buying experiences I've had. Heck, I recently bought FOUR vehicles from Lexus of Rockford and they all were stellar experiences so to go from that to the other place it was baffling at how much they sucked at selling me a car and worse was their finance lady who I think they actually fired for how worthless she was during our transaction so at least they did something about that. Honestly, with how pissed off I was at that place I should have just said no and went home but I had it made up in my mind that getting the car for what I did was a good deal but... Then it wasn't. Ugh.