Had a look at the 380, now the quality could be better considering it's a ground up design with the latest techology.The panel gaps and shut lines are to wide, the plastics and the seat material looks cheap all that for $34000 base model 5speed plus on road costs.The sales man tells me how good the automatic is ,manual is crap, when it came to the motor his words where it's nice and simple because it has push rods!, oh dear time to leave.
:shock:
Still I would consider buying 1 in 12 months or so.

Had a look at the 380, now the quality could be better considering it's a ground up design with the latest techology.The panel gaps and shut lines are to wide, the plastics and the seat material looks cheap all that for $34000 base model 5speed plus on road costs.The sales man tells me how good the automatic is ,manual is crap, when it came to the motor his words where it's nice and simple because it has push rods!, oh dear time to leave.
:shock:
Still I would consider buying 1 in 12 months or so.

Mitsubishi have actually been working hard on the quality of the 380. Then again, it's a $35000 car, you can't exactly expect plastics and build quality equivalent to an Audi on that money.

The engine is actually SOHC (4 valves per cylinder), not pushrod. Also, the manual is geared much shorter, for off the line performance, I'm surprised they even offer the manual in the standard 380, instead of having it as a VRX-only option.

I thought the overall quality was rather good. Definitely better than what I've seen from Ford or Holden lately.

It was on par with my Mazda. :cool:

i thought the build quality of the interior wasnt as good as the exterior, but IMO i dont think it is anywhere near as bad as the interior build quality of the mazda 6's.. they suck

the interior of the LS and LX look good but im not a fan of the one coloured interiors (like the VRX and GT - all black) just looks too tacky.. especially when they use different materials up against one another that are supped to match but look completley different.. (such as black leather fronts of the seats against the black vynil backs) this is what i have found in mums mazda 6..

What's wrong with the Mazda6's interior? I've checked one out and it seemed fine to me.

see edited post..

its only the luxury and luxury sports versions i dont like.. the door trims are just too plasticky and tacky for my liking.. looks fine in the dealership.. take them home and give them a coat of armorall when you first wash it and it looks terrible.. shows up the bad matches in different materials..

also i dont like the door handles on the inside of the mazda's.. feel like they want to just snap off, also the power window buttons fail to import any sense of quality..

for the same price id much rather the euro accord luxury's interior..

alas, this thread is about the 380 and i havent had a good look in person, but from brochures it looks to be the same with the all-black interior :doubt:

take them home and give them a coat of armorall when you first wash it and it looks terrible.. shows up the bad matches in different materials..


That's probably half the problem. I hate that stuff. Might as well spray grease all over your interior.

That's probably half the problem. I hate that stuff. Might as well spray grease all over your interior.

anything you use makes it look crappy though.. i mean lets face it.. greasy hands etc are gonna make dull surfaces shiny such as steering wheels, switches etc etc

i just think that if they are going to make an interior ALL black, then they cant hold back by using cheaper materials in certain places.. if one type of plastic is used on the top 1/2 of the door trim then it should be used on the bottom half, not a plastic with lesser quality that is going to stand out..

lets face it.. they should realise that people are going to apply protectant to the interior surfaces of thier cars.. they should factor this into it when deciding on materials.. is it going to make it look tacky and show up the differences in the materials used? or will it make no difference at all?

where as it makes little difference if it is 2 toned.. because it isnt supposed to be an exact match.. hence the reason why i like the interior of the LS and LX much more than the 380, VRX and GT

when it came to the motor his words where it's nice and simple because it has push rods!, oh dear time to leave.
:shock:


I thought the 3.8 was just :shock: a bored out version of the 3.5!

Well I think the ski port only option for the rear seats might lose them some sales. Plus the boot entry space is much, much smaller than the 3rd gens.

Was a bit disapointed with the massive plastic gear selector on the automatics - suprising seeing the tjs-tws had leather gear selectors on the higher models.

anything you use makes it look crappy though.. i mean lets face it.. greasy hands etc are gonna make dull surfaces shiny such as steering wheels, switches etc etc

i just think that if they are going to make an interior ALL black, then they cant hold back by using cheaper materials in certain places.. if one type of plastic is used on the top 1/2 of the door trim then it should be used on the bottom half, not a plastic with lesser quality that is going to stand out..

lets face it.. they should realise that people are going to apply protectant to the interior surfaces of thier cars.. they should factor this into it when deciding on materials.. is it going to make it look tacky and show up the differences in the materials used? or will it make no difference at all?

where as it makes little difference if it is 2 toned.. because it isnt supposed to be an exact match.. hence the reason why i like the interior of the LS and LX much more than the 380, VRX and GT

Maybe they saw it as, there is only a minority of people out there who wil take the time to grease up their interior trims, where as most people wont. maybe they want some thing that is going to stand the test of time without regular maintenance. see, the cheaper looking plastic at the bottom is probably also harder wearing, therefore, when mum and kids get out of the car, all they do it pull the handle to unlatch the door, and then, *booot* open the door.they have said in a few press releases that tehy expect the main buyers of the gt to be business people who want a flash car, well, the full black interior makes it look sporty, where as a two tone finish makes it look classy. if mid-life crisis business man is gonna buy himself a sports car, he more than likely has some one wash and vacuum it for him due to his lack of spare time

i completley agree...

had a look at the 380 interior close up this morning... Yes the interior is of a high standard but i just think it is lacking a real sense of "quality" in some places.. mind you, for a $35,000 car Mitsubishi have done exceptionally well and the patterning on the top of the dash is very different, which i quite like..

i suppose if we want high quality stuff we look at audi, bmw, mercedes benz etc..

I thought the 3.8 was just :shock: a bored out version of the 3.5!

the 3.8L is not a bored out version of the 3.5, infact only 10% of the 3.5L motor has been carried over to the new 3.8L.

The automatic transmission is supposed to be Invecs II, exactly the same as the 3rd gen's. I wonder if they meant electronically or mechanically as well.

i completley agree...

had a look at the 380 interior close up this morning... Yes the interior is of a high standard but i just think it is lacking a real sense of "quality" in some places.. mind you, for a $35,000 car Mitsubishi have done exceptionally well and the patterning on the top of the dash is very different, which i quite like..

i suppose if we want high quality stuff we look at audi, bmw, mercedes benz etc..
I would not call the Audi's interior quality, it looks and feels great at first, but wait 12 months (even quicker on some parts), and it all starts peeling. i hate it when magazines and people keep going on about its "quality"

I would not call the Audi's interior quality, it looks and feels great at first, but wait 12 months (even quicker on some parts), and it all starts peeling. i hate it when magazines and people keep going on about its "quality"

yep, also mercedes benz. for the past 10 years they have been having SERIOUS quality issues. they're starting to resolve them now though. in 1994 they decided they were needlessly overengineering their cars, so they stopped to maximize their profits.

I think you will find will also sometimes use the term 'quality look'. This covers them as they test new cars and cannot therefore comment on its longetivity.

for the money the quality is well above standard. Ofcourse if you go comparing it to prestige luxury cars then its gonna come up short.. no bloody sh!t!

my brother just bought a subaru liberty (new one) and that is one exceptionally well built car i reckon, has a real quality feel to just about every aspect of it, and i honestly beleive that the 380 is up to its standard! maybe even a touch better....

Ironically.....I've always considered lately the mitsubishis to have extreme good build quality.

i still don't know why mist are keen on fwd, they should of made it rwd at least, i reckon it's too large for it to be fwd, and i reckon they should have made the vrx faster, i hope to see some power pack aviable for the 380

i still don't know why mist are keen on fwd, they should of made it rwd at least, i reckon it's too large for it to be fwd, and i reckon they should have made the vrx faster, i hope to see some power pack aviable for the 380
Why make it RWD when they already have a FWD platform? They are not trying to take on Commodore, or Falcon, just to keep their heads above water. And as it stands, the Magna's are a larger car than the 380, so where does that leave us? And with wanting more power out of the VR-X, wait for the Series 2.

To tell you all the truth,. i drove a 380 yesty and i an over the moon with the built quality, It is top notch, not a creak from the seats or the plastics, plenty of power when u need it, and damn, so quiet. not even any wind noise at 120km/h, Over all, i'll be gettin one when funds allow it, which hopefully will be within the next 12 months (i checked my finances and unfortunatly i can;t afford it at the moment unless someone wants to buy my car off me :D)