Im looking at a few cars this weekend, what tell tale signs do I look for with these trannys that will prevent me buying a lemon???.........I have read older posts that suggest they have wave spring issues and are not that reliable {is this correct}..........I intend to tow a small caravan with the car so a tranny cooler will be fitted.........Any suggestions please.

Tranny cooler and external filter should keep you out of trouble. If you get a tw, you get the revised wave spring which won't fail.

Tranny cooler and external filter should keep you out of trouble. If you get a tw, you get the revised wave spring which won't fail. Thanks for the reply mate..........Is it safe to say any model with the teardrop headlights have the revised wave spring???.........Im not sure what year a TW was manufactured........beside the wavespring prob are they a good tranny?

If you test drive ... Watch out for any gear flaring, this could show that the trans hasn't been flushed regularly and could lead to problems down the track

Whats flaring?

This is what Im looking at
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=536682876

Looks pretty clean ... :) flaring occurs when the auto upshifts, if it not smooth and there's sort of a pause between shifts ... At 110k ask if the timing belt has been done too, otherwise you may have to fork out for that too

Rough or laboured shifting is a bad sign. Gear changes should be smooth and quiet. When you test drive the car, cycle it through all the gears and listen for noise.

That car is a tl. Tw started in 04/05.

Is it safe to say any model with the teardrop headlights have the revised wave spring???.........Im not sure what year a TW

I dont believe the cutover date to the new wave spring design would have aligned to the model changeover. Does anyone know? And afaik theres no way to know from external examination of the tranny.

I'd expect that the cutover happened sometime in 04, possibly late in the year, but not necessarily the same day they stopped assembling TL's. Therefore there could be a few late TL's with the new spring design.

Second the advice about tranny, should be really smooth and quiet. Fluid should look pretty clean. Hopefully the car will have service books. Looks nice in the photos. I dk about prices, so cant say if its well priced or not.

The "teardrop" (bugeye) models were the TL and TW model magna's. I'm told that the TL's did not come with the revised wave spring, only the TW's.

I'd expect that the cutover happened sometime in 04, possibly late in the year.

My TJ is 08/2001 and my TL is 04/2004 and shift perfectly. Exactly when the wave spring was updated in manufacture, is anyone's guess, unless someone can get definite serial numbers affected by the change.

To the OP: The autobox on the Mitsus are no more or less reliable than any other manufacturer's of the time. In general, autoboxes are much more complicated than manual boxes, and have more things to wear out or go wrong, so if you want better reliability in the gearbox department, buy a manual.

My TJ is 08/2001 and my TL is 04/2004 and shift perfectly.
Oh yeah, my KH shifts faultlessly after 12 years and 200,000 kms. (touch wood).
Wouldnt worry about the wave spring issue when purchasing, its really rare.

Thanks to everyone who has replied to my thread..........I checked out the GTVi yesterday and it was in reasonable condition. How ever it did feel a little slow {compared to my old 380} and the wife is not convinced a sedan is the right choice. We have owned an old TE manual that has near 400k on the clock so we may start looking at a TW Wagon instead.

The 380 has plenty of power but the tw is still bloody quick when you want it to be. If you need to do a timing belt, put $400 or so aside for some 380 cams for that bit of extra go.

At the end of the day the 4sp is a fair bit slower compared to the 5sp.