Bought a 2011 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution GSR with 15,000 miles in August of 2013. This is my second Lancer Evolution X, the first was a duplicate 2008 I bought brand new in 2009. That car was involved in an accident and totaled at 21,000 miles, and had the same transmission problem, as do 99% of 2008 and up models according to web posts, NHSTA complaints, and general word of mouth. Both cars had a very notchy transmission from day one. This one is extremely difficult to get into reverse from the day I got it at 15,000 miles, and this past August my 4th gear Synchro went out, so now it grinds every time I put it in gear if I don't slowly allow it to fall into gear itself.

My car has no transmission modifications but does have bolt-on modifications like exhaust and air intake, and has a very expensive coilover suspension. All of the work was done at a professional shop in Delaware. I have been in car sales for 12+ years and all of my regular maintenance is documented. Mitsubishi just assumes that you're racing the car or beating it up because it is modified, which is completely untrue, there are no internal engine, transmission, AWD, or turbo modifications done to my car or most other cars that have multiple things go wrong with their transmission or center transfer case within. I'm sure that pretty soon all of the other components known to go bad in the transmission/transfer case will and I'll have to have them both rebuilt. I don't have the money to do this right now and obviously can't afford to buy a new transmission for $4,000 plus labor (that's without a new transfer case). The problem is so bad there are two shops that specialize in rebuilding and upgrading the parts in the transmission and transfer cases, total costs with labor and shipping to do this are around $2,500, but at least it won't happen again like it will if you put another transmission/transfer case in.

The really horrible part is I'm still under factory power train warranty until next year, but dealers won't even bother looking to see if it will be covered under warranty because of the modifications and tune (yeah, because an exhaust and intake with a tune will cause transmissions and the self-contained transfer case to fail). The transfer case issue has been well documented in places with snow and salt, seal goes bad on the ACD pump (another $2,000 part that will go) and the fluid leaks into transfer case/transmission. Right now I just want my Synchro fixed under warranty until I can save enough money to have a rebuild and upgrade done, but Mitsubishi won't do it, they know there is a MAJOR ISSUE with these parts on 2008+ models and they use the modifications as an excuse to not stand behind their product, yet they market the Evo as a race/rally car, they always have. I should have bought the Subaru STI, I knew it, but my mistake.

I'm telling every person that comes into the Nissan/VW/Audi/Volvo/Mercedes store I work for about Mitsubishi and warning them as the Outlander uses the same AWD and S-AWC system. Either help me under the warranty (the warranty booklet that comes with the car states unless the specific component that has a problem is modified the warranty is valid) or I'm having my lawyer bring suit. Oh, and the recall on the clutch master cylinder was done when I bought the car, so if that was a contributor to the problem then it was self induced anyway.