Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder Review

After putting almost 1200 miles on one of these cars in 4 days I will share some of my thoughts.

First, the car I had was an Silver 2008 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder. It was the base model car with the 4-cylinder engine, automatic transmission, Rockford Fosgate CD/MP3 stereo, and a cloth interior.

Exterior:
I liked it, both with the top up and the top down. It is a pretty good looking car, one that gets attention at stop lights. Nothing glaringly wrong with the shape, has a nice semi-mean looking front end and lights, handles, tail pipes, and badging all work well with the shape. So, overall the exterior is one that is not too aggressive for my tastes but does look the part of a neat little import convertible. One warning, when ever you pull up to a stoplight in this car every 16 year old with a ricer will want to race you.

Interior:
First things first, the front seat are amazing! They are a pretty aggressive racing type seat that a lot of people will not like but I love 'em. I want these seats in my MINI. Great for holding you in when you are tossing the car around but very comfortable after 5 hours of interstate driving through Iowa. I felt great after sitting in them for a long time. That is my biggest complaint about my MINI is that the seats really start to bug me at around the 3 hour mark. I hope this type of seat makes its way into the Evolution X. The rear seats looked nice but not all the usable for adults. A child or very small adult could have fit behind my seat but not very well. Kids would work in the seats but I think they are there more for decoration than anything. All the controls where reachable and in good spots. Radio was easy to work with the steering wheel controls. I used a borrowed FM modulator to play my iPod but I could have used the aux input if I had the correct cable. Stereo sounded pretty good except for the buzzing speakers, something that would have had the car back at the dealer pronto if I owned it. It was hard to see out of the car with the top up (what convertible isn't?) but after driving it a little I figured out how to tilt my head to see out the back when reversing. The only complaint that I had with the interior was the window shut-off button. You can't tell which position it is in and it is a hard button to find from the drivers seat. It is next to the window button but you can't see it when sitting in the car. The strangest thing about the button is that it only turns the passenger window on and off. If my wife's car the button disables all the windows, including the drivers. Why have a button that only turns the passenger window on and off I don't know. This feature lead to a half a day to me not being able to get the passenger window to roll up because I 1. Didn't see the window shut-off button and 2. Was used to a window shut-off feature that disabled all the windows. It also lead to me checking every single fuse in the car but that is another story.

Driving:
This is a nice riding car. It tracks well, soaks up bumps, and isn't all that loud inside with the top up or down. I was surprised with the lack of wind and noise with the top down. It was nice to be able to drive at highway speeds with the top down and not feel like I was getting beat up. When driven hard the car does under steer quite a bit and unfortunately the car feels very large when driving aggressively. The steering feel is ok, gets pretty vague when you are in the middle of a corner and doesn't instill a lot of confidence in the driver. Brakes do feel good, not to touchy. Acceleration for the base model I had was acceptable and the auto-stick feature was a nice option, especially when needing to pass someone. I would rate this car as more of a cruiser than a true sports car. It would be nice to put the GT through its paces to see how the bigger engine, different tires and reworked suspension change the car.

So, if you are looking for a nice convertible then it can't hurt to look at the Eclipse Spyder. I priced up what my renter would have cost and it came out to around $28k. This puts it in a tight group with the MINI Cooper and Cooper S Convertibles and the VW Eos hardtop convertible to name a few. But, if you like the import tuner looks, the pretty good warranty that Mitsu offers now then this might just be the convertible for you.