[reignofchaos]

For folks who haven't read my earlier thread on this car, please check out:

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/what-c...shi-cedia.html

Anyway here are the specs for the car:

Car: Mitsubishi Cedia Sports
Color: Manchester Red
Date of Purchase: 23rd May 2007
Dealer: Lathangi Automobiles, Bannerghatta road
On road Price: Roughly 10.08 lacs
Freebies: Transparent Plastic Floor mats, Garware Sun film, Car Perfume etc

Added extras: None... nada zilch so far. I tried my best to spend money but every damn equipment that one thinks of installing is standard equipment :P. I am planning to upgrade the car's rubber to 215/55 R15 real soon.

Incidental expenses: Spent around 8000 bucks on repainting the right doors and a section of the bumper when I inadvertently scratched the car while taking it inside my underground garage during a power outage.

Dealer Experience: The Mitsu dealers in bangalore are kind of poles apart. I had initially gone to Southern at St Mark's Road. The sales person assigned to me had a tough time conversing in English. I had to wait a long time to get a test drive and overall left a lot to be desired. At the recommendation of Vidyut (vid6639) I went to Lathangi which was really far away from my home. However this dealer was awesome in regard to service. Pre sales support was excellent. The staff was courteous and for a change they spoke proper English. The showroom itself was much nicer too with all variants of Cedia on display. I was quite impressed overall.

Booking went quite smoothly. When the day to purchase arrived, my car was actually delayed from the factory. However the dealer managed to somehow give me someone else's car which was supposed to be delivered that day. That poor chap would probably have got his car a day or two later. When delivered, the car had exactly 7km on the odo and the cleaning/polishing of the new car was immaculate. I took delivery of the car and zipped off.

Driving Experience:

For the first 700 or so kilometers, the car was driven entirely inside the city. It took me a while to get confident with a large sedan as I had only driven small ones/hatches before. Also the clutch of the new car was really soft and gearshifting pretty hard. I really struggled for a couple of days with this. However with a few kms on the odo, both of them became smooth. During the first 500km, I maintained an engine RPM of less than 2000 and constantly varied RPM. On the first tank of fuel I got an FE of roughly around 9.5km/l.

After the initial rough patch for a couple of days, things smoothened out dramatically. The car has the highest torque in its class(175Nm @ 4250rpm) which helps a lot inside the city in stop and go traffic. One doesnt need to continually change gears and I can easily do 15-20km/hr in 3rd gear and 25km/hr in 4th gear. The steering is butter smooth. Its a hydraulic power steering system but so far of all cars I've tested, it has the lightest feel while still maintaining adequate feedback from the road. Its lighter than most EPS systems. I can easily drive with just 3 fingers on the wheel even in the heaviest stop and go traffic. The fuel efficiency also improved dramatically. Since the initial fill, I'm getting roughly around 11km/l in city conditions with 100% AC. This is absolutely incredible for a car having a 2liter engine with its size and weight.

Since then I've taken her on two highway trips to Mysore on SH-17. The first time round I drove really gently as it was still in the run in period. I never exceeded 100km/hr for the entire trip. On the highway, 100km/hr felt like no speed at all and the only noise I could hear was the road noise due to crappy Bridgestone Potenza RE-88 tyres. The engine was dead silent all through. The car returned an amazing 15.5km/l over this trip.

The second trip was a couple of days ago. This time round I really pushed the car. I routinely did 130-140km/hr and the highest I touched was around 175km/hr while returning over an empty stretch on BMIC. Throughout the entire trip, the car felt so nicely composed, I absolutely forgot that I was doing more than 120km/hr for the larger part of the trip. No drift, no understeer, and an absolutely composed ride. Handling at high speeds was beautiful. While returning I completed the 150km stretch from mysore to BG road via BMIC in 1 hr 45 mins flat . This time round after reaching back to my home, the trip meter read 360 Km and a little over half the fuel was used for this. Equates to roughly around 13.5Km/l. Not bad considering the fact that I was doing high RPMs all the time.

I'd characterize the ride quality of the cedia as a bit on the harder side. The suspension is tuned for sporty handling and hence its a bit stiff. One can feel extremely bad roads at times due to this and hence its not as comfortable over bad roads as say an optra or a camry. However its smooth over 95% of the roads and its only on cross country gravel traps like the small stretch connecting BMIC highway to BN road that you do feel the roughness. Overall I feel its a nice balance between handling and ride quality. I'd take a stiffer ride and handling over a super soft suspension anyday.

Noise levels are ridiculously low. Infact most of the times, I keep the stock Blaupunkt MP46 head unit at 1-2 volume while driving inside the city. (More on stock ICE later) That speaks miles about the interior noise levels. Vibration is absolutely non existent, so is any engine heat. The air conditioning though manually controlled is excellent. Most of the times, I keep it in the white zone between red and blue with the blower at 1 speed. Any higher and I start feeling cold even on hot afternoons. The excellent thing is that the AC does not seem to affect power in a noticeable way. The reduction in power due to the compressor running is insignificant.

In terms of looks of the car, I've been complimented that the car looks really beautiful so many times by now that I've lost track. The nice thing is that most of these compliments came from expats who were surprised that a car as nice as it is available at such low prices. The best compliment I received is from a colleague who owns a Porsche 911 Cabriolet who felt the car looked absolutely beautiful and after a ride in the car asked me why she doesn't see more of this car on Indian roads and only stupid Honda Citys (no offence to city owners). The stock grey/white interiors are excellent and gel really well with the sporty image of the car.

Stock ICE: I had planned to dump the stock ICE in the car as soon as I buy it as I'm used to quite a decent level of audio quality at home. (Jamo E855 or Sennheiser HD580 for most of my music listening). I was really surprised to find that the stock ICE sounded really good for something thats fitted for no extra cost. The setup sounds surprisingly clean for a car audio system. I wanted to make sure that my ears are not fooling me. So I invited a friend of mine who listens to most of his music on a Dynaudio+Plinius combo and he too corroborated with my opinion. I intend to add a good sub+amp later on to reinforce the bass. As of now, this will do and I can invest my money in better home audio .

First Service and dent repair: The first service was completed in exactly 3 and half hours flat. Since lathangi is around 25km from my home, I had planned to just sit around at the dealership while they serviced the car. The chaps were courteous enough to offer me juice and samosas and then the showroom manager invited me out to lunch with him. I don't think I can expect better courtesy than that! All the fluid levels etc in the car were checked and then it was cleaned and polished beautifully. The attention to detail was quite nice as they seemed to have even polished all the leather inside and put in a couple of boxes of tissues in the front and rear.

I had scratched my car pretty bad at two places thanks to a dark corner in my garage and hence had to get the dent fixed. This was done in 24 hours flat. Every visit to the service center was followed by a feedback call a couple of days later asking about the experience. So far I have no room for complaint in the service department. I hope this holds true in the future.

Overall I'm completely happy with the choice of the car. I could have very well gone in for a Civic but something inside me held me back from blowing 13+ lacs on it. I'm glad I chose the Cedia over the Civic as I could not have been happier with the car so far as I saved so much money and got an extremely good car. The few things I can complain about are the following in no particular order.

1) The gearbox has dual synchros in 2nd gear. This takes a bit of time in getting used to as it feels a bit hard at the beginning.
2) The clutch could be a wee bit harder. Its extremely delicate causing a stall once in a while.
3) Rear seat is pretty bad for long drives. Lack of thigh support sticks out like a sore thumb.
4) The ORVMs should have been internally retractable.
5) Lack of power beyond 5500 rpm. The engine just seems to fall flat.
6) Slightly dated switchgear
7) The steering wheel is way too big with a tiny horn in the center.
8) Internal Cabin lighting is woefully inadequate

Here are a few updated pics:

Dashboard






Imageshack seems to be acting up right now. Shall post more pics later.

[nkapoor777]

Very well-written ownership report. I too am sold out on the Sports. The only thing stopping me right now is the lack of rear-seat comfort which is very important for long highway drives when fully-loaded. Can something be done about that?

[reignofchaos]

Well frankly if you are average height, it won't be an issue. However if you are 6ft 2" like me, then it ends up being a hassle. Why don't you ask your family members to sit on the rear seat and check out for themselves . Thankfully for me, I'm on the driver's seat 100% of the time which frankly is one of the most comfortable driver's seat and driving position I've been in.

[v1p3r]

Very nice car, and a review to match. This is one of those cars that evokes an emotional response in the owner, and the beholder, something that the Civic and the Corolla sorely lack.

If I had to buy in this segment, it would be a very tough choice between the Optra diesel and this.

Reign, I sincerely hope we see you soon at a meet. Would love to get a closer look at your car.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Nice report!

Its obvious you LOVE your car.

[mclaren1885]

Nice car and and an even nicer report. Hope to see you around sometime soon.

[Mistakenguy]

Very good report ROC !!
Hope your car continues to fascinate for a long time to come .

[Rtech]

I like the Cedia in this guise. This is one car I'd love to pick up in the used car market, preferably a deep blue Sports model.

[WhiteKnight]

Excellent report!! Hope to see you and you beauty soon.

Btw, you may be able to answer this. How much does the body kit+ spoiler cost, if one wishes to buy Cedia select and go for a kitup?

[reignofchaos]

Not sure how much it is but can find out in a day or so. I guess both the bumpers will need replacement, plus the side skirts all around and the rear spoiler.

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by WhiteKnight

Excellent report!! Hope to see you and you beauty soon.

Btw, you may be able to answer this. How much does the body kit+ spoiler cost, if one wishes to buy Cedia select and go for a kitup?

So... Any chance of us seeing you at one of the meets too?

I would say about 35-40k if you are going for a complete revamp on the bumpers (read custom made), skirts and a spoiler. If you just want to add lips you could get it for about 25k.

[arjun_crsce]

Cedia is the best when it comes high speed drives. the car has serious rapport with rally drivers.
Hey Chaos you could also go and replace the stock filter and probably if you like a custom exhaust. The note emitted is so gud.

I tried chasing one yellow cedia but the guy had fitted nitrox so i could do was nothin. the car rocketed to probably 150 or so in seconds.

Please post some pics.

[akroy]

Excellent Report, First of its kind of Mitsubishi....
FE in the highways is really excellent...

Abhi

[WhiteKnight]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

I guess both the bumpers will need replacement, plus the side skirts all around and the rear spoiler.

Oops....the reason for asking was, I like the lighter colored interior of Cedia spirit/select. Then, I like everything else in Cedia Sports, especially choice of colors and headlight/tail light cluster. I hope they provide mix-n-match option sometime soon.

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

So... Any chance of us seeing you at one of the meets too?

Would love to, and everytime I make plans too. But eventually end up spending time with my family

[reignofchaos]

Here is a 160kph pic. Tried taking another one at 170 odd but got completely messed up cos of camera shake.


The awesome looking tail light cluster


A pretty bad picture taken at night


These are two pics I took even before the badge was taken off




@arjun: I intend to modify it a bit but definitely not anytime soon. Its crazy to mod a brand new engine with the car in warranty period.