Mitsubishi Carisma reunited after 16 years

[spartacus]

I'm sure you've looked but it appears to be the same as a couple of other models, it just might be a risk as many of them come from Thailand.

[RoadworkUK]

Every single aspect of this endeavour gives me the feels. Splendid work.

[P304r5]

22 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

Every single aspect of this endeavour gives me the feels. Splendid work.

thank you!

[Cord Fourteener]

Lovely story.

I had the facelift '53 plate 1.9 diesel in charcoal grey. I might have some photos on a hard drive in a drawer.

Much underrated car; it is no sports car but I had a 130hp 260nm remap and it went without any trouble.

Most of the reviewers moaned about the suspension being crap and it being dull. I totally disagree, the suspension worked, especially when you were carrying family, logs, whatever. It was comfortable, well thought out, even quite pretty. And yes it was the sibling to the V40. So some of the parts are Volvo and my 1.9 was Renault. I can't say for the 1.6 (I nearly bought a 1.6)

It was incredibly easy to live with and love, and rare enough to be an event when you saw another one.

Unfortunately my Renault 1.9 turbo diesel had a limp mode gremlin. It never let me down but it would throw random limp mode when you weren't expecting. I had it a year and other than that it was great. I sold it to a mate for £300, he was determined to get to the bottom of it but he never did either, he had it two years!

Good luck with this, I hope you find the parts you need.

[motorpunk]

I visited the production line a few times. It was built at Nedcar in the Netherlands. Dunno what they have in common with the Volvo but they were on the same production line as I recall. I also recall loads of workers smoking dope and bikes being used to get about inside the production halls. Good times.

[P304r5]

59 minutes ago, Tim_E said:

Lovely story.

I had the facelift '53 plate 1.9 diesel in charcoal grey. I might have some photos on a hard drive in a drawer.

Much underrated car; it is no sports car but I had a 130hp 260nm remap and it went without any trouble.

Most of the reviewers moaned about the suspension being crap and it being dull. I totally disagree, the suspension worked, especially when you were carrying family, logs, whatever. It was comfortable, well thought out, even quite pretty. And yes it was the sibling to the V40. So some of the parts are Volvo and my 1.9 was Renault. I can't say for the 1.6 (I nearly bought a 1.6)

It was incredibly easy to live with and love, and rare enough to be an event when you saw another one.

Unfortunately my Renault 1.9 turbo diesel had a limp mode gremlin. It never let me down but it would throw random limp mode when you weren't expecting. I had it a year and other than that it was great. I sold it to a mate for £300, he was determined to get to the bottom of it but he never did either, he had it two years!

Good luck with this, I hope you find the parts you need.

thanks, would love to see photos when you find them! my GDI was £100 in March and only needed a 90p bulb to pass an mot! I had a problem where it would cut out but it was only for a day after disconnecting the battery, apparently its normal to do this as the ecu is relearning? I thought it was almost as good to drive as my old Mk1 focus with the famously good handling! 

[RoadworkUK]

The Carisma was really something of a victim of circumstance. At that point in the 90s the Mondeo and the Primera were winning rave reviews, the 406 was the alternative choice, people were waking up to the BMW 3 Series and Audi A4 actually not being too far out of their reach. For being not quite as good as the market leaders, and not having any particular killer hook when it came to style or finnesse, it might as well not have existed.

Happens to the best of them, though. The Mondeo today is what the Carisma was then.

[RichardK]

That's an awesome story!

I had a Carisma - well, my dad had a Carisma. In essence, in the way that family businesses/father-son working etc. gets confusing and a weird set of controls, he kept making decisions that made no sense to me. For example, I needed an estate car and had been driving his old Mercedes 200T; instead of giving/selling me the 200T, he traded it in for a Jeep Cherokee and I got an ex-demo Marea that I traded back in at a huge loss to get a Volvo 480. (Had I been given the 200T, I wouldn't have changed from it).

He regretted the Cherokee almost instantly. Not only was it tiny, it was thirsty (for him - again, I had no problem with it) and he didn't get on with it. So when a leasing company offered a cheap Carisma GDi, he took that on (while the Jeep lease was still running!) and I stole the Jeep.

Then he got a Mercedes A-Class when the Jeep went back and guess what... I nicked the Carisma!

Observations of the 1.8 GDi:

It was one of the first small cars I'd had with aircon (i.e. the Jeep had it but it felt like it should). It was awesome.
It was faster, five up, through some bends on the Coldstream road than I felt comfortable punting a Porsche 924S through the same bends at.
In regular use it returned 44mpg. The only petrol car I've had that delivered that at that time was a Mk 2 Golf 1.8 GTi 8v.
Like the Golf, when playing fuel-light roulette I got the trip computer to show 52mpg. OTOH, in the Carisma it was repeatable. (I believe it has a similar power to weight to the 5-door Golf - a little more bhp, a little more heft).
It had seats that looked like a tie-dye elephant
Someone walked on it and bent the roof
It was blue.

Genuinely thought it was a good, well-sorted and not unappealing car - but it did go wrong, coil pack failed early on etc. The GDi tech really did work - but then, we know that, because pretty much every tiny-engine, turbo-charged, 40mpg+ petrol car has it.

[sierraman]

10 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

The Carisma was really something of a victim of circumstance. At that point in the 90s the Mondeo and the Primera were winning rave reviews, the 406 was the alternative choice, people were waking up to the BMW 3 Series and Audi A4 actually not being too far out of their reach. For being not quite as good as the market leaders, and not having any particular killer hook when it came to style or finnesse, it might as well not have existed.

Happens to the best of them, though. The Mondeo today is what the Carisma was then.

It was one of those cars, good but probably not quite good enough to tempt people. How many did they sell in the U.K. i wonder?

[P304r5]

4 hours ago, RichardK said:

That's an awesome story!

I had a Carisma - well, my dad had a Carisma. In essence, in the way that family businesses/father-son working etc. gets confusing and a weird set of controls, he kept making decisions that made no sense to me. For example, I needed an estate car and had been driving his old Mercedes 200T; instead of giving/selling me the 200T, he traded it in for a Jeep Cherokee and I got an ex-demo Marea that I traded back in at a huge loss to get a Volvo 480. (Had I been given the 200T, I wouldn't have changed from it).

He regretted the Cherokee almost instantly. Not only was it tiny, it was thirsty (for him - again, I had no problem with it) and he didn't get on with it. So when a leasing company offered a cheap Carisma GDi, he took that on (while the Jeep lease was still running!) and I stole the Jeep.

Then he got a Mercedes A-Class when the Jeep went back and guess what... I nicked the Carisma!

Observations of the 1.8 GDi:

It was one of the first small cars I'd had with aircon (i.e. the Jeep had it but it felt like it should). It was awesome.
It was faster, five up, through some bends on the Coldstream road than I felt comfortable punting a Porsche 924S through the same bends at.
In regular use it returned 44mpg. The only petrol car I've had that delivered that at that time was a Mk 2 Golf 1.8 GTi 8v.
Like the Golf, when playing red-light roulette I got the trip computer to show 52mpg. OTOH, in the Carisma it was repeatable. (I believe it has a similar power to weight to the 5-door Golf - a little more bhp, a little more heft).
It had seats that looked like a tie-dye elephant
Someone walked on it and bent the roof
It was blue.

Genuinely thought it was a good, well-sorted and not unappealing car - but it did go wrong, coil pack failed early on etc. The GDi tech really did work - but then, we know that, because pretty much every tiny-engine, turbo-charged, 40mpg+ petrol car has it.

love that!! I normally get high 30s mpg, did get 64mpg on a carriageway but not sure how accurate the trip computer is! the seats in the earlier cars did have some good patterns, my facelift is just blue but you could have bright red too! 

[P304r5]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

It was one of those cars, good but probably not quite good enough to tempt people. How many did they sell in the U.K. i wonder?

about 43,000