New car #rust !
RUST on 5 month old car!
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the door hinges do not appear to be painted. Maybe Mitsubishi forgot to paint my car, but all the hinges are the same. This is no mistake! This is the reason all drive test cars are white! So you will not be able to see how bad the paint job is on Mitsubishi cars!
I tried putting this lack of paint thought aside, and trying to reassure myself with the fact that the car comes with 12 year corrosion warranty, but it did not work.
This NEW issue kept keeping me wake at night, so I decided to investigate. I took a digital camera with macro lens and made pictures.
The conclusion is RUST!
The paint is so bad that you can see tiny particle inside the paint and inside the lacquer!
Plastic side #panels for wheels.
Because the paint on this Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is so bad I decided to add plastic side protection for the wheel arches. Any small rock thrown by the tiers can chip the paint on the fenders. I will not do off-road with this car, but this is a 4x4 SUV and should be able to tackle a road without tarmac.
Improving on design!
So, I installed unique side protection for the car panels. The PHEV model is the only model that does NOT come with side protection for the car fenders and adding such plastic panes is not even an option for PHEV. It does not exist in Mitsubishi catalog, you can not order them!
You can add this protection on your car only if you order them from the parts catalog for a regular Outlaner, not the PHEV model. And then you need to paint them because they come in black.
This plastic side panels have bolts that need to be attached by the fenders, via drilling into the fender so be careful. You also will need to modify the plastic element that is glued to the car metal body because the original one does not come with adhesive all the way. Buying the same adhesive patches will be required. I recommend doing this operation at the dealer so you will not lose the car warranty. Good luck!
Regular car
My car!