6.1

fairly significant
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
13,000 miles

About These NHTSA Complaints:

The NHTSA is the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints can be spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem. See the Back button — blue bar at the very top of the page — to explore more.

Get notified about new defects, investigations, recalls & lawsuits for the 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution:

Unsubscribe any time. We don't sell/share your email.

problem #1

Nov 132003

Lancer Evolution 4-cyl

  • Manual transmission
  • 13,000 miles
ECU registers P0300 (multiple cylinder misfire) obdii error code. Error code is thrown, ses light comes on, and car stumbles until throttle is released. This typically occurs at light throttle or cruising (steady) throttle. It can occur under load (acceleration) but never occurs on deceleration. Known facets of this problem thus far are: 1) Mitsubishi is aware of 2 issues: Sticky (dirty) injectors and a transmission harmonic resonance, which throws the knock sensor 2) the car is undriveable when this occurs until the throttle is released. 3) my vehicle in particular is almost 100% undriveable on the highway due to this problem recurring every 10-15 seconds during any sort of highway driving period. 4) it _is_ a safety issue as I have had this occur under light acceleration attempting to merge into traffic, only to be met with what feels like a wall when the error code is thrown and the ECU retards the timing because it is detecting knock (which is not actually occurring). 5) Mitsubishi (mmna) is apparently aware of an ECU reflash fix for this problem (the harmonic resonance issue, not the injector issue). They have claimed that the flash will be out "within 3-6 weeks" since November 2003, and it is still not out nor available. I have been told it is held up in epa certification. This problem has occurred for me literally hundreds of times, and no dealership has been able to fix it because Mitsubishi will not authorize any warranty work on my vehicle for this problem, citing that "a fix is already on the way, wait for it."

- San Jose, CA, USA