Budget Car Reviews EP 1 - 1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS Spyder

a little bonus for you guys ah the smell of burning rubber hey guys yoda code 43 here today with another tour and drive for you today i've got the chance to check out this 1999 mitsubishi eclipse gs spider with a five-speed manual and a 4g 64 2.4 liter non-turbo charged four-cylinder engine first we're going to take a little walk around the car kind of show you what's up this is my first time doing a it's called a car of this caliber i'm going to take my chances i'm going to nitpick all the things that i see are wrong with the car but i'm also going to talk about all the things that are right with it as well as go for a drive and talk about that so first of all let's talk about the history of these so this is a second generation mitsubishi eclipse these ran from 1995 to 1999 this is the final model year of it the eclipse ran from 1990 all the way to 2012 as a sports coupe from mitsubishi but we also technically built them here in illinois for the north american market also called them the eagle talon and the plymouth laser as captive imports but the mitsubishi eclipse was the main line and the first generation you could get in a couple flavors uh you could have them with something as small as a 1.8 liter 97 horsepower 4-cylinder and front-wheel drive all the way up to the wild flavor which was your gst or talent tsi or i believe it was the laser rs turbo was the right model and they had a 2-liter 4g 63 twin cam turbocharged four-cylinder with 195 horsepower in the first generation this second gen car was an evolution of the first the chassis is mainly the same but uh these were a little more simplified you had the rs which is your base model the gs which came in spider or coupe form and the gst which was your turbocharged form and there was also the gsx which is a turbocharged all-wheel drive version so earlier like 95 to 97 models had uh a chrysler engine basically a 2.0 liter single overhead cam four cylinder sorry it's a dual overhead cam four cylinder from the dodge neon the 420a it was called was 138 horsepower then in 98 or 99 this one like this car has is a 2.4 liter mitsubishi engine the 4g64 uh with 130 940 horsepower then there was an updated version of the 4g63 turbo with 210 horsepower in the eclipse and i mean in the united states this was the car that preceded the mitsubishi evolution the lancer evolution they had a pretty tight interior but it's very stylish honestly the fitting of the top on these was really tight when they were new and this one you can tell it's starting to to where i'm pretty sure it's the original if i'm honest but there's no holes in it a small hole in the rear window but not a big deal it doesn't leak anything chrysler cars the 1990s suffered from some massive paint issues this one is no exception this silver metallic is just it almost looks like it's burning away this car was reportedly a california car before somehow it ended up in michigan and i guess that's true to form with the uh the paint peel the hood's been replaced at some point not good because i think it's also been hit at some point the fog lights i don't know if gs cars had fog lights or not but nonetheless they're not in this car nice zip tie stitching on the bumper some tire rack special wheels with some uh oh are those winter tires i didn't look they are bridgestone bridgestone blizzaks yes those are winter tires 17 inch wheels 215 50 tires this side of the car is actually in remarkably good shape ding in the bottom of the door but uh the paint's all in good shape the silver i mean i'm not a silver guy myself i don't really like it on any car but it looks okay here the original hoop style wing a little bit of clear coat on that but added a really cool look to these cars really though the wings i feel only belonged on the turbo cars this one also has a set of aftermarket tail lights in it the altezza style as was super popular in the early 2000s and then this one like i said is a facelift model which has round reverse lights as opposed to triangular ones near the license plate opening there and there's this one has a modified exhaust on it which i'm pretty sure doesn't have a muffler or a cat in it it's pretty loud this one has drum brakes but standard five by four and a half wheels which are really common with many american cars you can put all sorts of different wheels on these some cool stickers on this one too just in case you didn't know it's a spider you probably saw this one in passing before remember the buster looking headlights in these cars too i thought very modern for 19.95 for that styling anyway take a look under the hood good release down here check out the trunk too [Applause] so it's actually a mildly usable trunk it's really deep you can see my equipment chilling inside of there but it's really high lift over on top of the taillights and then the well normally power antenna that comes out of the rear fender here's the glory as soon as i can find it there it is 4g64 non-turbocharged 138 horsepower 4-cylinder 2.4 liter a bunch of serpentine belts and a timing belt over on the right side transmission on the left when you're looking at it cold air intake on this one hot air intake if we're being honest uh though things so far i've really liked is how it shifts and i'll talk about that more on the drive i think it's a rod shifter but it's it's pretty good pretty good not much else to note under here [Music] take a look at the inside here if you don't grab the door handle just right the door doesn't open and that one's been replaced the patterning on these door panels is freaking interesting i think they're cool very nineties for sure and then uh trick little piece to add to the effectiveness of the hvac and heating system is they have the vents come out of the dash and seal off to the doors you get nice cool air up here as well as your defrost vent on top of the door here and obviously frameless doors this is a convertible after all but uh manual adjusting mirrors on both sides this one's got some sports pedals in it a little dirty in here don't mind that and actually i was surprised to see i know most 90s cars had it but i was surprised to see that this convertible top has a headliner in it too it's coming down a little bit in the back there makes it really hard to see out of the rear in addition to the wing it's just it's almost impossible to see out of if we're being honest absolutely no support in these seats whatsoever but they are comfy they're comfy i was mentioning the shifter is really good but we'll check that out in a little bit center stack is pretty typical 90s hvac vents at the top on the right side there you have the power top button here which i'll demonstrate in a little bit hvac controls in the middle radio with cd change or a cd player at the bottom it's not a cd changer just a single cd gauges that are um very optimistic 170 miles an hour but i think they just shared it between the turbo and non-turbo models you'd normally have a cup holder and maybe an ashtray in here basic glove bottom center console and the glove box over here which is sticky so we're just going to leave that and then yeah there's rear seats sure but um i wouldn't want to sit in them because they're perfectly vertical at the back and uh there's no room even behind me and i moved forward probably three inches from from the previous driver who's in here he's tall though he's 6'4 and he drives this thing no problem or at least he says he does well let's fire it up and see about getting the top down [Music] some interesting lighting for the gauges little squeaky zoom out a bit here sorry you can probably see my uh stabilizer but we'll uh we'll pop the top as simple as pull down those and hit the button and see how she goes [Laughter] simple as that fast and easy surprising how fast actually for the age of car we'll uh step out here and take a look around if you hear a run a lot of belts squeal at first but once that quiets down the engine is pretty quiet a little little ticky but i think that's just the age i know the top end of the engine's been gone through on this one they're actually really handsome cars with the top down not really a bad angle for it do another little walk around here it looks good it does oh yeah i forgot i popped the gas door earlier yep nothing special to know this is gonna be fun a little bit of an oil burner i could smell it i could see it but uh nothing really to be concerned about alrighty with that i think we're gonna go for a drive so i'm gonna set up the cameras and we'll go all right we're gonna fire it [Music] up airbag light is on service engine soon light is on we've got some fuel and uh yeah pretty much how it goes take this thing for a spin [Music] surprised by the throttle response actually quite good sounds good pretty cool if it had a turbo but not necessary cars already warmed up [Music] pause for the effect of losing the gopro bonus clip right here okay well we'll see if it holds on this time oh we got to watch your face first you're going to clip it on the windshield frame there we go more confident than that anyway problem with a dirty car it's hard to make the camera stick clutch engagement's really good so far i feel like it's gonna be a lot of fun oh yeah this is great oh i love it already this is great as a convertible this is probably the second time i've driven an eclipse and the first one i drove was also a non-turbo but it was a third generation automatic which is even heavier than this car this car's curb weight is like just under 2 900 pounds something like that as big as 28.88 i'll have to make sure i check and put that here ah gosh 0 to 60 in these has got to be 10 seconds i'll give it a shot at some point to find out but uh i can't imagine it's really fast there's some cowl shake if you watch you probably can't see it in the camera but i could tell then that the windshield frame shakes independently of the body good rpm for cruising 2300 at 55 i feel that's accurate anyway great gas pedal uh to be honest though i don't have a lot of room for my knees i'm kind of touching off to the steering wheel and it's pulled all the way up [Music] just driving around flint here might just cruise down so i can hop on the highway for a minute i'm gonna get some funny looks from people when you see all the cameras stuck to this thing it actually runs really great probably burns some oil but runs amazing drives quite nice too i really like the shifter it feels like a rod shifter it grabs a gear you know you're there oh their intake really brings out the anger in this motor it's not fast but it sounds great i don't like it i hate the seats the bottom is cushy the back is stiff and there's no support whatsoever and you know i kind of have the legs of a taller person but not as tall as my friend but regardless of the fact that i have to move forward my knees are quite bent in order to push the clutch all the way and feel comfortable i'm touching both sides and i mean it's kind of hot plastic it's uh it's about 85 degrees out today in flint it's sticky you know it's not going to rain but it could one of those situations summer in the midwest right i mean you know despite the appearances of this particular car it's a really nice driving car you know i don't feel the need for the turbo version it's a ton of fun to drive having to be a convertible just adds to the fun if it was a coupe it'd probably be more boring but uh having to be open is great i was reading online ahead of time these uh are rated for 22 and 33 to the gallon city and highway which is pretty respectable for uh for the size of the engine being a 2.4 liter it sounds so mean so angry but it's so slow perfect ah getting onto the construction-laden highway of i-69 near flint right now yeah i mean above 65 it no completes the card rides really well even for having winter tires on it i think we'll uh stop once i hop off the highway and put the roof up and see what it's like driving around like that for a few the ac works in this car too and it works really well really well easy to to downshift kick the pedal the brakes are good still hear the ticking of the engine though might actually need some oil oh man you guys won't be able to see it until i turn the corner there's a caddy srx that is done up like the ghostbusters mobile right there that's awesome this thing is way too much fun way too much fun for what it is don't drive the crap out of this thing today guy [Music] all right we're gonna pull over this parking lot right here put the roof up it's a little slower coming up than going down but that's okay okay i feel like that's yep that's on there okay lots of traffic and noise out here nothing you just heard rolled by was a chevy cobalt it must be missing on more than one cylinder it is not pretty sounds good i don't normally like a lot of how four-cylinder sound but this sounds like a big beefy four cylinder it is it's 2.4 liters gotta wait for traffic here nobody does the speed limit on on thorne highway i really like how this drives like the shifter i like the handling even in the convertible i'm sure the coupe is way better because it's stiffer [Music] i mean this thing's happy to do whatever i want not fast but it'll do it ah all the sounds of flint and there are many this makes fun i would go go cut some curvy roads with this thing right now i would [Music] i would have really liked to drive one of these when they were close at being new this one's pretty tight for its age holy crap a suzuki x90 that's still running if you don't know what that is here's a picture for you funky looking things i like weird stuff that's a weird thing it was easy for me to just jump in here and drive i mean i know how to drive stick i've driven many many many cars but uh nothing to get used to here the clutch grabs right where you expect it to right in the middle and it's great it really is oh this will be fun train tracks those are really good ones but the car is actually pretty softly sprung it bounces more in the back than it does in the front i mean it doesn't handle expansion joints well you hear the windows rattling in the doors you feel the whole body shake but in honesty you know the card soaks up a lot of it it doesn't transmit to you as the driver but the steering feedback is really good for this car i like it man this thing's fun for what it is i mean that was 0-65 it took some time but it was fun it sounds great oh we need fuel well with that i'm going to end this video i hope you guys enjoyed it like comment subscribe to suggest other cars you want to see on the channel i got some more imports coming from nomad in the coming weeks i've got uh well hopefully some more let's call them used cars coming from some local friends and uh yeah see you guys next time all right we got a bonus clip of the eclipse here you can see the top go down from the outside oh look at that i was surprised how fast it was and it lets you know when it's there because it just shuts off and you have to have the e-brake yeah i figured that okay so for the record the owner has told me to start calling these budget car reviews and i might i might do that [Music] yeah right a little bonus for you guys ah the smell of burning rubber burning winter rubber [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you