I was wondering if anyone has, or is about to go into arbitration about the paint on the sides of their car getting "sandblasted" while driving. Any details you can share?

Dealership argued with Mitsu for 2 days over the cost to repaint the sides of my car but they refused to pay for it. Mitsubishi is taking the stance that it's caused by "road conditions".

Dealership told me they would repaint the skirts and touch up the doors for $125 but that it wouldn't do any good unless I put mudflaps on at the same time.

They claim that they can reverse the rear mud flaps that Mitsu sells so that they fit the front (I think that is BS) and that the set of four installed would be $140. Basically what their telling me is that if I want to have and keep paint on the sides of my car I'll have to cough up $265.

Oh yeah, and if a panel rusts out because I don't have this "maintenance" done then the corrosion warranty is worthless.

The streets and highways where I live would be considered average at the very least and above average when compared to other cities. We don't get a lot of snow, all of the roads are paved and there's no desset or beach nearby.

My question to Mitsubishi is "exactly what kind of road conditions was this car designed for?" If it can't take average road conditions without serious damage to the finish then that tells me there is a problem with their design.

I'm thinking arbitration right now but if there's enough of us with this problem then perhaps a class action law suit would get their attention.

Sorry....PO'd and ranting. :blush-anim-cl:

Class action law suit is what we need...the paint on this car is bull.....at least 15 chips on this car and its only got 8000 miles...and the roads here are in good condition....

I would go with class action

Sign me up! Mitsu should get what they deserve!

Just went to my mitsi dealership to ask about my paint chips and what not..

Shced. For body shop next wednesday, new paintjob, Free of charge..

You can't take this problem to arbitration, already tried it. They said is has nothing to do with the new vehicle warranty. Believe me, I've been fighting this battle for 2 months with no luck. My lawyer said we could win a case, but he would cost way more than a 2000 dollar paint job.

I've managed to fix the paint with a product from drcolorchip.com, stuff works great. Only 50 bucks!

Rallyarmor.com will have flaps out towards the end of this month.

That's what the dealership told me. I had it scheduled and they had my car for three days while they argued about it. Everything changed once they found out that additional parts were involved and that Mitsu wasn't going to reimburse them.

Hopefully you have better luck than I did.

Hence the Class Action suit. Yes, it would cost to much to take each case on a one on one basis. Lump them all together, make it public and that changes the whole scenario. I'm not positive but I believe the rule of thumb is that the total amount must exceed small claims, there must be enough plantifs to make hearing individual cases impractical, the complaints must be based on the same factual occurance and be multi-jurisdictional.

I'll look into the drcolor stuff, just wondering how it will work on pearlcoat like the tarmac black. The car changes color in the sun so it might stand out like a sore thumb.

I'll also check the price of the Rally Armour flaps when they come out but this car should have had deflectors or a protective coating (like my Jetta) build into the design.

Bottom line though...I don't think we should have to pay for Mitsu's error.

I'm in, the paint job on our cars is terrible. I've only had my car for a week and it now has more rock chips and scratches than the car I sold to buy it. I thougt about taking it in for a clear coat, but I don't think I should have to pay to fix Mitsubishi's mistake.

When I got my car about a month and a half ago, I had that happen. My dealership was really good about it because I was pretty mad at them.

They ended up polishing it out for me and put a sealant around my rear wheel wells.. The only thing is, it kind of looks like they put a clear sticker on it. If you look closely at the car you can see it.

But it protects from any rock chips so I will put up with it.

The best part is, they polished the paint out for free and gave me a discount on the coating. It cost me $100.00 over all.

i got my car repainted (fully detailed in and out as well) by mitsu in those affected areas. the paint in fixed spots doesnt seem to match the rest (looks like maaco did the job) , so i'm going to leave my car again..at dealership on thursday...

Just an insight:

Since our cars were made in Japan and created by a Japanese company, I guess it would be reasonable to think that our cars were designed for driving in Japanese road conditions.

When I was getting my car fixed, the service department was talking about how they USE Maaco for their painting on their used vehicles.. maybe thats where your car went...

Explain the Left Hand Drive then :grin:

My whole car needs to be detailed. There's hairline scratches all over... blah.

hopefully not maaco.
i'll ask them which paint shop they use...
i know a good place not to far away from the dealer. i might just recommend it to them...
tomorrow is the day. :gunsmilie:

I have a question here...after reading all about some of the paint problems my question is... when did you guys start seeing chips, scratches, etc on the paint?

I have the tarmac black, car about a month old, has about 1600 miles on it. The roads I drive on are all rural roads, no curbs, pretty much road to gravel to grass on the sides of the road, and my drive way to my house is beat up, all kinds of gravel and loose stones....but I do not have one scratch, chip, blemish, or anything. In fact i was just saying the other day that my toyota solara chipped in about a week, but not this car yet.

And the other day while sitting in a shopping center parking lot, all of a sudden something hits my car so hard that I thought someone backed into it. It was a windy day and when I got out saw it was a shopping cart that hit me right on the drivers side at the rear wheel well. It came from about 200 yards away across the lot and slammed into me. I checked the car and nothing, nada, not a chip, scratch, or anything, not even a smudge. Paint was perfect. Did a bad batch of cars go out that had bad paint and most others will be fine, or is it too early in my cars life to tell yet?

And BTW - the only thing I have put on my car is turtle wax liquid ice. I just wiped it down last night and even the bugs come off the front end pretty easily. Am I lucky, is the liquid ice protecting me, or is the paint probs not the norm? Thanks for any comments you have.

after around ~2000miles in my case.

You know what I meant :P

hmmm...I'll have to keep an eye on mine. I know the dealer tried to sell me something called clear guard (i think) for $1000. Its was like a clear protective "sticker" that they put behind the wheels to protect the paint from chipping, but I passed. I wonder if they know from experience or they were just trying to sell me more stuff. Time will tell. lol

Same here, but I passed since I knew I would be keeping the car in tip top shape on my own.

When I was removing my front licence plate frame to put on a smoked cover, I noticed that I had an indentation from a rock chip on my front bumper, just below the left headlight. I could handle the paint chips and hairline scratches, but this...

:(

Is there anyway we can launch a class action on Mitsubishi?

I mean hell, i've had my car for 8 months now and i've got more rock chips than my dad's Honda Odyssey which is 9 years old!!!

The paint is so ****....

And i've now noticed my windscreen has an assload of chips on it too.