My experience with an Evo VIII that I owned for 4 years (driven in Quebec and Boston) was that after just 3 winters there was significant corrosion under the hood. The 4th year, I had to replace the alternator, which had rusted solid. The paint is very thin and chips easily = more corrosion. These cars are NOT as corrosion resistant as a new BMW for example.
Just out of curiousity(not trying to be a smartass). What extra maintanence does it require over the gts other than synthetic oil, premium gas?
Don't kid yourself. An Evo is a
very high maintenance car. On the basic Evo VIII and IX (with no AYC), the basic service intervals looked like this:
- oil change (full synthetic): every 3000 miles
- transfer case/front diff (Mitsu DiaQueen): every 6000 miles
- rear diff (Mitsu DiaQueen or similar): every 6000 miles
- transmission (OEM Mitsu or similar): every 12K miles
- cooling system flush: yearly
- brake system flush: yearly
According to my buddies who've owner earlier Evos with AYC (Evo IV through Evo VII) the AYC system needs to be flushed and serviced every 3-5K miles if you use it hard. So, that rear diff interval might be half of what I wrote above.
If you drive 10K miles per year, that means the car is in for service at least 3-4 times per year, and half of those are big jobs. Total service costs are easily a few hundred bucks a pop.
All of this assumes a manual tranny. God knows what it costs to service the new paddle-shift tranny. Those things generally eat through clutches like potato chips. Fluid change intervals are generally shorter than regular manual transmissions.
Don't forget, every 30K miles, you've got a MAJOR service. That includes new clutch ($1000 plus labor), new plugs, new seals and o-rings in the head, new valve-cover gasket, new timing belt. Put 100K miles on the car and you'll be doing this 3 times
And let's not even get started on tires, brake pads, and rotors. The car eats them up. Worse than an M3. Guys who run stock turbos find that they usually start to let go between 75K and 100K miles. So add the cost of a new turbo (or a turbo rebuild) to your list.
On top of that, you're talking about a car that burns through a tankful (40+ liters) of 94 octane fuel in 200 miles...maybe 220-240 if you REALLY pussy-foot around. I was barely managing 230 miles per tank on the highway driving like a granny. Might as well drive a Hummer H1.
And then add insurance costs on top of that. Ouch.
Bottom line: The Evo is a very, very expensive car to own. If you're doing big mileage, driving all year round, etc. it's going to get very expensive very quickly. When all the costs are put together, it would honestly be cheaper to buy a new M3. That's not an exaggeration. A brand new E46 M3 (or C.P.O. Porsche 996 C2) would have cost me less to own in 4 years than what my Evo VIII cost. No joke.
