The Mirage isn't popular but the people who do own them swear by them. Surprisingly, not just urban folks but more rural people who drive far and need an economical, reliable car.

Im absolutely impressed. Driving a car 500k is hard in itself. Motor looks almost new. Honestly. That is called regular service. Pretty simple logic.

It's fun when you realize you don't need an engine stand because you can lift the engine up. Cool little engine!

This honestly is a testament to treating your machines well and the benefit of adhering to factory service intervals

I am amazed by how clean this engine is inside, goes to show what regular oil changes can do.

Here in Australia, the 1.5L 4 cylinder Mirage(3 door) and Lancers have revered status as bulletproof runabouts. I bought one from a wrecking yard - it just needed a hood - and with some brakes, injector o-rings and roll bar bushings we got it registered for a new driver. He, naturally, ran up the arse of someone and bought something else but still mentions how reliable and simple to work on the Mitsi was.

I have a mirage with 480,000km and a checrolet spark 2013 with 502,000km both are taxis here in mexico, absolutely reliable just regular mantenaince on both.

Mitsubishi never makes bad and unhealthy cars. Even though this situation almost bankrupts it, it does not give up its traditions. Those who do not like it should not forget that they bought a car according to their money. Good maintenance gives positive results for every car, but engineering quality determines the total quality. This is a nice video, thank you. 35 As someone who has only used Mitsubishi models for years, you showed me how right I was. In my country, Turkey, vehicles are very expensive and we take care of them.

I worked at a tiny mitsu dealer and i always enjoyed these cars for how fun and cheap and simple they were, especially with the stick shift. Good, BASIC transportation. especially if you get 300k+

the cleanest 325k mile engine i've ever seen.no wonder it went 325k.obviously well maintained.

could you imagine anyone asking for more out of a $12,000 to $15,000 dollar car !!! back in the day this is what made honda toyota and nissan famous.

I’ve owned 5 Mitsubishi’s now and never really had a issue with any of them. Currently have a ASX/Outlander sport with 220k on it and still no issues

Especially when inflation adjusted, this is easily one of the best price:distance ratio cars I've ever heard of. Wow.

For as hard as those engines have to work, there isn't much wear other than the piston skirts. Very impresive.

I remember when Doug DeMuro made a video on this car simply dissing it acting like its a completely throwaway car that would only last like 100k miles 😂 maintenance does a lot for an engine!

Typical bulletproof Mitsubishi engineering, run and last forever

That "Red Stuff" is probably anerobic sealer that squeezed out during assembly. Pretty harmless. Impressive little engines these things are!

My 2015 (almost 9 years old) Mirage CVT has 80.000 miles on it and I had zero defects. Zero oil consumption (yes, it is possible!). I only drive below 60 mph (= speed limit here) on highways. 60 mpg on average. What was replaced? 16 wipers, 2 front brakes (discs and pads), 4 tyres, oil every 10.000 miles, 1 oil change for CVT, a dynamo belt (not a defect, just screaming at cold start), 2 times an alignment (and due again, it is a weak point apparently), a top off of the airco refrigerant, and a small leakage at the roof (just some kit applied). No rust visible, no rattles anywhere. As new.

I miss my '18 Mirage ES manual...reliable, simple and dependable...fun to drive and fantastic gas mileage...loved that little car 😢❤

Mitsubishi has been around a very long time remember the “zero”? Plus your maintenance regime is top notch. I’ve been in engines with 70 thousand miles that looked a hundred times worse. Great job😊

I imagine if you replaced the pistons and bearings you could get another 200K miles. Amazing engine.

Looks like a perfectly good and reliable engine, i'm impressed.

Thank you for making these awesome videos!! ❤❤

Kudos to your maintenance regime! That's cleaner than some 80,000km engines I've seen!

I can see one of the reason why it lasted so long. The engine block isn’t open deck, it’s closed deck. Those are less prone to warping.

I wish I kept my mirage, most reliable car I've ever owned. Just catches wind like a sail, so not too great for daily interstate travel.

I'm more impressed by someone driving a little matchbox car close to 60.000km a year than the condition of the engine lol. That's quite a human achievement. 😅

Cool teardown, thanks for sharing - the greater cylinder wear on the firewall side is normal - all piston engines have a major thrust side caused by the piston pressing harder on one cylinder wall side during the power stroke, which causes more wear - the opposite side is the minor thrust side

Keep doing the videos the way you are doing them, technical and informative.,well done, new subscribtion added. A great little engine indeed !

Amazing how clean the inside of an engine is when it DOESN’T have direct fuel injection. Most pistons get skirt wear on one side. The firing event happens more on one side of the piston than the other, causing the piston to tilt slightly and forcing it harder in to the cylinder wall on one side.

Incredible. So clean! Shows you what good oil at regular intervals can do!

Regular oil changes make a big difference. What a concept!

Stumbled randomly upon this video. I am not a car guy, I don't even own one but I really enjoyed it !! Learnt a bunch of stuff :)) ! Pretty cool content !

Wow, that little mitsy engine still looks in phenomenal shape. 👍👍

My 1999 mirage has 410k miles and still running great never had to rebuild anything . Original engine and trans.

The fact that this economy car lived to half a million kilometers is an achievement.

Nice video, thanks for sharing. It would be nice to see the engine assembled and working again.

By the look of this, I’m going to die before my mirage. I bought mine in 2014 at 30. Now I’m 40 and the car doesn’t have 90k. So another 40 years of duty for her I guess 😅

For the bearings that's not a spec of dirt , that's a spot caused by acids accumulating in the engine oil due to it not getting above 100 degrees C (212 F) , the acids remain there and eats the bearing surface , it's caused by short drives and not letting the oil warm up so that it can evaporate those acids and vent them through the crankcase breather

I'm impressed by this little engine

I worked at the dealership for a while and we did replace these engines from time to time simply due to piston slap. You could simply replace the pistons and go for a while longer but at the dealer it wasnt worth the labor for the customers so we replaced the engines instead Interesting teardown!

Send this to Doug Demuro. I agree that the car is basic and cheap, but the amount of kilometres gained and the condition of the engine is pretty remarkable.

I'm still in shock at how amazing those rod bearings look after all that time. Good design + good maintenance gets you that I guess.

I’m really happy to see that these cars can go the distance. It’s great that such affordable cars like this still exist.

The Mirage is an amazing car. Is it comfy, fast, or fancy? No, obviously not. But it is (or at least was) dirt cheap, ultra reliable, and if something did break you either didn't care or it was cheap to fix.

I bought a 2017 G4 with a 5 speed brand new, and the only issue I've had with it is having to replace the oil pan because the ham-fisted teenager doing oil changes at the dealer damaged mine. The entire car seems to be built so that a normal person can take it all the way apart with socket wrenches.

my daily driver is an 87 lancer.its 37 yrs old and runs like a swiss watch,only been apart once to replace head gasket and timing belt,nothing else,except water pump,valves and cam were fine,also replaced valve seals..great car

Can instantly tell it was well maintained when that valve cover comes off. Not even golden brown varnish built up. Impressive! Simple little engine. Not highly stressed. Should go a long while with proper maintenance. Really not much wrong inside there. Looks like only real issue is pistons and hurting cylinders. If designed for durability, not fuel economy, would last even longer. I'd expect some brands to go much further with the same maintenance. Of course, other brands will be dead long before this.

I'm driving a 2012 Mitsubishi Colt 5dr with a 3 cyl. 75HP petrol engine. The car has been rock solid so far (Mitsubishi engines from this time are said to be indestructible when taken proper care of and not pushed into the red line). The only non-minor repairs needed until now were a new exhaust pipe and AC compressor. I plan on using the car until it breaks down. Only 85K km so far (I drive 4000-5000km/yr), yearly service/oil change, and the car is parked in a garage, so it's going to last me a very long time :D

Excellent, informative video. Thanks Fummins!

Awesome for its price! What a tough engine! Thanks for sharing.

You call it one of the worst and yet it’s still running halfway decent after more miles than most engines see. Haters are silly people 😂😂

I ran a Diesel version of this engine in a Smart 4-2 & the engine was the only system in that car that was bullet proof, so when I moved on to a newer car all I did was look for a new car with the same block as the 4-2.....voila, the Mirage! If the 4-2's running gear/transmission was as reliable as the Mirage's I would still be driving it.

That's 3x's the mileage of a Ford focus, Ford Fiesta, all little Chevy cars, etc. Mitsubishi doesn't have many dealers because their vehicles never need dealer servicing. Just oil, brakes, air filters, battery and gas.

I have a Peugeot 206 1.9D from 2007 since new, it has 880.000km and still rocking like new, with 10w40 Shell semisynthetic oil changed every 8000-9000km with oil filter, the manufacturer recommends oil changes every 15.000km, around 2/3 of the km were done in highway, foot to the floor at 140kph, its top speed at 4k RPMs, since I work on the city I mostly use this car to do 800km every weekend to visit my family, and not a single problem inside the engine. The only reason my engine was opened at 560.000km was to fix oil leaks changing all the seals (that i will need to do it again next year, is starting to leak again). In all this time it had gone through 3 alternators, 10 distribution kits and coolant changes (every 80.000km), in the fist distribution kit change i also deleted the EGR, that ruins your engine when it gets old, 3 sets of coolant hoses just to be safe and don't risk and overheat due to a hose breaking, steering pump rebuild due to bearing noise at 630.000km, one injection pump rebuild due to diesel leaks at 530.000km, a set of new injectors in this same service, 18 diesel solenoids (yeah those are a piece of junk, I always take all the tools to change it with me, you never know when it will die). Conclusion: if you want your engine to last a large amount of km, just change your oil every half the time your manufacturer recommends and nothing will wear inside of the engine, manufacturers want you to buy new cars, so "recommended" oil change intervals are way distended, so your engine doesn't last long, all the owners of this same car that I know had to rebuild their engines with pistons and crack bearings worn out between 300.000-450.000km, I have done over twice that without problems, just changing the oil with good quality one more frequently, and still don't have a single noise in the engine.

Man if those pistons had cooling jets this motor would last a lifetime

Dude that engine is TINY I could probably pick it up with my hands

Goes to show that maintenance is key. Thank you Sir for the video.

This clearly demonstrates how frequent oil changes extend the life of any engine, even cheap little 3-cylinder mills like this one. Real clean inside and good bearings.

Amazing video, thank you it was very intresting.

This is amazing. I never knew that 3 cyl can go this much

Still better than a Hyundai Theta engine 😂

Damn, it's pristine inside. When you popped that valve cover off I couldn't believe it. I'm used to (and it's been a long time) pulling apart greasy carbureted engines that have been rather neglected and leak oil everywhere. This was like something under a jewelry counter. Old smogger carb'd junk was alwasy so incredibly coked and and just plain done. This could go back together with just new pistons and the bores cleaned up. Thanks to your frequent maintenance.

My friend bought one in 2017 n still driving it, it never had problems, what a car 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

That's very impressive. These Japanese cars are just bricks, ive just clocked 300 000 km in my 2009 honda accord. The engine has never been opened

This is the car many high-school and college students drive here. This is what they can afford. Not fancy but it works.

Wow, you really took good care of it. I expected to see the usual brown film covering the valve train that I see on cars with many fewer miles.

i think one reason a lot of smaller engines last a long time compared with many larger engines with everything else being equal (like quality of bearings, quality of assembly,for instance), is that they hold more crankcase oil, in proportion to their size/displacement than the typical larger engine does. for example a ford 302 or small block chevrolet holds 5 quarts i think with the filter (this is the older models i am talking about, like the 60's and 70's ones, i don't know much about the later versions), yet for example i have a factory service manual for the toyota 20R engine and it says the oil capacity is 3.9 quarts for the pickup, and 4.1 for the corona, if i remember right. so , you have a 2.2 liter engine as opposed to a 5 or 5.7 liter engine, less than half the displacement , but it has much more than half of the amount of crankcase oil to circulate and lube everything. half as many pistons, half as many rings, the same amount of main bearings as most V-8's but they are probably smaller/less surface on the toyota, less camshaft bearings, and half as many camshaft lobes and half as many rod bearings. surely the oil stays cleaner in the smaller engine with everything else being the same such as amount of blowby the engine has (which contaminates the oil faster), and the frequency of oil and filter changes

Thanks for the video 👍🏻 the more wear on one side is normal as pistons lean on that side in the combustion stroke, a quick question Was it burning oil? And if so , how much?

That noise could be the timing chain tensioner failing or the variable valve timing actuator if it is not piston slap or lower end bearing noise which from the looks of this engine it doesn't appear to have much wear despite having high mileage looks perfectly rebuildable to me

If anything this person got every single penny out of this car!

Could you make a video about your recommendation for maintaining the mirage. Intervals and what to check. Thanks in advance

That's amazing but that kind of mileage!!! Good maintenance and good engineering❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉

Dingle ball and put new pistons and rings with the same wrist pins and run it. See what happens. I bet it runs like a top, this engine is clean as hell

I currently work for Mitsubishi, well a dealer. I work on these all the time and they are brilliant little cars. I personally own a 23 outlander sport SE 4wd. We had a lady that drives for Uber and Lyft as her occupation, she had a 2019 outlander sport and she traded it in with a little over 300k miles. The car ran perfect and had no issues. She did all of her maintenance. If I had the spare money I would have given her cash and used it as a beater lol. It makes me happy to see all the love for the Mirage because a lot of the time all i hear are negative things, people act like its a luxury car when in reality its a cheap economy car meant for reliable transportation. I'm a bigger guy so I would have gotten one but obviously its a bit too small for me so i went with the Outlander sport. I will always support Mitsubishi but a heads up to anyone wanting or thinking about getting a new Mitsubishi, do it sooner rather than later if you want an actual Mitsubishi not some Nissan/Renault/Mitsubishi hybrid monstrosity. most of the new models coming out (like the current generation DG Outlander (2022+) are going to be alliance vehicles with Nissan powertrains or some mix of them all.

I sat in a mirage last year and I never wanted to get out of it. That was in a dealership that had range rovers and corvettes and high-end toyotas

The cleanest engine tear down ever

idk if anyone wrote this in the comments yet, but the red stuff in the oil pickup screen is most likely some sort of paint they use in the engine assemlby line to mark off bolt that already have been tightened. lots of engine have this, sometimes blue, sometimes yellow

Oil changes, Oil changes, Oil changes! If there's one thing to be anal about with your cars maintenance its regular oil changes. The manual for my car says 15,000 KM But I don't really like the idea of going that far between changes so I do 8,000 instead. I don't drive all that far so it only ends up being twice a year I change the oil.

I have a manual trans Mirage and I maintain it very well and drive it like a rally car at times. Best little car I have ever owned. Very reliable and easy on fuel. Never once has it let me down. Far more reliable than some more expensive vehicles that I have owned in the past and currently own as well. Note sure what the stuff is on the oil pickup tube. I am wondering if its glue pieces from oil filters. Some filters have glue holding them together. I think the clatter sound is from the crown of the piston tapping the side of the block and the piston goes up and down. Let its clatter on and keep driving. When it grenades itself on my car, I will take my snow brush and plate off the car, leave it in the intersection blocking traffic and take an Uber for the rest of the way home. LOL I enjoyed your tear down. I have always wondered what the inside of one of these engines look like. Plate C

Great video, thanks

Obviously a well serviced engine, Kudos

Got one for a longer term rental, i carry 60 lbs of equipment in my car and im 230lbs. It was super slow but sipped fuel and ran like a watch. I dailied a kia Rio which was way faster but engine codes galore at the time. decided to split the different with a honda fit. 200k miles and it runs like new

Great video. Do you know the oil change interval for both cars? I am very curious and that information will help me. I always liked these little Mitsubishi's. Subscribed.

if you do regular oil changes it will last forever. I drive a 2015 Toyota Tacoma 4 cyl, currently has 280k miles. Still runs as good as original, also have a BMW 325i from 1989, 472k Km so far

Reminds me of my dad’s 2012 Camry.. he threw 285k miles on it. Never gave him a single issue, just regular maintenance until the transmission went out. Even if the transmission gave up the engine was still perfect, no shudders at all, and drove like the day he bought it. Oil came out perfect every time he changed it.

Simple cars like this are great. Nothing fancy to break. As long as the engine is reliable, the car goes forever and is cheap to keep going. I don't think people realize how getting such a simple car can reduce their expenses and hassles so much and they're all convinced that they need to tick the 'yes' box to as many features that they can afford.

Pistons & Cylinders are done. Everything else looks okay-ish for 500k+ km

great video, thanks, but what about transmission? how many transmission have you gone through? and what other troubles with that car? such as starter, water pump, etc. please let us know. thanks

Anything Mitsubishi that was designed and built from the mid 90's on is builtproof if the servicing is kept up. Late G series engines, and all of B, K and J series are as good as any Toyota in terms of reliability.

I like that the engine has a timing chain. The timing belt on my chevy aveo snapped and I've been trying to fix it for a year.

Some say that 524,000km is the break-in period for those Mirages 😂

OMG! The camshafts look almost brand new! 🤩👍 Does the engine have port injection? How about having a look if the valves are dirty and probably causing the noise?

My nissan Pulsar had 498,000km before I sold it and still did not burn a drop and I serviced it every 10,000km with semi synthetic, was an SR20DE manual 5 speed 1998 n15 Pulsar. My dads Fiat Qubo has 400,000 on it only glow plug replaced once, Renault Megane 750,000 before rust was an issue, Peugeot 407 wagon 780,000. And now the most I have seen my Uncles w124 Mercedes 5 cylinder non turbo diesel, 1.4 million, zero issues aside from some old vacuum lines replaced once. 0-100 times on a calender though and 5 speed manual.

Well done on keeping it well maintained, just one of the pitfalls for modern engines with a short skirts, one of my old Toyota liteace vans with 1.8Lt OHV pushrod motor from the 90's had done 450,000km when I did a head gasket could still see the hone marks in the cylinder walls they were full skirts and quite long compared to todays highly stressed engines.

this is really interesting. thanks for the video. just wondering, would you rebuild this engine and put it back in the mirage and clock up a load more miles ?

I gather you maintain a fleet of these vehicles...? If so, you do a very good job doing it. I tip my hat to you.

Mitsubishi makes good stuff. Have had a lot of different Mitsu cars/engines and you do your maintenance and they last. I still daily drive a 4G64 2002 Galant.

500k km for such a small displacement gasoline engine is pretty good, i would say. Many of those little engines dont even last 200k km, especially the ones from vw, unless you get lucky

One of the last simple, dependable, affordable small cars😢