11. Mitsubishi Eclipse
The last generation of Mitsubishi’s affordable sports model Eclipse was a popular choice among the JDM crowd. In most cases, this was a decent car by all means. Despite being a front-wheel-drive car, the Eclipse still provided a fair amount of performance and driving dynamics.
However, in the quality department, the Eclipse had a major problem with their automatic transmission. The wave cushion spring, which is a small and inexpensive part, could snap and go through the transmission oil filter and oil pump. This caused the whole gearbox assembly to run out of oil. In that case, the transmission immediately stopped working, leaving drivers stranded without any forward gears or reverse. This was a problem for Eclipse cars from the early 2000’s.
So, if you are looking for an Eclipse, try to find a manual one. They didn’t have any significant problems or quality issues. However, if you are keen on the automatic, look for cars that a professional has fixed like replacing the gearbox. Run away from cars that haven’t had any work done. That means that transmission failure is just around the corner.