It's no news that Eagle as a standalone brand doesn't exist anymore. It got dissolved on July 4th, 1999. Yet, it technically came out of the same factory that the Mitsubishis came out of. Even the VIN plate on Eagle Talons, for example, state "Mitsubishi Motors North America".

Yet, the VIN itself is coded specifically for Eagle. For example, a GSX's VIN might start like "4MB" or "4A3", where the M and A indicate Mitsubishi specifically. In that case, no matter where you are in the world, such VINs do show up as an actual 2G turbo Eclipse in most places, shops and dealerships.

But what about an Eagle-specific VIN? One that starts as "4E3", E signifying Eagle? Well, so far it seems you're shit out of luck. Not a single shop, parts store or dealership has managed to decode it. I can still find out proper part numbers from CAPS using other VINs or subsections, but the issue is with the legal documents.

Who do you turn to when you want to have a technical document made that confirms what engine this car came with, based on chassis number, what sort of power it has etc...? I went to the Mitsubishi representative here, told them about my case, and they called back saying they cannot decode the VIN. It simply doesn't show up.

When I bought the car originally, the document (I guess what you call a 'title' in the US?) stated 191 kW, or 260 hp. How in the world did they determine that? Turbo DSMs came out with ~214 HP from factory. Even if the PO upgraded the car, there is not a legal way here in Europe to change what the documents say and list the car with more horsepower. Even if you take it to a dyno, they don't accept such 'proof'.

So right now I'm paying almost twice as much because it's listed incorrectly as being more powerful. Mitsubishi here don't seem to be able to help. And we don't even have a Chrysler representative/dealership. But I wonder, would Mitsubishi or Chrysler based off in the US be able to look up this VIN correctly and provide a legal, technical confirmation of factory specs? Have any of you folks in the States ever had experience with this? Those of you who own Eagles, can you even get your VIN decoded properly in parts stores?

Just one of the downsides of owning a 'rare' car, I guess...

On a similar note, does anyone have any stats of how rare an individual talon or eclipse is? Curious for car-shows in the future, would be cool to specify how rare my DSMs are... for bragging rights I guess?

Check out this thread:
https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/call-to-arms-2gb-awd-talon-brethren.456546/
I think it may help you our or at least be enlightening.
I have a 2gb Talon also, but not AWD. Still a SWEET looking car though.

I had no problems using my Eagle VIN at the local Chrysler/Dodge dealership. That is, after all, what Eagle was. So yes, the US-based Chrysler network can handle Eagle VINs. I wouldn't think that an Euro VIN would cause any trouble since it follows the same format, but I've been wrong before. Because I don't particularly like my Chrysler dealership I just found a VIN from a contemporary Eclipse and used that for all of my parts and service requests, but that doesn't help your issue here.

All of the brick and mortar parts stores that I use here ask for year/make/model as oppposed to VIN. In my experience, only dealerships use the VIN to verify parts compatibility.

randman2011 said:

I had no problems using my Eagle VIN at the local Chrysler/Dodge dealership. That is, after all, what Eagle was. So yes, the US-based Chrysler network can handle Eagle VINs.

Click to expand...

I would have thought so, it should logically be like that for the US/Canada. However, it seems there's almost no one who can realistically help me here in my country. And I don't want to involve lawyers since it probably wouldn't work and I'll spend more on lawyers than just paying the damn increased annual tax.

I think it may be possible to get in direct contact with a US-based Chrysler/Dodge dealership, send them my VIN, and have them provide a factory-spec based on this specific car. Then if they relay that information officially to a representative here, I can then possibly use that and have the issue fixed.

The problem is, I first need to find such a dealership. Does anyone know somebody that maybe works in a Chrysler/Dodge dealership and would be willing to get me in contact with him/her?

1990TSIAWDTALON said:

Check out this thread:
https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/call-to-arms-2gb-awd-talon-brethren.456546/
I think it may help you our or at least be enlightening.
I have a 2gb Talon also, but not AWD. Still a SWEET looking car though.

Click to expand...

I suppose this told me enough. 1/2519 produced. A lot of interesting data but way too much for me to go through and try to narrow it past 2519.

Well you certainly have one of the rarest and nicest body styles, IMO.

1990TSIAWDTALON said:

Well you certainly have one of the rarest and nicest body styles, IMO.

Click to expand...

Stop it you're making her blush.

I thought I would chime in here @Kryndon since I had to jump through a bunch of legal hoops importing my car BACK into the United States last November. Mitsubishi dealerships can't help us with our VIN's. They do not exist in their system period. Also you seemingly have a 50-50% crap shoot working with Fiat-Chrysler on whether or not they will help. I was not so lucky. I was in Correspondence with the Fiat-Chrysler support desk emailing them all sorts of codes off my car to try and get a stupid piece of paper that said that my car indeed exists and did at one point exist in the United States WHERE IT WAS MANUFACTURED!!!!

Then after all that legal finessing they sent me a letter, went to the border with it, guess what wasn't the "right" letter to prove the car existed. Also my emissions stickers were for a Canadian Mitsubishi Eclipse, after trying to explain to the border patrol that the sticker was indeed factory and that this car was basically a Mitsubishi Eclipse built in the spring of 1997 in the US they didn't buy it and sent me back to Canada.

Okay so then I went to Mitsubishi dealership to buy an emissions sticker that said that it passed US emissions when manufactured, which of course it did, did I mention my car was made in the US?? Have to give them your VIN to get emissions sticker, cool remember our car doesn't exist in their system. Went to Chrysler to buy the same emissions sticker, but it's not in their catalog because it's a Mitsubishi part..........


So long story short it was a messy divorce and NO... The kids ARENT alright (rant over)

@Dreams Realized Jesus f***ing Christ. And we're talking Importing a car from Canada to the US, ALL WITHIN NORTH AMERICA.... Where the car was goddamn built and sold... See, things like this piss me off. I know our cases are a minority but it just doesn't make any legal, financial and logistical sense to have so many barriers to doing this.

One day I was realistically hoping I could import the car from Europe to the States if I ever make it there... I can only Imagine how much hassle that would be.

However, the emissions side of things does get more technical. Both the EU, Canada and the US have different types of emissions standards, which are not interchangeable. For example, the reason why 1G and 2G Eclipses were never sold as factory turbo models in the EU was because the turbo model simply could not pass the emissions standard (Euro 1, Euro 2) during that time in Europe. Thus, the only way they could sell the car here was by leaving it as naturally aspirated. My old EU 2G GS had a standard of Euro 2 (a specific amounts of NOx released per million), whereas my Talon (built for Canadian market) simply has no such emissions standard, and is thus even more expensive to have, even though it's technically the same car and engine to a degree.

I guess your issues were because of these discrepancies and differences between US/Canada emissions requirements.

I just managed to send a direct email to Chrysler Canada explaining my situation and asking if they could supply a Certificate of Conformity which essentially serves as proof. Hopefully they reply... I had to use a fake address since I'm not in Canada.

Sort of makes you think how quickly a product or even brand can become so obsolete and forgotten that it simply stops having any sort of support... It's still a car. It's still a Mitsubishi/Chrysler product. Hell, I even have an active recall on the lower ball joints but no one would accept it. Geez. Look at us snowflakes with rare cars, eh?

Lol I know right. Yeah I was able to get a letter of conformity from Fiat-Chrysler no problem. Also they respond incredibly quickly for such a large division. The issue is that there was turmoil in our government about who has jurisdiction over what comes into the United States around the time I went to import my car, so they imposed a bunch of impossible hurdles. Typically cars are sold between the United States, Canada, and Mexico fairly easily.

But for whatever reason our cars seem to have slipped into a parallel universe or the twilight zone. I seem to recall the legal party I ended up hiring to handle my paperwork said they had an unusually rough time getting all the documents they needed for my car. And this company works for a dealerhsip who imports diesel luxury cars into the US regularly

Anywho, wish you luck in your endeavors I sort of think the attention I get with my car is worth all the heartache