I beg to differ on your begging to differ. I have been driving Mitsubishi Monteros for 14 years for my chosen shop vehicle. and have found them to be absoulutely bullet proof. How may times has Mitsubishi kicked everybody's butt in the Paris-Dakar(?) desert races,...they were the consistent winner year after year and next to the land rover,..they are one of the most respected 4X4s in the world. Some of the older V6s had valve stem seals that would get hard and crack with age and allow some of the V6s to smoke, but generally not till about 150 K. I have seen some of the turbo 4 smoke ,....probably a bad seal in the turbo,....but ,....the worst smoking turbo motor I have ever had was a Volvo 740 Turbo. It would fog 8 lanes of highway when I would drive it during the diagnosis phase. A rebuilt turbo fixed it. These problems with smoking can happen to any turbo car. I have never had a trans problem of any kind on any of my Monteros unlike most of my Mercedes Diesels which need rebuilding by 150K like clockwork. My "research" by the way is from 6 Monteros and probably 20 Mercedes over the years