1990 Mitsubishi Lancer Pricing and Specs

The rules in QLD are based around pre- and post-2010 vehicles. Since the car you’re looking at is a post-2010 model, for it to be legal for a P-plate driver under the age of 25, the vehicle can not have eight or more cylinders, have a power-to-weight ratio of greater than 130kW per tonne or have a modified engine that would otherwise need to be inspected and certified by the authorities.

Fundamentally, this means that most Lancers should be fine while turbocharged variants such as Ralliart and Evo models are not legal for P-Platers to drive. However, many state governments are continually refining these rules, ruling cars in and out. So check with the authorities before handing over money for a car you may not be allowed to drive.

There’s nothing wrong with your car, Regina, this is just the way a car’s air-conditioning works. And yours is behaving completely normally.

Although the fan will blow air when the car’s engine is stopped, the actual air-conditioning (which is what makes the air cold) needs the engine to be running to power the AC’s pump. Without the car’s engine, the AC pump won’t work and the air coming out the vents won’t be cold. When you start the engine, the AC pump suddenly has the power it requires and the air gets cold. That’s just how it works.

It could be that the gearbox linkages are poorly adjusted, meaning that the gearbox is not fully selecting fifth gear, allowing it to jump into neutral. But it could also be that the selectors themselves are worn or that there’s internal wear inside the transmission that is allowing the gearbox to leap from fifth to neutral all on its own. Either way, it’s a problem that could lead to a range of potentially dangerous situations, so it needs further investigation.

It’s probably worth mentioning that a batch of five-speed manual Lancers made between May and June 2014 were recalled to fix a problem with the gear selectors which could see them suffer gear-selection problems with reverse and fifth gear. Your car, as a 2011 model, shouldn’t be affected by that, but it does seem a bit of a coincidence.