Mitsubishi Outlander test drive

-HOW IT LOOKS.
I must say, I always liked the current generation Outlander design. It is a few years old, yet still modern and pretty original.
To me, it does look better than the CRV or RAV4. And much, much better than the Nissan Rogue.
And you don’t see that many of them on the road, so they kind of stand out in a crowd of Hondas and Toyotas.

-HOW IT IS INSIDE.
At first, the interior looks really nice. Again, at least to me.
I like the design of the dashboard, clean and simple. The door panels look modern. Especially in my test car’s tan and black combo, the interior looks really good.
But…
Once you sit in, and start touching things, you realize there is no soft plastic anywhere.
Sure, the Outlander isn’t the only one to use cheap hard plastic throughout the interior (The best selling CRV does too). But somehow, the materials used in the Mitsubishi feel particuliarly cheap to the touch.
It is just too bad, because if feels you’re being cheated.

The worse is when you close the doors. They feel lighter and cheaper than anything I’ve been driving in years.
The stereo sounded good, but there is no iPod plug available (That will probably be available in the revised 2010 model, as well as bluetooth).
The Keyless entry system wasn’t always working. Not sure why.
And the XM radio would cuts off once in a while.
I know there are dead spots with satellite radio, but this would sometimes happen a couple of times within a blog. Where I usually have a signal…

-HOW IT DRIVES.

-Ride.
The ride was fine. Mostly smooth and comfortable.
But the whole car doesn’t feel very heavy, or “rock solid”.

-Steering.
Steering was average.
There was just nothing wrong with it. Pretty much what you expect from a compact car based SUV.

-Engine.
The 2.4 Liter was smooth enough. Nothing spectacular.
I did average a good 20MPG in city driving alone. Better than the CRV I drove earlier.

-Transmission.
With the cheap interior materials, the transmission is the worse part of the car.
CVT’s can be great (Like the ones used in Nissan V6 models) or they suck (Like in the Nissan Rogue).
This one sucks.
It is one of the worse I’ve driven.
The engine has no pick up at all from a start. And that’s not for lack of power. The CVT just doesn’t want it to go.
Passing is scary because the CVT refuses to react to your right foot imput.
If you drive the car like if you were 90 years old, all the time, you might be happy with it.
Otherwise, it ruins the whole driving experience.
Again, I have driven some great cVTs. Like the one in the Maxima which is actually more responsive than about any automatic I have ever driven.
Not the case with the Outlander…

-SO???

There is really no reason to get the Mitsubishi outlander over the competition. And that’s too bad. It does look great.
If they used better interior material and reprogramed the CVT, it could be pretty nice.

But, on a more general note, I think Mitsubishi should be refocusing itself as a performance company.

The “brutal but fun” engine/DSG combo I drove in the Lancer Ralliart was great. And so much fun!
This is what they should put into the Outlander.
Make it the sports car of compact SUVs.

Otherwise, it just gets lost in the crowd…