2002 Mitsubishi Montero Limited Sport Utility 4-door 3.5l on 2040-cars

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2015 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport Quick Spin

The Mitsubishi Outlander Sport is not new. It is also not sporty. Despite it all, the Outlander Sport is selling better than ever. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people take one of these crossovers home each month. That's good for Mitsubishi, a company clinging to life in the US market. But the Outlander's sales are a mere blip; that's about a week's worth of handshakes and signatures on Ford Escapes, at best. Until new product arrives, this is the stuff Mitsubishi has on the ground to sell, and the company has said it's committed to sticking around. That means I got to spend some time recently with a 2015 Outlander Sport SE with AWC (All-Wheel Control – you know, all-wheel drive). There are updates and changes for 2015, including an available 168-horsepower, 2.4-liter engine for ES and GT models, revised CVT, LED running lamps, thicker glass, better sound insulation, and electric power steering. But because I drove an E, I was locked into the 2.0 liter engine. It's the 4B11, a version of the GEMA engine, co-developed with Hyundai and DaimlerChrysler back in the Cretaceous. Driving Notes The most amazing thing I found after a week with the Outlander Sport is that it can bend the laws of physics. This is not a compact crossover so much as it's a time machine. Swing that door shut, and every trip takes place in 2008. Styling is pretty good. There's not a bad line on the Outlander Sport. It sits right on its relatively short wheelbase, and looks good doing it. I had low expectations for the powertrain. Most of my GEMA engine experienced comes from time with the Jeep Compass and Patriot, which are horrific NVH factories. Mitsubishi's version of this engine is more refined, and has a healthy 148 horsepower and 145 pound-feet of torque. The CVT has been revised to mimic the action of a seven-speed transmission. Why bother? The simulacrum doesn't hold. It's the typical 70/30 CVT split: unobtrusive 70 percent of the time, slippy and weird the other 30 percent. That same 70/30 split applies to on-road behavior. Most of the time, the Outlander Sport drives decently. Those other times, it just wants you to chill. Structural rigidity isn't up there with the segment leaders. Road noise is still higher than I'd have liked. This car has the single worst infotainment system I have ever experienced. Totally refused to pair with my phone, ever. This is not an isolated case for a Mitsu with this headunit.

2022 Mitsubishi Outlander pricing, fuel economy announced

Mitsubishi has announced pricing on what is probably the most compelling — and important to the company's future — product in a decade, the 2022 Outlander. As we learned at the reveal, the base ES trim will start at $25,795, or $26,990 when the destination charge is factored in. Fuel economy figures are also in, giving the Outlander a rating of 24 miles per gallon in the city, 31 on the highway and 27 combined for the front-wheel-drive model. Mitsubishi's S-AWC all-wheel-drive system, which is available on any trim for $1,800, drops one mpg highway and combined. By way of comparison, the base 2021 Nissan Roque, which uses a similar engine and platform, gets 27 city, 35 highway and 30 combined in front-wheel drive guise. That combined figure matches that of the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. It's worth noting that the Mitsubishi Outlander comes standard with a third row for seven-passenger seating, so a direct comparison with the Rogue isn't exactly fair. The ES comes with what is now an obligatory suite of tech, like automatic braking forward and rear, blind spot warnings, and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. 18-inch alloy wheels are standard, but a $1,000 convenience package adds 20-inchers and the Mitsubishi Connect remote services smartphone link (which comes with 24 months free). That places the three-row ES below the Toyota RAV4 but above the Honda CR-V. Next up is the SE trim, ringing in at $28,845 with everything the ES offers and adding 20-inch wheels, heated front seats and side mirrors, proximity unlocking, and a leather steering wheel. Here, the tech content is boosted quite a bit, with the bird's-eye multi-view camera system, parking sensors, and wireless phone charging. You no longer need an upgrade package to get Mitsubishi Connect, and it also has MiPilot Assist which adds adaptive cruise with stop and go in traffic, lane keeping assist, and traffic sign recognition. The touchscreen gets bumped from 8 to 9 inches, and USB charging ports become available for rear passengers as well. A $2,300 SE Tech Package adds a 12.3-inch LCD instrument panel, premium sound system by Bose, and panoramic sunroof.  The top-spec SEL stickers at $31,945, building upon the other trims while adding the aforementioned 12.3-inch multi-function display, leather seats, 4-way power seats key-linked to memory, three-zone climate control, roof rails, and heated rear seats.

Mitsubishi denies plans for Toyota/Subaru rival sports coupe

Forgive us for being wistful, but there was a time when Mitsubishi coupes and sports cars were the downright awesome. The 1990s brought us the all-wheel drive, turbocharged Eclipse GSX and the twin-turbocharged 3000GT VR-4 (seen here). The times, they were good.
Fast-forward to today, and the Lancer Evolution exists as Mitsubishi's sole, true performance offering. Mitsubishi killed off the Eclipse last year, by which time it had lost much the luster of its predecessors. With an affordable Japanese sports car fomenting underway thanks to Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ, one may think that it's an ideal time for a brand like Mitsubishi to jump back into the performance coupe game. A rear-drive Mitsubishi sports car to take on the Toyobaru twins could be just what the brand needs to gain some mindshare among consumers.
Not so, says Osamu Masuko. The president and executive director of Mitsubishi told reporters at the Sydney Motor Show, "Our engineers are very prominent to investigate new technologies, but to use that technology they are not that good to bring the revenue to make that money." Read: the engineers want to do it, but the company does not find it to be financially responsible.