Mitsubishi Outlander 2.0 DI-D Warrior 5dr Review

Overall Rating

If Carlsberg made softroader's....

The built in bluetooth if I'm really picky.

OK so I need a new car. I have 4 kids, a dog, live in the middle of nowhere, love my shooting, and cover about 40,000 tarmac miles a year for work. Oh and I'm a car snob!
Thank you Mitsubishi!
My Outlander is now 6 months old and covers all of my needs, plus a few more with ease. I chose the Warrior spec, as I had a budget to stick to, and apart from one or two toys that the Elegance and the Diamond models come with (touch screen / sat nav stereo and parking sensors being the main ones) the warrior is as well spec ' d as any family saloon on the market, and blows away the usual suspects in the MPV market.
The interior is remarkably comfortable, and although not German luxury car levels, everything is well laid out easy to use, and so far has not fallen off. The warrior comes with a cloth interior as standard, but it feels very much like suede to the touch, and more than one passenger has asked if it is. The back (or middle if you like) row of seats can also be reclined slightly (great on long journeys) and have a very handy switch located just inside the boot for folding them down. Simply stand at the boot, which by the way has a split gate like the Range Rover (makes putting your wellies on so much easier), pull the switch and watch the seats fold themselves up and roll behind the front seats. How cool is that! Damned handy at the garden centre too! There is also plenty of storage, and of course for me the added bonus is the forward facing pop up bench seat in the rear. The bench seat is not as plush as the rest of the interior upholstery, but the dog, and the kids have never complained, and I don ' t sit on it, so there ' s no worries there. My only criticism of the bench seat is that it would a bigger bonus if the seat had been two individual seats, still leaving ample boot space. In the cabin the toys are excellent with a dashboard computer, refrigerated glove box, electric windows and mirrors, auto head lights, one touch indicators, A/C, auto blowers, and the steering wheel has controls for the stereo, cruise control, and the hands free all built into it. This brings me onto the only real gripe about the vehicle. The Bluetooth itself is good, easy to set up, and even easy to use, but for some reason when making a call the Bluetooth does not connect the call through to the speaker until the person answering initially speaks?! This basically means that you don ' t hear the phone ringing, and hear the other person pick up the phone. You are generally greeted with someone saying ' hello..... hello..... HELLO '! At which point if you ' re not careful it connects you just in time to hear them put the phone down! Aghaaa! In this day an age where we all get automated phone calls that we ignore, this really is not the vehicles best feature. Incoming calls are though as you ' d expect.
As for the exterior the warrior model only differs slightly compared to the others, in that there is chrome covers on the mirrors, door handles, and front bumper, but I ' m aware of one chap I know who had them stripped off for next to nothing, so if bling aint your thing, then it can be removed. I however don ' t mind it, and even when some of mine went astray the local dealership were very apologetic, and resolved the problem immediately with no further issues. Can ' t say fairer than that. The Warrior does have chunkier alloys than either the Elegance or the Diamond Models, and the front bumper has the added rabbit / traffic warden catcher, but again I personally think it looks fine, so it ' s more a question of what suits your taste.
On road, driving normally, the outlander drives like any other car you ' ve ever had, with the added bonus of sitting you a little higher than your average motor, but without you feeling like you ' ve just climbed Everest to get you and the kids into it. Yes there can be a little bit of wind noise, but reports of the engine being noisy are vastly overstated in my opinion. Anyway just turn up the MP3 stereo! The six speed manual is child ' s play, and with sixth set nicely on the high side you could easily cruise down the motorway a tad over the speed limit. However leave the kids and the dog at home, put your foot down, select the 4x4 auto setting on the dial (first turn) and the outlander is a different animal. Suddenly it remembers that it ' s related to that well known tarmac thrasher the Lancer Evo. OK so it ' s not an Evo, it nowhere closes, but the suspension thinks it is, (and I ' m not going to shatter its illusions) so throw it into a bend, burry the throttle and let mother Mitsubishi handle the power distribution. Suddenly that little jaunt to the garden centre needn ' t be a dull and predictable as it would be in say any other softroader! I mean how many softroader do you know of that have a strut brace under the bonnet?! That leads me though to the only warning about pretending you ' re in an Evo. The Fuel figures! In 'Evo mode' don ' t go there, but I regularly achieve around the 37mpg based on a 150 mile trip using county roads, A roads, motorways and city roads, so Mitsubishi ' s claims on the fuel figures are well founded.
Off road the Outlander is a very pleasant surprise indeed. In fact it has gone up, down, over, and through much I wouldn ' t even dare try in any other softroader, and more amazing than that it is that everything underneath is still where it should be! Alright you ' re not going to follow Big Dave in his two inch lift V8 Land Rover, but if like me you regularly cross wet grass fields, field headlands, woods, or ankle deep muddy lanes, then the Outlander will do it. If it had chunky tries, and a bit more ground clearance then I reckon it would definitely be hot on the heels of the Freelander, but lack of low ratio, and off road upgrades / accessories means that you ' ll probably want to cadge a lift for the serious stuff. And anyway when it gets that serious why smash up your vehicle when Big Dave has his!
Overall the Outlander is a fantastic 4x4 softroader, outstripping it ' s competition easily, so if you ' re in the marker for one you ' d be an idiot not to at least test drive one, and if you have no shame then there is always the Peugeot or Citroen versions.