[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="I'll take the girl. Less trouble and just as ugly."]
[/caption]What a heap of poo. There, that's my summary.... end of story. Now, can we talk about something interesting.
...okay.... on to the elaborate stuff.
Getting in the car, I couldn't get a comfy seat position no matter how much I played around with the adjustment. Putting the key in the ignition (even with all the doors shut and the seatbelts on) the bloody thing sat there beeping at me, about 6 times before I started the car. Starting the car immediately doesn't kill the beeps. It still sits there, BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP..... ahhh, I found the setting in the instrument cluster to "Turn audible confirmation OFF. It still beeps at me.
Worse still, every time I hit a place on this planet where the temperature dropped to 3°C or less, it beeped at me to tell me there could be ice on the road. Fair enough. But then I'd drive past a warmer spot in town that was 4°C and when I drove into a colder spot again, guess what? BEEE - Eff OFF! - EEP
The steering wheel... as it passes as one was the cheapest I have ever felt. It was plastic.... but I only discovered this on closer inspection, as my first thought was "Bakelite is making a comeback?" It was really thin, had almost no grip, and zero feel. I would just turn the car and assume it would take me in the right direction. It did, but not without my bum hole sucking the seat. It was a scary experience that I'm man enough to admit.
Which brings me to an important part.... the seat itself was comfy, even though I compromised my body into a rather interesting position. Once in there, the seat itself felt nice, supportive and broad enough for my svelte figure.
The digital display panel is hopeless. Whoever it was at Mitsubishi that designed it should be quartered by Clydesdales. It didn't display any of the useful info on the same screen. It did display one portion of it, with a whole lot of other useless info arranged around it. It was impossible to view in direct sunlight, so it really didn't matter if it told you the car was on fire. BEEP
Boot space was great. It swallowed my luggage brilliantly.... when I say brilliantly, it was fine once I was able to force in said luggage through the tiny opening modern Japanese car manufacturers call a "boot". The Toyota Camry/Aurion has this same feature. Whooping great big boot, but you can't fit those new shoes you scored from another closing down sale at Paul's Warehouse because the lid opening is the size of a letter box slot. Maybe I should have asked the postie passing by to help me.
While in the boot, I noticed how terrible the trim was. Once I have manoeuvred my luggage into the boot, the carpet was bunched up to the front of the car. "Hmm" I thought.... "They haven't even bothered to trim the boot floor, they just threw a piece of felt over a plank of paper thin ply".
I spend a great deal of my life pondering a lot. One of the things I am constantly asking myself is "What person was in the factory or design meeting and said "Yes, that'll do just fine" What convinces a person to sit there and say their cars are better built, only to find that they couldn't even glue down a piece of felt to a piece of ply?
It was the same question I asked myself when looking at the front of the car going "I like how that looks. A bit Nissan GTR HR34" then I got to the back and said to "Whoa! This has been in a prang!" The rental car guy assured me that's how it came from Mitsubishi, "That's how they styled it." That might have been how they designed it, but I wouldn't use the word style anywhere near that backend.
At night things got interesting when I turned on the headlights and was able to go bat hunting. I thought, "Hey, no worries, I'll just press this button that adjusts the headlight aim because clearly my luggage was too heavy at the back of the car." What headlight aim? It didn't have one. So I stopped at a petrol station to get out and manually adjust them. BEEP. But with so many things in the way inside the engine compartment, I couldn't get to the knobs to do it. I'd have to wait till daylight. Which makes sense.
Suffice to say, visibility was great, 200 kilometers away. I was able to S.O.S Melbourne to let them know how much I loved the car.
Now, to be fair on the car. I mentioned before that the steering was pathetic. I was sure there were rubber bands involved. Maybe it was somehow linked to the CVT transmission belt, which I have to say was a brilliant automatic. I don't know why car manufacturers haven't abandoned old clunky, torque converted autos yet. But in mid corner I have to say, the car felt really solid. It stuck to the road, it cornered relatively flat and you could tell what all four wheels were doing. Now to get out of that corner, that was literally throwing caution to the wind and just trying it out to see what happens. Luckily, I have a sense of adventure. I can straighten the car out with the potential emminant death waiting for me at the apex.
So, the suspension and chassis were great. It's just a pity that to get to use them you had to travel through Death Valley to appreciate what was on the other side.
The CVT transmission was great. Last time I used one was when I worked on a Piaggio and this was when CVT's weren't good enough to lug a tonne or two around. Because CVT's don't have "gears" per sé, the shifts were smooth.... so smooth they don't actually exist. Dropping the gearbox into manual mode put me into some very nice and well spaced ratios. The gear changes were instant. It only never changed up when I was going too slow, and it would stall the car. Otherwise, the gearbox was a fantastic alternative to a manual, with the added convenience of an around town autobox. Well done on that part. Now fix the rest of the car and maybe it might sell better and you won't be closing down any more factories.
The ventilation system was poor. I literally thought I was in a FIAT 124. The fan blower was going crazy but the cough of air could not clear the ever increasing fog inside the car. I played with temperature settings. I played with the air-con button... should I turn it on, or off. The only things that did clear up any window.... any window being the back one was the demister. I could always drive everywhere in reverse, but that could take a while and I didn't have that much time. So, with the dashboard BEEPing at me telling me it was 3°C, I opened the windows to let in some fresh air.
Now I couldn't feel the steering wheel at all because my fingers had gone numb. Something I really didn't expect from a modern car.
Would I buy one. Hell no. With the same amount of money I could get so much better. The Holden Astra is better, even with it's nasty dashboard plastics. But over that, I'd easily make friends with the Hyundai dealership before ever considering what Mitsubishi considers a modern automobile.
I seriously thought it would be a great car with the way they have been banging on about it in their adverts. I wouldn't expect them to say "Yeah! New Lancer. It's alright..... Better built, but not as good as a Hyundai... Better backed, only because we need to convince you on the former point"
Lulled into thinking so? Guilty. Convinced after a week with the car? Convinced not to ever step foot in a Mitsubishi again for another 25 years.
If you're looking at spending $20-$30K on a car and don't want European, look at a Hyundai.
Steve
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