Picture Simon Cowell talking. It doesn’t have to be him, per se, but imagine his exact accent and intonation.
If I’m being honest…
It’s a phrase I use a lot in my every day life and if I’m being honest, I don’t think about Mitsubishi very often. In fact, they may very well be one of those car companies that makes me scratch my head and say, “Oh, are they still around?”
Hey, I’m just being honest. Like Simon Cowell.
When I think Mitsubishi, I think of loud music, loud exhaust pipes, a large spoiler, and maybe some of those glowing underbody lights. Yes, I think of the Lancer (seen here as a rally car).
Turns out, Mitsubishi has more to offer than a street racer. Recently, in the midst of this horrible winter weather, I was given a 2015 Mitsubishi Outlander to try out for a week (specifically a 2015 Outlander 2.4 SE S-AWC 4-Door SUV in Rally Red with a black leather interior).
And I wanted to do a really good review with pretty pictures detailing the inside and outside of this highly functional vehicle. And this is what I ended up with.
But the reality is SNOW AND ICE HAPPENS! And you can’t always get pretty pictures of your car. So I did my best to show you a little bit about the Outlander.
And I also thought it was a good time to see what traction control really does. I turned it off in an area where I knew it would be safe to slide and it was easy to tell the benefits of a feature like this. A must, if you ask me.
But I’ve saved the best for last. The very best thing about the Mitsubishi Outlander wasn’t getting it all salty and snowy and icy. It wasn’t putting my dogs in the car for a ride and having them get their footprints all over the perforated leather seats (sorry, Mitsubishi, I did actually clean up my mess!).
My favorite part was the complete versatility in the back. While it’s technically considered to have third row seating, I’d say the third row is more like “in case of emergency seating.” It’s small and cramped and leg room is almost non-existent. But it’s there if you need it.
Most of the time, though, you’ll probably want that seat down to give you a good standard amount of cargo space.
With the third row seat up
With the third row seat down
I wanted the mac daddy space though. I wanted them ALL down.
I’m a pretty smart girl and yet I could not for the life of me figure out how to put them all down. So I did what any smart girl would do and I looked in the manual.
Good thing, too. It’s not intuitive but once you know what to do, it’s smooth sailing.
1. Remove the head rests from the third row seats and fold flat.
2. Lift up on the seat cushion bottom of the second row (not to be used as a flotation device).
3. FLIP THE SWITCH! This is what tells the seats if you want to lean them forward to help a passenger get in or if you want them to fold flat.
4. Then fold flat and voila! That’s pretty impressive cargo space.
This is how I look when I’m impressed.
Overall, it was a solid, sturdy vehicle. The design was simple and plain but functional. My only real complaint was the noise in the car while driving. It was loud but perhaps with the right tires, some of the noise could be quieted. As equipped here, this car retails for $29,645 (not bad for a large SUV) with an starting price of $26,195 and shows an EPA estimated fuel economy of 26 mpg.
