Completely new to Mistubishi

Good afternoon,

Posting this on behalf of my wife... she's been driving a Mini Countryman Sport for the last few years and now wants something slightly larger, slightly higher and a whole lot more comfortable... and less noisy in terms of road noise and wind (hoping).

She wanted a Q3, but I've got a Jeep Cherokee with Adaptive Cruise Control and I've really sold her on the benefits of this technology - the Q3 doesn't have that option. She'd need a Q5... possibly an option still (and it's just been refreshed). She's tried the Evoque and has ruled it out. She's tried the F Pace and loves it - but realises she's paying a lot for the badge. Plus, you are in with diesels on those unless you go up the range - with all the uncertainty going on with diesels we both decided it would be wisest to look at petrol (which limits your choices) and even more wise to look at some kind of electrical power. That led us to looking at the Outlander PHEV.

Now... she really liked it.

It surprised us both... I thought it would be way too large. But it has a lot of cool things... like the Jeep (and unlike the Audi) there's just so much you get all bundled into the price... plus its uniques, like the heated steering wheel and bird's-eye view camera.

We'd likely look at the 5hs. It seems to come in at a list of around £46,000. Car broker sites seem to be suggesting £35,000, £36,000, £37,000 - does anyone know if that's realistic?

The multimedia system appears quite dated - SD card navigation - but it did stream her audiobook, so she's happy. The tax situation appears to be changing for the worse - much worse - but her daily commute is about 36 miles in total / both ways - there should be savings here. It doesn't have park assist on any trim level - this is a major disappointment (as she will crash it into stationary things). And - is it really true that you can't have a digital speedometer shown in the central display no matter what you do? The Dealer claims it's not (again, I'd be shocked - but, truth be told, it would be no different from the Mazda CX-5 in that regard).

I guess my main - cheeky - question is simply this... what other cars would you be looking at right now if you hadn't already got your Outlander PHEV? I'm thinking of other surprising - and seemingly new - cars like Seat Ateca and Skoda Kodiaq - not things we've ever considered before.

Does anyone know when the Outlander PHEV will be due a proper refresh? The Dealer has been saying 2021, but I do not believe that for a second. We took a run up a couple of M1 junctions yesterday and a bit around town, before parking in a supermarket (numerous times), she was actually really impressed. I am thinking the list price of £46,000 is... ambitious?

Thanks to anyone who reads this and decides to respond.

Cheers, Hippo

I have been driving 3h+ for the last 14months / 36,000 miles and love it.

Your dealer is correct, there is no way to display digital speed on the screen between the dials, that is for other information.

One of the things you may find frustrating, as do I, is the general lack of understanding of the high mileage, company car driver, by the service departments. For example, my local main dealer thinks they are hard done by because Service opens at 8.30 and closes again at 5.15!! My previous Ford and Vauxhall dealerships, and others over the years, are open for drop off by 7am and cars can be collected up to 7pm. In other words, the dealership is there at my convenience, not the other way round.

As you are looking at such a high spec car, with all round cameras and parking sensors, do you really need park assist? The rear sensors on my car are particularly accurate.

I do not have the multi media system in my car. Yes, I have bluetooth for music and my phone, which work as you would expect, but I do not miss the SatNav or the other functions. Others have commented elsewhere in this forum about their frustrations with the navigation, so I have stuck to my trusty Garmin, which is quicker, more accurate and a lot cheaper to keep up to date.

The other vehicles you mention are all fine cars, but only the PHEV will give you the space, height, comfort, and view while running in complete silence when you need it to.

Just don't expect to get anywhere near the stated mpg in mixed, long distance, use. Afterall, it is an 1800Kg brick! My overall is 38mpg including my regular 100, 200, 300 mile days.

I hope this helps.

It does help. Thanks.

She is interested because she reckons she'll be able to visit the petrol station a lot less... I think that is true, but maybe not as much (less?) as she'd like, with it having a relatively small tank. Obviously she likes the overall package as well. Does she need Park Assist? Probably. Not saying anything against women and parking - it's just her. Then, again, I really like it on my Cherokee too... so I'll definitely use it when I can. Just seems like a gap... the thing that is going to be most frustrating is lack of a digital speedometer. I've grown to detest big dials telling me nothing - just like I grew to detest huge handbrake levers and the push button window locks (you still see in BMWs and Minis too)... their time has passed.

Cheers, Hippo

There are other frustrations as well.

Only the drivers window has single shot up and down, all others only move if you have your finger on the switch. This is a Japanese thing apparently. The window lock button disables all passenger windows, including the front.

Also, auto locking as you pull away is now illegal, so the car does not have this. Try and sit in the car after dark, you will see that the guages and centre consol switches light up really well, the steering wheel buttons are more than acceptable, but the buttons on the drivers door have no lights in them at all, except the faintest glow in the drivers window switch. You have to remember which buttom does what and learn to operate them by feel, without looking! The window switches in the other doors are dark as well.

At 45 litres the tank is very small for such a car, and the guages for both fuel and battery are known as Guessometers due to their lack of accuracy. Personally, I try never to get below 1/3 tank without filling up. Driving from Edinburgh to Luton recently, I filled up twice to avoid guage anxiety!

If the Seat Ateca is acceptable, then I would go for that - you'll get a better equipped and probably better built car for at least £10k less - and that buys a whole lot of petrol - the PHEV is unlikely to ever break even with the Ateca over a realistic lifetime. We went with the PHEV on the basis of the tax concessions that were available a few years ago for company car purchases and we are happy with it at the price we paid then, but the Ateca was not available then and I would find it very difficult to justify the PHEV at £35k or more with the current taxation regime.

Heheh, regarding park assist:

My wife has managed to break the passenger mirror and (on a second occasion) the passenger side door, both when _leaving_ parked spaces.

The mirror was against an underground pillar while on reverse and the door was against a pedestrian safety feature which is about waist high (could not see it from the driver position and started the turn too soon) ... Both in 6 months of ownership...

Note that it is a big car to park but it seems that she's really happy with the 360 degree camera for parallel parking (I have been amazed at how tightly she's been able to park the car with it...). But there seems to be a need for something similar to "unpark assist"

Best,
Ricardo

Have any owners of the PHEV had experience of using Android Auto?

I've not had a car with this... but my understanding is that you can connect your phone (physically, I think) to the car and you can then override the default mapping system... (depending on your phone's signal, of course)... I think the Outlander PHEV has this - but it's not something we'd played with on the day.

Same for Apple CarPlay.

Cheers, Hippo

Hippogriff said:

Have any owners of the PHEV had experience of using Android Auto?

I've not had a car with this... but my understanding is that you can connect your phone (physically, I think) to the car and you can then override the default mapping system... (depending on your phone's signal, of course)... I think the Outlander PHEV has this - but it's not something we'd played with on the day.

Same for Apple CarPlay.

Cheers, Hippo

Click to expand...

It's not supported in PHEVs built a couple of years ago - don't know about the current models

OK... I probably need to get it from the horse's mouth, or try it out.

The Seat website claims the Ateca does. It's weird, it's kinda like we've got eyes on 2 completely different vehicles. She's enamoured by the potential fuel savings and reduced trips to refuel with the PHEV, and I'm much more keen on [her] getting a car that's got the latest technology and features. The Ateca has a heated windscreen but no heated steering wheel which the PHEV does - 1-1. Both have ACC - 1-1. Both have other safety features (blind spot and suchlike) - 1-1, but the PHEV doesn't have Park Assist - 1-0. The Ateca has gesture tailgate - 1-0. The Ateca has Android Auto - 1-0. The Ateca doesn't use the leccie - 0-1. The Ateca will be smaller - 0-1. Does the Ateca have a digital speedometer? Oooh, that might swing it.

Cheers, Hippo

Hippogriff said:

OK... I probably need to get it from the horse's mouth, or try it out.

The Seat website claims the Ateca does. It's weird, it's kinda like we've got eyes on 2 completely different vehicles. She's enamoured by the potential fuel savings and reduced trips to refuel with the PHEV, and I'm much more keen on [her] getting a car that's got the latest technology and features. The Ateca has a heated windscreen but no heated steering wheel which the PHEV does - 1-1. Both have ACC - 1-1. Both have other safety features (blind spot and suchlike) - 1-1, but the PHEV doesn't have Park Assist - 1-0. The Ateca has gesture tailgate - 1-0. The Ateca has Android Auto - 1-0. The Ateca doesn't use the leccie - 0-1. The Ateca will be smaller - 0-1. Does the Ateca have a digital speedometer? Oooh, that might swing it.

Cheers, Hippo

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Each to his own and all that…but are you really suggesting that a decision on where to spend £30k+ of your hard earned cash will be based on whether or not a car has a digital speedometer ??!!

What’s your objection to a normal dial type speedometer ? Personally I much prefer something which moves in a relatively smooth fashion around a dial, rather than seeing constantly flickering and changing numbers. That said, I’m not overly precious either way, and the type of speedometer a car has would probably rank about number 187 on my list of important things to consider !

That's OK... I rejected the Mazda CX-5 simply because it didn't have a digital speedometer, and bought the Jeep Cherokee instead, so - yes, I guess.

It's what matters to you... I think a big dial (and don't get me started on the rev. dial) is an anachronism in a current car... I would remove both those big dials in both cars and have a configurable screen - people could have digital dials if they wanted. It's why I like, very much, the Audi Virtual Cockpit.

It's like big handbrakes... I'd not buy a car with those, they're so 90s, so I reject BMWs out-of-hand. The other half liked her Mini, but it has so many things wrong with it... from a design perspective (which is strange, because it was all supposed to be about design).

We both like our digital speedometers.

I can live with popup door lock buttons by the windows... but they really should not be there in a car of the 21st century.

Cheers, Hippo

Obviously, that's all just my personal opinion.

As I buy more and more cars I just know the things I'd not miss out on when buying car - like keyless entry and go - I'd never buy a car without that again. Like ACC, never again will a car I / we get not have that.

Cheers, Hippo

But not a digital speedo. I have an intense dislike for the things.This is a car, not a computer game.
If one wants/needs one an iPhone stuck to the windscreen will do just as well, or actually better, as GPS is far more accurate.

A digital speedometer is much safer and quicker to read than a big dial, where the needle is in different places depending on your speed. The digital speedometer is always in the same place. The digital speedometer always displays an integral number that is quick and easy to read. A big analogue dial in a car is a throwback to older times - it's because we didn't have anything better back then - now we do; it's inaccurate (to read) and your eyes must go to different places if you want to be precise, so you must drop your eyes and then search and focus. Having a digital speedometer doesn't make a car a video game - it's just making the car better in many respects (in my opinion)... not having at least the option is an oversight in the PHEV, as it must have the information to provide, someone was just lazy.

Now, HUDs...

I still don't know what the state of play is with the Seat... I'm going to try and pop down today if it's possible. I do gather it has a 10GB hard drive inside it, instead of the SD card-based navigation system of the PHEV, which is good... but Android Auto will be a big swing in its direction too (if it's as good as I expect)... the Android Auto website lists car manufacturers and it does have Mistubishi on there marked as "LAUNCHED"... but it then seems to indicate 2017 for the Outlander PHEV - well, we're in 2017, right? Fingers-crossed.

Cheers, Hippo

Hippogriff said:

OK... I probably need to get it from the horse's mouth, or try it out.

The Seat website claims the Ateca does. It's weird, it's kinda like we've got eyes on 2 completely different vehicles. She's enamoured by the potential fuel savings and reduced trips to refuel with the PHEV, and I'm much more keen on [her] getting a car that's got the latest technology and features. The Ateca has a heated windscreen but no heated steering wheel which the PHEV does - 1-1. Both have ACC - 1-1. Both have other safety features (blind spot and suchlike) - 1-1, but the PHEV doesn't have Park Assist - 1-0. The Ateca has gesture tailgate - 1-0. The Ateca has Android Auto - 1-0. The Ateca doesn't use the leccie - 0-1. The Ateca will be smaller - 0-1. Does the Ateca have a digital speedometer? Oooh, that might swing it.

Cheers, Hippo

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Do the sums before assuming fuel savings or reduced trips to refuel - your pattern of use has to be pretty well matched to the car before you will benefit from either of these. The sums are not particularly difficult - realistically speaking the first 22 miles you drive will be on electricity, then you are burning petrol. While burning petrol, you will get between 30 and 40 mpg - you have to have a pretty gentle right foot to go above 40mpg. The tank is around 10 gallons. Plug that into Excel and check how it will perform in the context of your particular pattern of usage.

Before the PHEV, we were running a Toyota Landcruiser (still have it, but it is now reserved for seriously bad weather and carrying heavy loads). Realistically, the Landcruiser does around 22mpg - the PHEV is showing a lifetime average of about 44mpg - so a significant saving in fuel costs there. But even at 22mpg, I think I probably refuelled the Landcruiser less frequently - it has a much bigger tank!

The SEAT Ateca claims to be able to achieve 40mpg or better and presumably has a significantly larger fuel tank so, unless your pattern of usage is primarily short range and relatively slow trips, the PHEV is not going to be significantly cheaper to run than the Ateca and may well require more frequent fuel stops.

Thank you.

She has a daily 38 - 40 mile commute, with no ability to charge at the work side. She thinks she'll consume a few drops per day.

But - remember - she also just likes the car itself.

Cheers, Hippo

Hippogriff said:

Thank you.

She has a daily 38 - 40 mile commute, with no ability to charge at the work side. She thinks she'll consume a few drops per day.

But - remember - she also just likes the car itself.

Cheers, Hippo

Click to expand...

With the current taxation regime, liking the car has to be a major factor in deciding to buy it - most of the financial incentives have disappeared. Plug my numbers into Excel and you'll be able to tell her pretty accurately how much she'll use - before we purchased I set up a simple financial model on a single screen of workbook and ran our pattern of usage through it - the result was a prediction of 47 mpg average - I'm actually seeing 44 mpg.

The reason for that error is that I was not sufficiently pessimistic about the EV range - I knew that the claimed 32 miles was not realistic, but I was estimating about 25 - in practice the figure is probably closer to 20. In the middle of the summer with a brand new car, you can get a fair bit more, but we are talking about average performance, not best case. In the middle of the winter, I reckon I'm doing ok if I get 16 miles on battery. Also, as the car ages we are beginning to see battery capacity reducing. Used every day of the year over a lifetime of three years, I reckon that the average EV range will probably work out at around 22 miles. If you keep the car longer than three years - with further loss of battery capacity - then that average range could drop further.

Thanks.

Currently her Mini Countryman Sport is averaging 28mpg... so pretty much everything out there looks a bit better. She needs to be careful, as you say, to not jump in with both feet, thinking she'll never need to fill up again!

My Jeep's computer is claiming over 40mpg to me... I never do actual measurements myself, it's probably lying.

Cheers, Hippo

Hippogriff said:

...I still don't know what the state of play is with the Seat... I'm going to try and pop down today if it's possible. I do gather it has a 10GB hard drive inside it, instead of the SD card-based navigation system of the PHEV, which is good... but Android Auto will be a big swing in its direction too (if it's as good as I expect)... the Android Auto website lists car manufacturers and it does have Mistubishi on there marked as "LAUNCHED"... but it then seems to indicate 2017 for the Outlander PHEV - well, we're in 2017, right? Fingers-crossed.

Cheers, Hippo

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Hi
I've got Outy Juro MY17 and it is with the Android Auto. I like it. Particularly internet radio stations and google maps sat nav with "real time" traffic updates. Also the format of the head unit, touch screen only, no buttons or knobs))

Overall I'm enjoying the car very much, probably because of my daily commute is right on the edge of switching to ICE. Like the screen saying that it is doing figures like 856mpg))), sometimes)

Nice.

Cheers, Hippo