Mitsubishi Outlander Juro Review & Road Test (2010) Part 2

Mitsubishi Outlander Juro Review Part 2

What we have in for the week is the Mitsubishi Outlander Juro, a Limited Edition model with all the bells and whistles designed as a lead-in for the new Outlander. It’s what you’d normally expect a lead-out model to be, but for some reason Mitsubishi decided a lead-in model was appropriate. Perhaps it was a decision by the same department that decided that the Outlander should be a crossover instead of an SUV? Even though Mitsubishi now has a proper crossover/softroader in the ASX.

Because the Outlander Juro is a Limited Edition jobbie it gets stuff like metallic paint and leather trim thrown in and plenty of toys to play with. Our Juro also gets Mitsubishi’s SST ‘box. The SST ‘box – as fitted to some of Mitsubishi’s performance cars – is a clever automated manual ‘box which uses electronics to predict and pre-select the next gear, and without a torque converter. So gearchange is instant and the fuel penalty almost non-existent.

The engine is the usually willing and able 2.2 diesel you’ll find in everything from a Freelander 2 to a Peugeot or a Citroen. Here in the Outlander it’s a fairly willing performer with 154bhp and 280lb/ft of torque, which translate in to a 0-60mph just under 10 sec0nds and a top speed of 124mph. All quite reasonable.

Also quite reasonable – although not exactly outstanding – is fuel consumption, which averages out at 38.7mpg, and emissions at 192g/km. Trouble is that if you have a heavy right foot – which is our default setting – then that mpg figure tumbles quite a lot.

We only managed 32.3 mpg which isn’t brilliant, even if it is easily explained. You see, the Outlander is prone to a bit – quite a bit – of torque steer if you stick your foot down from the off when it’s in 2WD. So we tended to leave it in 4WD. Which does hurt the consumption.

What also hurts the consumption is that the Outlander doesn’t have a huge amount of power on tap so you tend to find yourself pushing to wring some performance out of it. That said – and apart from a fair bit of engine noise when extended – the Outlander is really quite fun round the twisty stuff, particularly for a chunky SUV Crossover.

But despite what could be seen as quite a lot of negatives, we really like the Outlander. It has lots of space, decent performance and a very car-like manner on road. As an alternative option to an MPV or a people carrier it has a lot to recommend it, particularly if you only want seven seats occasionally.

We’d like to see Mitsubishi stick some daylight between the Outlander and the crossover/softroader competition. To tag the Outlander a Crossover is to do it a dis-service. It is a very able, very capable and very appealing compact SUV. It can do proper off-road, it can do a good job on-road and it can carry your brood around very competently.

Yes, it could do with a bit more power (Land Rover gets 40bhp more in the Freelander SD4) which paradoxically would probably mean better fuel consumption for the enthusiastic driver. Apart from that it’s good value and very able.

It’s just a shame Mitsubishi seem intent on putting the Outlander in an inappropriate pigeon-hole.

Mitsubishi Outlander Juro full specification, data and price

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By Cars UK