2023 Mitsubishi Outlander

Pros

• Front seats and comfort on the ride
• Lots of room for stuff
• A long guarantee

Cons

• With a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, the car moves slowly.
• Voice commands do little good.

How does the Outlander move? The Outlander has a flaw in its powertrain. Even though the 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine has decent power, it doesn’t have enough punch for everyday driving. At the InvoicePricing test track, our all-wheel-drive Outlander took 9.7 seconds to go from 0 to 60 mph. You will notice this when you try to pass on the highway because the speed is plodding. On the other hand, it takes a Honda CR-V 8.2 seconds to go from 0 to 60 mph.

Other than that, Outlander is a nice person. When going fast around mountain curves, the body stays in a reasonable amount of control, and the steering wheel has a good amount of weight. Even though the Outlander isn’t as fun to drive as the Mazda CX-5, it can turn corners without making your passengers feel sick.

How good is the Outlander’s comfort? The Outlander is easy to drive on many different kinds of roads. Also, the front seats are padded with soft material to keep people comfortable on long trips. We like that the Outlander is one of the few cars in its class with climate control for the backseat passengers. In the hottest setting, the heated seats get pretty hot. You can barely hear the wind and the road, but the engine’s sound is evident when you speed up.

How does the inside look? The inside of the Outlander is similar to the interior of the Nissan Rogue. Because the driver’s seat may be adjusted in various ways, it should be possible for drivers of varying heights to find a comfortable position. The only adjustments for the front passenger seat are forward and back and the seatback angle.

It’s easy to get into and out of the front seat, but adults may have trouble getting into the back seat. Since the bench seat is high, you’ll likely have to crouch to avoid hitting your head. The first and second rows have a lot of legroom, but the third row has little. Anyone taller than a child can’t use it.

How good is the tech? The menus on the touch screen are straightforward and simple to navigate. The integrated navigation system in Outlander works well, but it could be better at finding places of interest. The Bose premium audio system doesn’t distort much when louder, so it still sounds good.

Most Outlander trim levels come with Apple CarPlay wireless connectivity built in. That’s a great deal, but when we tried to connect an iPhone during our tests, we often ran into problems. The voice controls for the infotainment system are also different from our favorite feature. When we tested them, they often needed to understand what we asked them to do, and they had a strict command structure that you have to follow.

The Outlander has a lot of high-tech features that make it easier to drive. But we didn’t like how the lane-centering and traffic-adaptive cruise control worked. For example, Outlander’s cruise control seemed to slow down on the highway, and our drivers were worried that it wouldn’t respond quickly enough to keep them from hitting the car in front of them.

What about putting things away? A family of six can’t go on long road trips because there is little room behind the third row. Under the second seat, there is space of up to 33.5 cubic feet, so there is plenty of space for storage. So, one of our drivers could move more than 20 bags of mulch.

On the Outlander, there are many places to put your things. The underarm bin is a good size, and if you’re not charging your phone, you can use the small tray under the middle stack. Both the cupholders and the pockets in the back doors are small. To get to the cupholders in the back, you must fold down the whole middle seat, so your cargo should be safe.

If you need to put in a child seat, don’t tighten the straps with your fingers. They are surrounded by plastic that looks sharp and is hidden under the seat in tiny holes.

How well does it use gasoline? The EPA says that the all-wheel-drive Outlander gets a combined 26 mpg (24 mpg in the city and 30 mpg on the highway). Even though the average of 26.7 mpg on our usual test route was a little lower than we had hoped, we decided that these results were realistic for driving in the real world. In every category, three-row competitors are behind, but two-row SUVs are often more fuel efficient. The Outlander moves more slowly, but it uses less gas because of this. The competition is becoming fairer.

Is watching Outlander a good deal? Whether or not you need the third row affects how much the Outlander costs. Even though it might be helpful sometimes, adults should use it only for short trips. The Outlander costs less than almost every other SUV with two rows of seats.

If you need a third row, the Mitsubishi Outlander and the Volkswagen Tiguan cost about the same. Although the Kia Sorento is more expensive than the Mitsubishi Outlander, it is superior to that model in many respects, including providing a more spacious third row. The Outlander will meet your needs if you only want a decent car with good features and a reasonable price. The Outlander is also notable for the high-quality materials used inside.

Mitsubishi’s warranty policy covers a lot of different things. Every single Outlander includes the following warranties as standard:

• Basic security that is good for five years or 60,000 miles.
• A powertrain warranty that is good for ten years or 100,000 miles.
• Roadside assistance is good for five years or an unlimited number of kilometers.

Before, “fun” and “Outlander” didn’t go together. The words now go together in strange ways. Even though the Outlander moves slowly and is usually dull to drive, it no longer stutters or flips when making a series of tight turns. Another pleasant surprise is how quickly it turns, which makes it seem like Outlander is very agile. The SUV stands out even more because of how smooth it drives and how nice it looks inside.

The new platform for the Nissan Rogue helps Outlander a lot. It is no longer the case that Outlander seems like an afterthought to Mitsubishi or other manufacturers in its class. This is because it has a clean interior, a smooth ride, and beautiful materials in its highest trim level.

We like the SE trim level best. It has many great features at a reasonable price, like wireless Apple CarPlay, GPS, and the Mi-Pilot Assist suite of driver assistance technologies from Mitsubishi.

Mitsubishi Outlander variants

The 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander is one of a kind in the compact SUV market because it has a tiny third-row seat that can fit just one person. This means that the Outlander can carry a total of seven people. The ES, the SE Special Edition, the SE, the SE Black Edition, the SE Ralliart, the SEL, the SEL Black Edition, and the SEL 40th Anniversary are the seven available trim levels.

Front-wheel drive is a standard feature on every Mitsubishi Outlander, and the vehicle is powered by a 2.5-liter inline-four engine paired with a continuously variable transmission. These engines provide 181 horsepower and 181 pound-feet of torque. Most trims offer Super-All Wheel Control (S-AWC) as an all-wheel-drive option, but SE Ralliart and SEL 40th Anniversary trim come with it as standard.