Hello everyone, I just recently finished my four year lease on a Honda Element 03 and decided to "upgrade" to a more sophisticated vehicle for the next four years (another 48 month lease here).

I liked the Honda Element 03 quite a bit for it's uniqueness I and I sure will miss my Honda Element for all the memories, and I look forward to the Outlander 07 to bring new joy and memories as it will be the nicest vehicle I have ever possessed. I have abandoned the guaranteed residual of a Honda product to what I hope is a Japanese manufacturer that is going to become a powerhouse automobile maker in the next few years.

I'm from Vancouver, BC, Canada and I leased a Graphite Grey Pearl Outlander without the Nav Bundle. I will be posting pics of my ride soon as I have added some accessories to it including the really nice stainless steel rear bumper protector and a curt hitch for a Thule 4 bike rack. In the weeks leading up to my decision to lease an Outlander, I was seriously pursuing the 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid, but Ford gave no incentive to lease the hybrids (10.4% Lease Rate in Canada) and I really didn't feel comfortable going from a Honda to an American vehicle (and the dashboard/interior of the Ford Escape barely leaves much to be desired for). Therefore, I pursued alternatives such as the newer Honda Element SC and the ultimate runner up choice to the Outlander of which was the Rav4 4cyl Limited Edition.

So far, I love the Outlander 07 as Mitsubishi has really done a great job all around from the exterior design to the engine to the interior. I have done so much homework that I felt like I knew the car inside out before even taking it for a test drive. I'll quickly state what I love about the Outlander and what I think are legitimate improvement concerns. Let's start with Con's first.

Cons - Major Ones worth Mentioning
- Passenger doors are so light that you really need to swing it harder than your average vehicle to get it shut, and the rear lift gate door is just as bad. I've had to reslam my rear liftgate door multiple times to get it closed completely. This kinda makes the vehicle feel cheaply made at times.

- Turning indicators are waaaay to quiet and a few times, after changing lane or especially accidentally activating the turning indicators, I forgot to turn them off. In the Outlander, it's too easy to accidentally activate the turning indicators because it has a "feature" that you can just activate the lane change indicator without having to press the activating arm all the way down to get the familiar feedback click.

- The aux input.....for the iPod. I know the location is weird (behind the center console and near the floor) but the real complaint of mine is that I get interference. There's always this constant very low volume static and I never got this with my Element with it's built in aux input. I did try using the iPod without the charger and go straight from the line out to the aux input, but the faint constant interference is still there, and makes more quiet/soft music barely bearable to enjoy (e.g. symphony is a good example). To make matters worst, I can even hear my engine accelerate via a high pitch soft whine while listening to my iPod via the aux input. I am going to change my aux cable to a high quality one to see if this rectifies the problem. Anyone out there can perhaps help me with this problem? I really value my iPod's connectivity to the vehicle.

- No Sirius satellite radio hardware option included and I'd be out of my mind to buy the part for like over 800 bucks Canadian to "enable" my Sat "ready" deck. I was a current Sirius subscriber when I possessed the Outlander. Now I think I'm just gonna cancel my Sirius because I don't wanna run a mickey mouse cable from the attenna to the dashboard and I already have a suction cup GPS device on my dash, so I don't wanna turn my dashboard into Radio Shack with an external Sirius controller with cables all over.


Pro's - Lots of em, so I'll just try to narrow down the major ones.
- Quiet engine and very powerful. CVT is great and should be in all cars in the future.

- Interior design is quite nice, despite many reviewers complaining it feels like cheap plastic, but I think they are over exaggerating about the cheap plastic feel/look.

- Gas usage, I'm practically getting better gas mileage than my 03 Honda Element. The Honda Element low gas signal turns on at around 45 litres while the Outlander turns on at 50 litres. I get on average (I do mainly city driving) 325km/45 litre on the Honda Element while I do an average 365km/50 litre on the Outlander. I am quite dam happy about fuel consumption on the Outlander, especially considering how much more horsepower and torque I have compared to the paltry 2.4 litre VTEC 156hp engine in the Element.

- Bluetooth integration, love it love it love it. I liked it so much that I upgraded my phone because of it. I had a Treo 650 that only supported BT version 1.1 and the integrated car BT could not dial the Treo 650, only the Treo could send a call over to the in car BT. Now I have a Motorola Rizr that has BT version 2.0 and it works like a charm. My ONLY and biggest complaint is that when you dial out with your phone, the integrated BT in the car ONLY connects to your cell AFTER the party you are dialing picks up. So therefore, I always miss the person saying "hello" right in the very beginning so I have to actually pay attention to the "Active" status on the LED display to start talking, or else people will always end up saying hello twice to see if I'm actually there making me feel like an idiot sometimes. There's gotta be a way for the phone to transfer the call immediately to the integrated BT so I can hear the phone ring and hear the person pick up. This happened on both my Treo 650 (ver 1.1 BT) and Motorola Rizr (ver 2.0 BT), so I have isolated this problem to the built in BT.

Phew, I just wrote an essay. I just wanna wrap up by saying that I use my vehicle for work and leisure, but mainly work (90%). I work for the local cable TV company and I have ladders mounted to the top of my Outlander as my job demands that I carry 2 ladders, with the biggest one extending to 28 feet. I will post pictures up for all of you to see my vehicle with and without the ladders.

I hope I have provided some more insight in addition to the many great posts on this forum. When I researched on what vehicle to buy, I relied on many people's insightful forum posting and I hope I can help others too and share my experience.

 

Congrats on the new ride.

CVT? You should have a 6 speed conventional. But I've found that it give me very repsectable mileage in my suburban driving

A trick to the door is to follow through with the closing motion all the way until it latches.

 

Congratulations.

Just a couple of corrections:
-the canadian outlanders are not available with a CVT. You have a 6 speed auto.
-It is hard to close the rear liftgate because of air pressure inside the vehicle. Open a window and try it again...much easier. We also have a 2005 Sienna with a huge liftgate that weighs a ton. It also often requires a re-close if the windows are up. What makes the ride so nice and quiet(a well sealed interior) also makes closing the hatch a bit difficult. The "follow through" (from bnilguy) advice is your best bet.
- I agree on the turn indicators...a bit too quiet.
-Can't comment on the MP3 stuff. I just learned how to rip a cd and burn a bunch of mp3s onto a single disc...[]

 

I will be leasing as well. Mitsubishi has notoriously low residual values-do you mind sharing what residual and money fact or you were given for a 4-year lease? The good news hopefully is that by the end of our leases the resale may have climbed higher than our residuals (since its a great car) and if we don't mind the hassle of selling ourselves we may make a few bucks back at the end of the lease.

 

Welcome to the Club! I am sure you will enjoy your Outie as much if not more than your Element over time.

Another BC'er - still don't see too many in the interior but they are gaining in popularity for sure.

Quote:

- Turning indicators are waaaay to quiet and a few times, after changing lane or especially accidentally activating the turning indicators, I forgot to turn them off. In the Outlander, it's too easy to accidentally activate the turning indicators because it has a "feature" that you can just activate the lane change indicator without having to press the activating arm all the way down to get the familiar feedback click.

I actually have this as a pro on my list as I hate loud turn signals. And once I got used to the lane change indicator I wondered how I went all my life without it.

Quote:

- The aux input.....for the iPod. I know the location is weird (behind the center console and near the floor) but the real complaint of mine is that I get interference. There's always this constant very low volume static and I never got this with my Element with it's built in aux input. I did try using the iPod without the charger and go straight from the line out to the aux input, but the faint constant interference is still there, and makes more quiet/soft music barely bearable to enjoy (e.g. symphony is a good example). To make matters worst, I can even hear my engine accelerate via a high pitch soft whine while listening to my iPod via the aux input. I am going to change my aux cable to a high quality one to see if this rectifies the problem. Anyone out there can perhaps help me with this problem? I really value my iPod's connectivity to the vehicle.

Sounds like you've got a ground loop problem. I would get the dealer to install a ground loop isolator if it persists, which it likely will. They are about $15 at RatShack.

Quote:

- No Sirius satellite radio hardware option included and I'd be out of my mind to buy the part for like over 800 bucks Canadian to "enable" my Sat "ready" deck. I was a current Sirius subscriber when I possessed the Outlander. Now I think I'm just gonna cancel my Sirius because I don't wanna run a mickey mouse cable from the attenna to the dashboard and I already have a suction cup GPS device on my dash, so I don't wanna turn my dashboard into Radio Shack with an external Sirius controller with cables all over.

As soon as Mits Canada and Sirius Canada get their agreement in place, Sirius will be offered in Canada as well. Last I'd talked with MitsCanada, they were hoping to have it in place for the 08 model years (excluding the Lancer). But you areright the tuner is expensive and currently if you decide to go the factory tuner route, you can only activate via aUS subscription (which is not necessarily a bad thing). That said, Ibit the bullet and went this route and LOVE it! It is really slick having Sirius on the factory head unit. My only complaint is they did not include a signal strength meter which is odd.

Quote:

- Bluetooth integration, love it love it love it. I liked it so much that I upgraded my phone because of it. I had a Treo 650 that only supported BT version 1.1 and the integrated car BT could not dial the Treo 650, only the Treo could send a call over to the in car BT. Now I have a Motorola Rizr that has BT version 2.0 and it works like a charm. My ONLY and biggest complaint is that when you dial out with your phone, the integrated BT in the car ONLY connects to your cell AFTER the party you are dialing picks up. So therefore, I always miss the person saying "hello" right in the very beginning so I have to actually pay attention to the "Active" status on the LED display to start talking, or else people will always end up saying hello twice to see if I'm actually there making me feel like an idiot sometimes. There's gotta be a way for the phone to transfer the call immediately to the integrated BT so I can hear the phone ring and hear the person pick up. This happened on both my Treo 650 (ver 1.1 BT) and Motorola Rizr (ver 2.0 BT), so I have isolated this problem to the built in BT.

I use a Blackberry 7250 and I had an option to have it always "Active". So I hear the phone dialing and ringing before the caller answers. Check your Bluetooth options and security settings on the Treo.

Once again, welcome!

 

Wow, thanks for all the replies as I appreciate your time! Forums can be dam addicting when the subject is hot in our minds. =p

First off, thanks for correcting me on my CVT wet dream, the gears just change so smooth, I thought I had afforded a vehicle with CVT when in fact, Mitsubishi would have advertised CVT up the ying yang in their brochures AND it would have cost more money for sure. I guess I'll have to test drive a Nissan Murano to see what a real CVT feels like.

tcp - Thanks for the air pressure explanation, guess my Honda Element didn't have as much air trapped and the latch on the Mitsu is not entirely pure mechanical latch, but rather, an electrical latch.

buzzfledderjohn - Regarding the lease, I got 5.8% over 4 years with a residual of around $12,500 Cad. If you want the exact numbers, I'll have to go home and get it for you. I put down like 8 grand including tax to push down my montly payments to just under $450/month. I am leasing because I get to write off a good portion of my lease due to the fact I use the vehicle a lot for work. I will be posting pics of what ladders look like on top of the Outlander.

rdenis - Wow, thank you very much for the break down/in-depth analysis reply, as now I know in the future who "Professor Outlander" is for all my questions/problems.
- Ground Loop Problem. Thanks for identifying the problem symptom, but shouldn't the stock factory deck and wiring be "faultless" from day one? I wonder if this can be a warranty issue.
- Another BC'er - Where are you from in BC? I'm in the Lower Mainland. Maybe we can share our winter stories in the future as I'm excited to try out my 4wd/4wd Lock mode when going up to Whistler in hopefully great snowy conditions. I use to have snow tires for my Honda Element so I hope my all season factory default tires on the Outlander coupled with 4wd modes will get me through the hilly streets of certain municipalities like Burnaby (where I did get stuck once with my 2WD Honda Element, prompting me to buy winter tires right away).
- Sirius Sirius Sirius - I read all the post on it from you and the others, still ridiculously expensive as I'm thinking of just getting the portable Sirius model with color screen that has hard drive storage (but the huge con here is that I give one more reason to Vancouver crackheads to break into my vehicle since I would be mounting the Sirius portable in plain view on windshield to avoid installing an external attenna). Sirius / Mitsubishi / Rockford Fosgate? really dropped the ball on this one for the 07 Outlander owners.
- Bluetooth Integration - I know what you mean by always active, but...the Motorola Rizr doesn't seem to have that option so I guess I'm stuck to looking at the "active" status to start talking and assume the person has already said Hello. =( Oh well, can't have it all yet untill I get my next phone (iPhone? Blackberry Curve?)
I don't remember, did you post pictures of your Outlander here or on the Outlander.com website?

I have some thoughts and concern I would like to share here. I hope the Outlander gains in popularity like the Honda Element did, and hopefully we'll have great forums like the Honda Element owners do. Check out the link http://elementownersclub.com/ to see what I'm talking about. We should all support www.outieclub.com and hope that we can have a forum that rivals ElementOwnerClub.com one day. I was thinking since Mitsubishi is just coming off their revitalising phase, perhaps they could put grassroot support website/forums into their vehicle brochures so that forums like this could thrive even more above and beyond of just having the more dedicated enthusiast owners like us visiting/posting.

I will be posting pics of my XLS soon as I just also installed the Curt hitch to put on a 4 bike rack from Thule. I'm disappointed with the Curt hitch handling of the shipment as it was scratched up when the store, Rackattack, received it, so I hope it doesn't rust faster. If anyone is interested, I'll talk more about it and show pics of what I mean of "rough" handling.

One last thing, I noticed that the Outlander rear wheel well gap is much lower than the front, esp with full tank of gas and the back seat/cargo space empty. I will take pics of this, I was wondering, has anyone noticed this too? I thought cars were built to accomodate the full weight of gas tank so that the rear suspension isn't lowered by the weight of the full gas tank? Maybe this is a common symptom of multilink suspension?

 

Hi Nexter, May I ask what dealership you went to and if you would recommend them ?

Thanks

 

Welcome!! Hope you enjoy your Outlander as much as you enjoyed the Element.

 

I find letting the tailgate drop on its own is more productive than slamming same goes for the lower gate. I dont feel the doors are any lighter than my van or my silverado, I have noticed that I have adjusted to the amount of finesse required to close the door which is less than the Alero.

As far as the satelite heres my thread, I have an LS and installed aftermarket and was able to hide the wiring and use a special connector in the fuse block to get power.
https://mitsubishiforum.com/m_142119/tm.htm

I havent updated it but if you want info on how it connected to power and the antenna issue let me know.
-marcie

 

I actually prefer the 6 speed over a CVT. I hear alot of horror stories about their last of durability on Saturn VUEs (which is why they discontinuted that transmission) and Muranos