2012 Mitsubishi Lancer DE all looks

There comes a time when every man and woman must succumb to a vehicle which changes the very world they have known about.  A car which is such a monumental shift that everything that comes after it is compared to this new vehicle.  It's a benchmark which is remembered for decades and remains timeless to a degree because it's so unique.

Today....  I'm not reviewing such a vehicle.  Wait don't boo me.  Wait don't leave in droves, turn off your computers, iPads, phones, internet connections...  Wait,  just hear me out and see where I'm going with this....

The 2012 Mitsubishi Lancer DE is not a vehicle which from a mechanical standpoint is going to change everything we know about the compact car world.  Yes it does have a larger engine than some of its compact rivals a 2.0l inline 4 cylinder with 148hp.  Yes it does have a decent amount of interior space.

But...  The downer for the car I had was the CVT (continuously variable transmission).  I've driven lots of cars with CVT's.  I would have said before driving this car that I like 90% of the CVT's that I've driven.  But after the lancer my stats are going to fall because this particular gearbox was a real let down.  

Yet it's deceiving...  When you're in the Lancer with this particular set up of engine and transmission the car feels slow.  No, no wait not slow... It feels like if you were to jump out and sprint or even ride a bike you would be able to get places faster.  I think that's partly because the engine and transmission in concert together try to go into economy mode as quickly as possible.  

The light turns green, you press on the accelerator and you hear a low grumble from out front and you move away from the light.  The deceiving part was after a few minutes with the car in city traffic I realized that I was in front of most of my fellow drivers.  A quick look at the speedo and I was doing 60km/h.   The set up moves you along quite well in city stop and go traffic.  But from a seat of the pants experience it feels underwhelming even though the reality is it's quite peppy.

So after a little while you get used to it.  Until you come to an intersection where you have to cross multiple lanes of uncontrolled traffic.  Here you look for your spot to zip out into traffic and press on the accelerator only to find yourself pushing more and more on the accelerator and suddenly saying to yourself "come on betsy get going, hurry up".

Ok, I'm going to use the "G" word here.  Hold on... It feels gutless, there I've said it and I can't take it back...

But it's not really gutless.  It feels like...  It feels like someone at the CVT assembly plant forgot to tighten everything up.  There is that nagging voice in the back of your head that constantly says, "Is it responding, or not responding".  

Late last year I drove a Subaru Outback with a 4 cylinder and CVT transmission.  I have to say that Subaru's CVT felt like a highly strung CVT.  Like a sprinter or racehorse that's just waiting to go.  That's how my experience has been with most of the CVT's I've tried to date although Subaru's felt like they had really worked on its responsiveness. 

Comparing Subaru's CVT to Mitsubishi's is like comparing a sling shot to a jar of mayonnaise. Time to move on, I've made my point there's no sense in beating it to death...

Where the Mitsubishi is a winner is in the looks department.  When the Lancer came out a few years ago it was one of the most stunning designs around.  It's still a good looker.  Unique is the best way to describe it and no one else is even attempting to copy it's great looks.  

Those looks cary over into the interior of this base unit.  It is clean and very well thought out.  It maybe has just a little too many hard plastic surfaces but in this category of car and in this price range most other cars have similar materials inside.  The nice thing even with all the hard plastic there was not a single squeak to be heard from the car.

Heating and cooling controls could be better designed.  It has 3 large rotary dials way down low.  Since they are all identical in size and shape you have to look down to adjust the temperature or fan.  If you don't look down well you tend to turn down the fan when you wanted to turn down the heat.  Over the course of the days I had the car I turned the wrong dial at least 20 times and after a point it becomes annoying.  Just one different shaped dial in the whole mix and the problem would have been solved for me.

Out on the highway this car just cuts though the air like a knife.  It's highly raked windshield and low profile allow for some comfortable cruising on highways.  The CVT here is good at keeping the revs low and many times I was well over the speed limit.  

Going up long grades or passing is where the engine gets growly.  Maybe I'm just getting old but I really think Mitsubishi has set up this car for a younger demographic than me.  The engine at around 4000 RPM was annoying to my ears. It sounded rough I think Mitsubishi was trying to give it a performance exhaust sound but it's just noise.  There is also something about a 4 cylinder when it's noisy that makes you think the engine is not as smooth as one that has a better sound to it.  

Go into a single lane passing situation and the engine fairly quickly goes towards its red line and stays there and again this engine just sounded loud.  The times that I passed some vehicles I just wanted to do it as fast as possible to get the drone over with and move back to the quieter sound of the car cruising along.

Handling and braking were both good.  I particularly like the brakes.  So many cars now have a soft brake pedal and in order to get the bakes to grab the pedal has to travel quite a distance.  Not so with the Lancer.  It was very direct feeling and stopping felt secure and stable.  Handling is quite neutral, no surprises in this car and even lots of frost heaves and pot holes did not unsettle the chassis in the corners.  One minor gripe about the steering wheel.  Mitsubishi could you please put a telescoping feature on your steering!?  It would make the driving position perfect.  Without it finding the perfect set up just wasn't happening for me.

Now for the ultimate question.  Would I buy one?  If I were a superficial person, (Which I'm not) yes.  This car looks great and the price at just under $16000 is a decent deal for what the car has in it.  To me though beauty is more than skin deep and the engine / transmission setup is what soured me on this car.  If Mitsubishi could drop the CVT transmission and put in their 6 speed twin-clutch sportronic shift transmission this car would be top of my list for inexpensive compacts.

I can only wish they rethink their transmission choice and one day put in another better suited auto transmission.

The demise of automotive mechanical engineering?

Will there be a demise of automotive mechanical engineering?

In the 1950 post war world, engineers were poised to change our society with a slide rule in hand. They were quick of mind and what they designed would change the way we lived for ever. 

This was a time where paper and pencils ruled. Where mathematical equations were done in long hand and where what was being designed had never been attempted before. The calculations were done in the mind and there were many minds working on a project. All these different minds brought about many ideas and ultimately new ideas and ways of how to approach a problem. Success was unavoidable because of all the minds which were at work, each seeing the problem a little differently and each seeing a different solution. They would ultimately come together to find the best solution which was a combination of failures, successes, differing points of view and visceral discussion of what was the best way to proceed.

These human symbiotic relationships were real and they literally moved mountains and man to the moon.  This type of engineering went on for over 2 decades with men and women learning how to work on projects and building models of devices they were working on including rocket engines and internal combustion engines. 

  

In time came the computer, at first little more than a toy in the engineering world.  It was slower than the engineers and needed to be programmed in order to do the right work.Humans and engineers had little use for computers because they were toys which took more labour to program than they gave as output.  But there were the select few who saw potential of where the computer could go.  They were the first computer engineers.  They specialised in electrical engineering and worked on improving computer performance.  Some of them later became software engineers and their strength was the ability to visualise how a computer language could be harnessed to make that computer do something it had not done before.  Eventually computers began to work their way into the design and engineering departments of large automotive companies.  They helped take care of the menial tasks, the tedious repetitive tasks which most were not interested in doing on a daily basis.

But now something began to change in the computing world.  Computers were beginning to make generational leaps.  Every few years their speed would double.  This doubling of speed continued  at a break neck pace and the time between doubling became less and less.  While all this was happening there was another  variable which was occurring the cost of this computer speed was becoming less and less.  Computers were becoming more powerful and finally a critical  mass evolved where computers were becoming more of a necessity than a liability.  The cost of buying a more powerful computer became less that that of hiring another human do do more work.  

All the while during this process one other thing was happening to computers.   The size of the computer, and its energy requirements was become smaller and smaller.  

Now powerful  inexpensive computers can be put into almost any device.  They can be put into toasters, microwaves, fridges, freezers, dishwashers, stoves, lighting systems, the list goes on and on.

How does this relate to the world of cars?  This is where what we drive in 2012 is significantly different from what we drove in 2005.  Computer system in cars have been around for decades.  They were basic and prone to problems in the early 1980's.  But by the time the new millennium came around they were solid foundations in engine operating system and transmission.  They allowed designers to program into the vehicles varying parameters which permitted the power-trains to excel in varying conditions.  From cold climates like Alaska to high elevation places like Peru in these computer systems optimise the function of engines and transmissions allowing them to perform at their best while ensuring the vehicles remain reliable and easy to operate in any situation.

This is where computers are taking their next step in the cars we drive.  Over the last decade computer have been stepping into how we drive.  They are bringing us back from the brink of disaster when we make serious errors driving.  Systems such as stability control and vehicle dynamics control are beginning to help us in situations that we don't have enough experience to deal with properly.  These system are exceptional because they are literally saving peoples lives.

But here is where my question lies.  After having driven a 2012 Toyota Sienna for a few weeks I'm seriously wondering if these systems are being used as a shortcut to old fashioned engineering?  Why do companies need to spend time designing certain traits into cars like over steer and under steer.  Why not just tell the computer to do it for us.  It's quick, cheap and as far as I can tell it works.

  The reason I make this note is because while driving the 2012 Toyota Sienna V6 back from a skiing trip I noticed at one point in a very snow covered corner that the vehicle became very tail happy so tail happy I might add that at 45 km/h I noticed that the tail was stepping out on the vehicle while I was driving.  But just as quickly the ESP stepped in and brought the car back straight and clean.  One moment I could feel the vehicle starting to do a major rotation.  Two seconds later the car was back on course.

The next 20 minutes down from the ski hill I pondered how quickly the ESP had reacted.  But driving on the highway for the next 1 1/2 hours my thoughts wondered to how 7 years earlier I had been on the exact same road in a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan.  I had the same load 5 people on board with all our gear.  The conditions were worse when we went skiing with the Grand Caravan in 2005.  It starting snowing heavily in the morning and by the time we got back to the van there was 2 1/2 feet of snow on the roof.  The road was cleared in 2005 but it had not been sanded like it was in 2012.  It was roughly the same time of day around 4pm and in that exact same corner I was going about 40km/h in the Grand Caravan was well.  Both vehicles I might add had snow tires on them.  But what happened in the Dodge was completely different.  Through the course of the turn in the Dodge Grand Caravan it had heavy under steer.  That is the vehicle wanted to continue going straight.  It was something that was predictable in such a vehicle as a mini van.  Another vehicle which I took to this ski hill in 2008 was a Ford Freestyle which was a front wheel drive vehicle once again with snow tires on it.  The experience  with it was predictable much like the Dodge Grand Caravan.  Too much speed in the snowy conditions brought about under steer which was expected and predictable in a 7 passenger vehicle.

So I come back to my question. Are computer systems being used as a shortcut to engineering in modern vehicles.  My thoughts are beginning to fall more on the yes after my experience.  With a vehicle such as a minivan, if you are to get into a difficult situation I would think that you would set up the vehicle so that it would under steer.  It is a safe and predictable situation for an average driver to deal with.  Whereas the situation where over steer occurs or where the rear of the vehicle come around on the car is much more unpredictable for an average driver and can lead to over compensation on steering and eventually a loss of control.

So has Toyota intentionally designed over steer into the Sienna.  No I don't think they have.  They have designed and set up the Sienna van in a neutral manor.  That is to say it is set up so that it handles well and is predictable in most situations.  But when in comes to extreme situations it behaves unpredictably.  This is where the choice to use inexpensive software comes into play.  Rather than spend engineering time on setting up the vehicle to behave in a certain manor, they let the software take care of the condition because it is inexpensive and overall a reliable choice.  But what if the system fails or if the vehicle is put into a situation where the software system cannot help the vehicle to recover.  That is where the question ultimately lies and where I see the demise of the true automotive mechanical engineer in terms of  mechanical automotive traits.

   

It's an interesting question and something that most people are not asking themselves when they pick up that new car with stability control built into it.  Is the system installed to increase safety or is it really installed because it is less expensive now to put such a system in a car than to spend man hours and engineering time actually designing a car to have all the characteristics that a certain type of vehicle should have.  Ultimately in the future cars will be built on identical platforms, what will define the difference between cars will be the software parameters which are programmed into the vehicle.  These parameters will make one vehicle like a cross over feel sporty to drive because the software is programmed to give that vehicle those characteristics, whereas another vehicle such as a luxury sedan will be programmed to have the utmost comfort but in the end it will be software which defines the driving characteristics not the chassis itself nor the particular components which are bolted to that chassis. 

2012 Suzuki SX4 it is really... different

2012 Suzuki SX4

It works but it is a little odd

Some will love it but I’m sure most won’t... Which is a shame. 

Somewhere on Vancouver Island

A nice straight forward dash layout

The Vancouver Island highway #19 between Buckley Bay and Courtenay is one of the best pieces of highway on the West Coast.  It is in magnificent condition and has so little traffic that driving is a mind clearing experience. Maybe that's why I selected it for this test so that I could have a clear frame of mind when I gave my 2 cents worth about the SX4.

 

I sit right now in a 2012 Suzuki SX4.

My first impression and thought is that my Mom would like this car.  

Sounds like everyone needs a history lesson on my Mom...  She always loved cars with lots of glass.  The car she really wanted in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s was an AMC Pacer...  Trust me our family was so lucky we didn’t get that car, but she loved it because of the glass.  The SX4 has lots of glass and I know my Mom would like it for that reason. 

Will most people like it for that reason, I doubt it unless you are like my Mom and go for the immensely practical side of things.   (She used to pick her car colours not because she liked them but because she wanted a colour that would show the least amount of rust.)

The view from the divers seat is neat.  Lots of forward glass makes it easy to see in front of you but that changes as you look towards the back of the car where the belt line begins to go up and the vision goes down.

Enough with the pacer comparison, on we go with driving this little egg. 

The driving position is kind of like that of an older Italian sports car like the alpha romeo’s,  The steering wheel does not telescope and the pedals are closer than they ought to be so you end up driving with straight arms and bent legs. It’s an ok driving position for a short amount of time but if you’re doing highway driving your arms get tired of being straight after about an hour. 

The other thing about this type of driving position is that when your in a parking lot and having to do lots of maneuvering you don’t feel in control of the car.  

The seats are very comfortable and wrap nicely around your body.  This is the first small car I have ever seen with an armrest built into the seat which folds down like they do on many minivans.  It’s a nice touch when you have to drive for many hours to your destination with those straight arms... At least you can rest your right one on a padded armrest...

On the highway the car is stable but the steering is a little vague and the car tends to wander a little on center.  I can safely say that its not the ruts in the road that caused the wandering as the Vancouver Island highway is new and shows no signs of wear or ruts so far.  

The car is quiet at 100-110 km/hr above that speed more wind noise becomes apparent as does tire noise.  The SX4 begins to run out of steam around 120-130 km/hr although it will still creep up in speed as you go and during this trip there were points where I needed to pass so the car is easily able to keep pace on busy highways just don’t expect to jump out and pass.... 

Fit and finish of the car seemed quite good and interior materials are of good quality for a compact/sub-compact.  One interesting point for a car in this price range is the computer display of milage and range which is quite nice to see.

My car had air conditioning which worked extremely well on the 36 degree Celsius day keeping the car very comfortable during the cruise to Courtenay,BC.  Other features which are nice are large mirrors which allow you to clearly see the traffic around you.

Now down to the 2 factors that are important in all cars the engine and the breaks.  I got a respectable 0-60 of 12 seconds with a 4 speed auto.  The 2 litre engine does growl as the rpm’s rise and at higher speeds it’s a constant noise although not irritating.

The 4 speed auto shifts quickly trying to keep the car in fuel efficient territory and it takes a lot of gas pedal movement to get the car to downshift, but this is the nature of an economy car.

Brakes are touchy, very little movement causes the breaks to engage quite sharply which is fine a higher speeds but irritating in parking lots and traffic. 

Now down to weather or not I could see myself in this car long term.  In my current situation with a wife and 3 kids no.  But if I was in need of a great city run about car with great interior space and good sight lines and a very frugal engine yes I could see myself in this car.  I think my Mom would be proud of how I am growing up and starting to see the world a little more practically.

 3rd wheel Tv is an automotive review program with a different slant.  Why should men get all the fun reviewing cars...   

Jean Emond (pronounced gee-aah, eh-mon) is a guy who likes cars much like most men do the only difference is that he has to work with two women who really couldn’t care what his opinion is because well, he’s a man and men really don’t make sense.

 

This is where it all starts...

3rd Wheel Tv is a blog and a future TV show which will be coming to you soon.  But lets just dabble a little in what the show revolves around.

We romanticise the 50 and 60's and a way life was simpler and fun...  The reality was it was sexist, male dominated and full of smoke, literally....  3rd Wheel Tv may reverse the first two but it will definitely not have the third.


The reality of our time is that over 80% of car buying purchases are influenced by women.  To help that cause along Honda is now sponsoring female racing drivers to increase consumers knowledge of their "Women Empowered" initiative.  


Do a search on any search engine around women and car buying decisions and you will get statistics that go as high as saying over 90% of all car purchases are influenced by women and over 50% of all car purchases are now made by women!  Times have changed and so too should the idea of automotive reviews.  

Women may not look for the same technical jargon that men look for when buying a car.  They may not be interested in top driving sites reviews of the small nuances in handling differences between one German import or another.  Their frame of reference may not revolve around how one vehicle is 0.1 of a second faster 0-60 that another or how another car can stop 1 meter shorter than another.  That is what 3rd Wheel Tv and this blog will bring to you, a different perspective.  2 women and one man all looking at cars from different perspectives and from different backgrounds.  The reality is that this blog will be entertaining and bring you perspectives which no other automotive source will bring.


And after all this yakety yak, lets get down to business around what we three think is of interest in the automotive world.