Mitsubishi Lancer 5dr RalliArt… a scary experience..
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by Cor Steenstra, Photos Chris Jones, Model Christina Lynn, Make up Lolly Feng
We wanted to write this article describing a sporty and fun car with a lot of flexibility, agility and spunk, a car you could race around town with, bring your kids to school do the shopping, drive to Vegas, all of that and never look bad. A dynamic sporty good looking car. Instead we have to start with the gynormous LAG this car has in the low power range. This is just really pathetic and even dangerous.
Standing at a traffic light you expect this car… well basically any car to start moving forward as you press the throttle, and this one especially since it so closely related to the all conquering Lancer EVO X… So what happens… NOTHING.. the car slowly luls away.. and then, about 3 second into it, after out of sheer frustration you have floored the pedal, the thing just flies uncontrollably forward. Now imagine doing this while you are getting a green light at a normal corner… and in the corner this thing just suddenly gets totally out of control..
Then imagine you are on the busy SoCal freeways and you have to move from the number 1 lane to the Diamond lane, mixing through tight traffic where everybody is fighting for every inch of road just to make it to the holy office 1 second quicker than if they would good drivers.. We did just that and had a few very close calls, since the bloody thing initially does NOTHING.., so the people that are willing to let you in think you don’t really want it, or the hole you discovered suddenly disappears.. and then the thing just accelarates out of control, so panic all around…
We have not had this fundamental stupidity in power lag since the early days of the turbos with their turbo lag, but there is just no excuse for this to be on this car, at this day and age, and with this price tag.
The Mitsubishi Lancer 5dr RalliArt is a very nice car, good looking, practical, maybe cheap materials and cheap perceived quality in the usage of the sheet metal in the doors etc, but it would have been quite a recommended vehicle… but not with this dangerous attribute..!
We drove the Mitsubishi Outlander immediately following this one, so we were immediately checking if that had the same fault, and it did not.. It accelerated right as you expect it to do.. Why was this on the Lancer..? Why??
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