MOTORING Mitsubishi Mirage
Noisy drive Don’t take things at face value, advises Rod Easdown
What is it? A small car at a small price. What’s in it? A 57-kilowatt 1.2-litre three-cylinder engine with a continuously variable auto. Is it thirsty? I used 7.5 litres per 100 kilometres in the city, 5.5 in the country. The official combined figure is 4.6. Drive away $18,527. (Five-speed manual $16,205).
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esearch indicates that the number of car buyers taking test drives is steadily declining. With so many cars now being pretty generic, a bit like fridges and microwaves, that’s entirely understandable. But driving can still make a big difference. Let me present the Mitsubishi Mirage. It’s a terrific showroom car. It looks good. The interior is well finished with pleasant surfaces and no bare metal. The front seats are OK, roominess is good for a car of this size and the cargo space is usable with a 60/40 folding rear seat. The controls are clear, the instruments are fine. It has everything you need including Bluetooth and USB, and the LS ($21,099) gets automatic headlights and wipers, a proximity key and climate control. Sitting in the showroom, you’d happily consider it a proposition. Now drive it. The first thing you discover is how noisy it is. The little 1.2-litre sounds like a diesel, partly because it has three cylinders
overtake smartly. In traffic your foot is not infrequently on the floor. The body integrity is less reassuring than, say, a Mazda 2 or a Hyundai i20, and the Mirage lacks their refinement. You’ll note that the rear brakes are drums while the Mazda and Hyundai get discs. The Mirage leans in tight corners and doesn’t like being hurried, and the ride is firmish, about what you’d expect from something of this size and weight. But the economy is sensational. I also tried a five-speed manual – a bit quicker, and noisier – and its economy is similar to the auto. The Mirage is a bargain. Don’t go by the official prices here. Ask for a deal. At time of writing, they started at $12,990 with $1000 cash back.
Things you didn’t know about motoring and partly because corners have been cut with soundproofing. It’s all mechanical noise, and by the time you reach freeway speeds there’s a heap of road noise in the equation. Another corner has been cut with the audio, which is pretty crook. Rip out and replace the speakers because I doubt they cost Mitsubishi
much. On the road you learn what 57 kilowatts can do and, more importantly, what they can’t. They can’t beat the work truck beside you to the lane merge and they don’t
Jaguar C-types were the first race cars in the world with disc brakes, giving them a huge advantage over all competitors. In the 1953 LeMans they finished first, second and fourth, all because they spent less time slowing down.
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JUNE 19, 2013 \ WEEKLY – YOUR COMMUNITY VOICE 49