Why is the O-Z still with us? Ralliart a pleasant surprise others could learn from.
Written: Dec 05 '03 (Updated Jun 23 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Steering and shifter feel, front seats, chassis, engine power and smoothness
Cons: Blah styling, tight rear seat, ride quality if you expect to not feel the road
The Bottom Line: A Mitsubishi worth considering. Hopefully this will encourage more short-throw factory shifters.
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| mkaresh's Full Review: 2004 Mitsubishi Lancer |
I’ve never driven a Mitsubishi I liked. Until now.
For 2004 Mitsubishi has refreshed the styling of the Lancer, its smallest car, add a “Sportback” wagon, and added a new Ralliart version of both the sedan and this wagon. Instead of the 120-horsepower, 2.0-liter four that underpowered 2003 non-Evo Lancers (and that remains standard issue in most Lancer models), the Ralliart has a 162-horspower 2.4 with variable valve timing. It also has specific suspension tuning, 16-inch alloys (vs. 14s and 15s on lesser Lancers), sport seats, and a short-throw shifter borrowed from the 271-horsepower all-wheel-drive Lancer Evolution VIII (Evo). Mitsubishi has tried a sport-tuned version of the Lancer before with the O-Z Rally, but this one appears to actually have the goods to back on the sporting pretensions. (Actually, the O-Z is still offered, but if you’ll pretend not to notice the continued existence of this thoroughly redundant model then so will I.)
To find out if the Ralliart really has the goods I took one for a test drive. I would have preferred to test the five-speed Sportback, but since the wagon is only available with an automatic (regrettable for the handful of us who want a wagon with a stick) the sedan it was.
Note: If you're looking for my review of the ultra-high-performance Evo, it's here.
Mitsubishi Lancer Reliability
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Styling
Might as well get the bad stuff out of the way first. Even after the passing of last year’s huge rectangular grill that looked more suited for a conservative luxury sedan--but would have looked dated even on that sort of car--the Lancer is no looker. The Ralliart’s 16s and tasteful side skirts help, but when it comes down to it the sedan’s styling is about as blah as they come. The basic shape and many of the details are similar to those of the Mazda Protege, but somehow the Protege is a much better looking car. The surface curvatures and proportions just aren't there for the Lancer. The Evo’s fender flares and front air dam are needed badly here to lend some edginess. Any chance?
The wagon is if anything less special to look at. Did Mitsubishi steal a design team from Volvo? In its awkward proportions, rear end boxiness, and tall thin tail lamps the Sportback resembles the old 850/S70 wagon. Volvisti who miss the old boxy Volvos, I’ve got your car!
Inside the blahs largely continue. The instrument panel is your standard straight across Japanese econocar thing. The center stack does not flow into the center console. That said, the materials are well up to the task, with carbon fiber and titanium trim (both faux) saving the cabin from total blandness.
Actually, I really liked one part of the interior: the Ralliart seats. Well shaped for both comfort and support during aggressive driving, they are covered in an attractive black and red highly textured cloth. Lumbar support isn’t adjustable, but in my test drive I didn’t sense this would be a problem. Why can’t the entire interior be as good as these seats? Mitsubishi can start by inserting some padding under the cloth on the door armrest. My left elbow strongly prefers cars that provide it with a well-located, well-padded surface. Also, it would be nice if the tilt as well as the height of the driver’s seat could be adjusted, as it can in my Mazda.
Accommodations
I already spilled the beans on the front seats. As for the driving position, it differed greatly from that of the Mazda Protegé5 I recently purchased. In the P5 the instrument panel is very low, as in Civics of yore. In the Lancer the instrument panel is at an average height, making the car feel larger than it is. I like the extra visibility and sporty character of a low instrument panel, but this is of course a matter of taste. In the Lancer the console is also higher off the floor, enabling the short-throw shifter with its smallish firm leather-wrapped round knob to fall readily to hand. The leather-wrapped steering wheel isn’t especially attractive, but it feels good. So the basics are here.
A bit more about the feeling like a larger car: compared to most other compacts the Lancer is a larger car. The sedan is 180.5 inches long, the wagon 181.3. The new nose added three inches. Sure it’s all front overhang, the last thing a car needs more of, but length is length and this car’s got it. Two generations back a Honda Accord was 184.
Most compacts are significantly shorter. My P5 is 170.5 inches long, while the Protegé sedan measures 175.3. To find a longer compact you’ll have to visit Saturn, whose ION is a ridiculously long 184.5 inches—much of it hanging ahead of the front wheel.
On paper the payoff for this length appears to be legroom worthy of a midsize car: 43.2 inches up front, 36.6 inches in the back. My Mazda has about an inch less of each, and among compacts only the Ford Focus offers more. (The Lancer brochure claims that the car’s rear legroom is “class-leading,” but this isn’t quite the case.)
But paper is one thing, sitting there yourself is another. With the front seat adjusted how I like it, the head and knees attached to my five-foot-nine-inch self found themselves in close proximity to the front seatbacks and rear window (not respectively). I could fit, but just barely. A touch of scrunching was involved. Overall the rear seat is passable, but I’ve been more comfortable in the rear seat of most other compacts, and especially in the Mazda Protegé, Ford Focus, and Toyota Corolla.
The wagon has a bit more rear headroom for those concerned about such things.
Interior storage is about average for a compact, with a decent-sized glove compartment, CD-sized center console compartment, and some map pockets. Despite the sedan’s length its trunk is on the small side at 11 cubic feet. You’ll find another cube or three in most other compact sedans. Yep, this car could have been packaged better. The rear seat folds down in two pieces, but the resulting passthrough is narrow. I’ve noticed this in a number of recently designed sedans. It seems the pursuit of structural rigidity is slowly killing off the expandable trunk. (In the Infiniti G35, Acura TL, and Lexus IS it’s already dead.)
The wagon makes much better use of its length. Seats up it offers 25 cubic feet, a few more than I have in the stylishly truncated rear of my P5, and seats down it offers nearly 61. My P5 falls well short at 38. (But it sure does look much better.) Among other compact wagons the Focus offers 56, the Impreza offers 62, and the Jetta offers 71. The last is amazing given the Jetta’s 173.6 inch length; credit its better packaging and 58.5 inch height—it’s a few inches taller than the Lancer. All in all, the Sportback offers a competitive but not class-leading amount of rear cargo volume. Shame there’s no five-speed. (Did I complain about that already?)
On the Road
If the Ralliart’s performance had measured up to its styling and interior packaging then I’d just be writing one more critical review of a substandard Mitsubishi product. But within ten feet I knew I was going to like how this car drives. The shifter has short throws and requires much more effort as a result of the shorter lever. It feels very tight and precise moving between gears. It will not be to everyone’s taste, but it certainly suited mine. After returning to my P5 I was very glad to already have a short-throw kit on the way. (Can it get here already?)
The Ralliart’s steering is moderately high in effort (though low in effort compared t the shifter) and very direct in feel. Information from the front tires’ contact patches is faithfully passed to the driver’s fingertips. The steering in my P5 feels a bit mushy in comparison, and I never thought I’d say that about my car. In the Ralliart you feel very directly connected to the car through the seats and primary controls, which is rare in any car, much less one at this price. The Ford SVT comes close if memory serves, but its shifter throws are longer, its shift action clunkier, and its steering a bit less direct in feel. The steering, shifter, and seats really make the car in the Ralliart’s case.
Handling is very good. The car doesn’t react as quickly to steering inputs as my P5 does, but it feels more solid, balanced, and stable in aggressive driving. It understeers much less than the typical nose-heavy front-driver. Together with the bits praised above the chassis inspires confidence. The 205/50R16 tires are over an inch narrower than the 235s fitted to the Evo, but they stick well enough. Overall, despite the excellent primary controls, the Ralliart is not quite as fun to drive as my P5—it lacks the P5’s friskiness—but it’s technically the superior car. It should be capable of superior speeds at a track or along a curvy road.
As might be expected the Ralliart rides very firmly—but not harshly. Impacts are succinctly dealt with. Somehow compared to my car the Lancer rides both more firmly and less busily. The structure feels stiffer, and this likely helps.
I almost forgot to discuss the new engine. I want this engine in my car. To begin with, like the similarly sized four in the Acura TSX it is very smooth both at idle and all the way up to the redline. Gearing is nearly identical to that in my car—the engine turns nearly 3000 RPM at 60 in fifth—but highway cruising is both much quieter and much smoother. If not for the tach I would have though the engine was spinning much slower. Mitsubishi pioneered the use of counter-rotating balance shafts to quell the vibrations within large fours, and it seems they know how to use them.
I found the engine’s power output more than adequate at all but low RPM. The TSX engine kicks out another 38 horses, but they’re way up high—its power peak is over a thousand RPM higher than the Mitsu’s 5750—and the Mitsubishi engine has a more entertainingly plump power curve. Okay, sure, I wouldn’t turn down another 38 horsepower given the choice, but they weren’t missed in the Ralliart. Even at nearly 2900 pounds—the nearly midsize dimensions translate to nearly midsize mass—the car felt quick. I easily, perhaps too easily, attained extra-legal speeds. The wagon is 150 pounds heavier, but even with the obligatory automatic I would be surprised if it felt weak. Despite the healthy amount of torque, torque steer is minimal. (Take note, Nissan.)
Knowing the Mitsubishi had at long last decided to bring the Evo to the U.S., archrival Subaru successfully kept secret its plan to stick a 2.5-liter in its WRX STi. While enraging purists with this violation of the World Rally Championship’s (WRC) 2.0 liter limit, it did give the STi a 29 horsepower advantage over the rule-abiding Evo. Will Mitsubishi respond by turbocharging the new 2.4? Well, it’s probably not that easy as the larger four has only a single cam in each head and this could become a hindrance in ultra-high tune. But they designed DOHC heads for the 2.0 for Evo use, so it should be possible to do the same for the 2.4.
Lastly, the brakes. ABS is standard, and well short of triggering it they stop the car well. In even aggressive driving on public roads the Evo’s Brembos shouldn’t be missed.
Overall, the performance of the Lancer Ralliart greatly exceeded my expectations. The Evo is no doubt good for more thrills, but those with less to spend or who fear for the life of their license will be plenty happy driving the less powerful front-driver.
Pricing
For quick, up-to-date pricing, and especially user-specified price comparisons, check out the website I created: www.truedelta.com. Why yet another vehicle pricing website? Well, I personally lacked the patience to keep using the others. They were too slow and required too much effort, especially when trying to compare prices. So I taught myself some programming and created a site where there is no need to dig through option packages, prerequisites, and the like one by one -- the TrueDelta algorithm figures these out for you in one swift pass.
Two option packages are available on the Ralliart: a $1,400 package that includes a sunroof and 315-watt audio and a $1,500 package that adds side airbags to these. The latter is priced low enough that I’d definitely spring for it, but the sedan I drove had neither package.
Fitted with a 2.3-liter, the Mazda3 nearly matches the power and torque ratings of the Lancer’s 2.4. It’s much more attractively styled, with a much classier interior. With ABS, two sets of side airbags, and the sport package a 3 sedan will list for $18,215. I’d definitely check this one out before springing for the Lancer.
Update February 2004: I have now driven and reviewed the Mazda3. Overall it is a better car than the Mitsubishi, but the latter has its advantages. The Mazda3's steering has a more direct feel than that in the Protege5, but that in the Mitsubishi is more direct stil. Also, the Mitsubishi's seats provide better lateral support, and its shifter has shorter throws. I drove a Mazda3 automatic; I'd have to drive a manual back-to-back with the Mitsubishi to determine which is the more fun to drive. My suspicion is that the Ralliart has a slight edge here, but the Mazda3 more than compensates with a more upscale exterior and interior, and greater polish all around.
The SVT Focus is about the same price as the Lancer. Tough call. The Focus has a more entertaining chassis, more interesting styling, and a better rear seat, while the Ralliart has better primary control feel and more midrange power.
A Nissan Sentra SE-R is cheaper, but between the cheesy interior, sloppy shifter, and an engine that steers the car as much as accelerates it you don’t want this one.
A Hyundai Elantra GT is much cheaper. But if a tight, responsive chassis and precise primary controls are what you’re after, the Hyundai just isn’t going to do it for you. If Hyundai wants to earn that “GT” it should study the Ralliart.
A VW Jetta GLI has its appealing aspects, especially in the engine and interior quality departments, but does not handle nearly as well and costs thousands more than the others.
Last Words
I was very impressed by the seats, shifter, steering, and solidity of the Lancer Ralliart. Especially the shifter. I'm flat out sick of the typical shifter quality in sedans. The throws are generally long, the feel floppy. For many cars you can buy a short-throw kit aftermarket (Subaru even offers one as a dealer installed option), but this is the first I've seen in a reasonably priced sedan from the factory. Hopefully the Ralliart will do well enough as a result that other manufacturers will follow suit.
Give the Ralliart the Evo’s body and bump up the rebate and it would have few weaknesses. As it is, this is one very good car that competes with other very good cars. In this price range as a driving enthusiast I’d look at the old and new Mazda, the Ford, and the Mitsubishi. Depending on your priorities and tastes (styling, power curve, control feel, responsiveness, seat comfort), one of them is the best car for you.
To learn more about my reliability research and sign up to participate in it, visit www.truedelta.com.
Links to my reviews of related vehicles:
Ford Focus SVT
Hyundai Elantra GT
Mazda Protegé5
Mazda3
Nissan Sentra SE-R
Saturn ION
Subaru WRX
Toyota Corolla XRS
VW Jetta GLI
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 18,572
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