About the Mitsubishi Pajero Sport
Jack C purchased this Mitsubishi Pajero Sport used for $44,000 (including all on-road costs) in 2023. Jack C would buy this car again because: “The Pajero Sport fits our needs as a family perfectly. It will happily do the run to school or work in traffic. And will just as happily sit at 100km/h on the open road, with or without a trailer hooked up.
It may not be the best in class but aside from a few minor issues it does everything we need without fail.”
How reliable has your car been? Tell us about any issues.
We haven’t experienced any major issues yet, but the car is only five years old with 50,000km on the clock so I wouldn’t expect any issues.
Ours seems to have a battery drain issue that we haven’t figured out yet, with it now on its third battery after 5 years. It also recently developed a transmission lurch upon takeoff or minor acceleration however a quick dive through owners forums led us to the culprit, a split intercooler hose which was a quick and cheap fix. (>$100).
What do you think of the ownership experience with your car?
For the most part faultless. The car starts without fail, everything works when you try to use it, and it’s just intuitive and easy to drive on a daily basis.
Aside from the aforementioned transmission and battery issues, there are some programming shortfalls in the active safety tech that can become irritating. Sometimes on sharp corners the AEB will detect parked cars and anchor on the brakes.
The car is also fitted with what Mitsubishi titles Ultrasonic Misacceleration Mitigation (UMS) which essentially cancels acceleration input when it detects an imminent collision. However it often misinterprets surroundings and will cancel your acceleration input when trying to take a gap out of a side street which can lead to a few hairy scenarios.
One part to be wary of is the thin body panels that dent very easily, the first hailstorm we had after purchase left the car coated in little hail dents, this was despite covering it over with old duvets and a hail-proof car cover.
Are you happy with the price and features of your car?
We were incredibly happy with the price we paid and feel the feature list is fair. The price when new on our car was about $60k drive-away. We paid $43k for ours at four years old with 33,000km on the odometer.
The Pajero Sport is fitted with all the features I need with heated seats, 360 camera, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, 8 speakers, adaptive cruise, blind-spot monitoring, keyless entry and start, etc.
This is pretty even with most competitors however the omission of a power tailgate I find odd for the class, similarly it would be nice to have a heated steering wheel and a sunroof.
What do you think of the performance and economy of your car?
This is the biggest shortfall of the Pajero Sport. It’s fitted with Mitsubishi’s tried and tested 2.4L Turbo Diesel making 133kW of power and 430Nm of torque matched with an Aisin eight-speed automatic.
Whilst the outputs seem adequate they fall short of the class standards and you can certainly feel it.
Whilst fine pottering around town at low speeds or with a light load cruising on the motorway, the powertrain runs out of puff with a heavy load or a trailer hooked up.
It also seems at its best when accelerating lightly, try and plant it and your met with mediocre puff at best (0-100km/h takes a hair over 13 seconds). All this would be forgivable if the powertrain at least produced good fuel economy but we average 16L/100km in town, 10L/100km on the open road, and over 20L/100km with a trailer on the back.
Adding to these woes are the small fuel tank (67L), this means if you want to tow a caravan, your met with a realistic cruising range of around 300km per tank.
What do you think of the technology in your car?
Like previously mentioned, the Pajero Sport is met with everything I need but that is personal opinion.
Some may miss the active safety features such as rear-cross traffic alert or lane departure warning/lane keep assist however I typically turn these off in other cars so they’re not missed, and outside of that it has all the active safety needed.
The infotainment screen is smallish at 8.0 inches but gets the job done, it’s missing sat-nav however as it has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay this hasn’t proved an issue for me and likely won’t for most others. A nice touch from Mitsubishi is the 360 camera where the car in the top-down view is colour matched to your car.
What do you think of the ride comfort and handling of your car?
This is where I find the Pajero Sport shines brightest. The ride is exactly where it should be for a ute-based 4×4. The car is softly sprung in a way that makes all but the sharpest of potholes and imperfections unnoticeable from cabin occupants.
This soft springing does lead to a fair level of body roll around corners however despite this the Pajero Sport never falls short of mechanical grip, comfortable being pushed through sharp country roads at 80km/h.
Some may complain about the roll however in an SUV like this, ride comfort should be the focus. The one place where it falls short is with a trailer hooked up, the soft springs allow the rear of the car to drop 30mm and the nose rises 15mm which leads to quite an awkward drive.
With the rear springs short of room to travel, instead sharply banging over any imperfections. However overall we find the ride to be about where we need it to be.