2021 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross review Now restyled and longer!
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00:00G'day, I'm Paul. So Mitsubishi wants to continue filling out its range with as many SUVs as possible.
00:05That's why it created the Eclipse Cross, like a funky small SUV. Well, it's just been updated.
00:10So it's got a new face, a couple of new extra features. Now, this right here is kind of one down from the top spec.
00:16It's called the Eclipse Cross Aspire. It's priced at just under $35,000.
00:20The Eclipse Cross competes with things like the CX-5, the Kia Seltos.
00:24It's kind of competing with the medium SUVs on the smaller side of medium, as opposed to the bigger ones.
00:29Today, we're going to do a detailed review of this car.
00:32If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review,
00:35you can use the time codes up on the screen, or if you're on YouTube,
00:38just scroll down and use the chapters below.
00:40And if you haven't done so already, make sure you hit subscribe and press the bell icon
00:43so you can find out every single time we drive an SUV.
00:47Okay, sorry about all the noise. We've found ourselves next to a freeway today.
00:50But anyway, you've got seven colors to choose from, and all but the base white is a little under $1,000 extra.
00:56I quite like this one. It's like a pearlescent paint. I think these white pearlescents really elevate just a solid white.
01:02They make the car stand out nicely, especially in the sun. Now, what about the design? I like it.
01:07I think it looks really cool. So you've got a giant grille here. On the Aspire model,
01:11it's all sort of plastic, but it doesn't look cheap and nasty from a distance.
01:15And I think it offsets nicely with the white. You can actually see those parking sensors concealed in there.
01:20Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments section below.
01:22Do you think the design is a little too edgy, a little too out there?
01:24Or do you think this is what Mitsubishi actually needs? Up here,
01:27you've got LED daytime running lights. You have a halogen headlight in here.
01:32Now, if you want to see why I don't really like halogen headlights, click up here to watch our headlight comparison.
01:37We do a test between halogen LED and laser.
01:40You'll get a good idea of why you need better headlights than halogen.
01:43You can get LED lights on the next bottle above, though. You do get LED fog lights, though,
01:48which is cool. A little bit of chrome accent here to really define the front. And if we jump around to the side,
01:53here you've got 18-inch alloy wheels and a nice theme there with the glossy
01:57portion on the outside and then the black on the inside.
02:00It's quite a nice design and I think it makes it stand out nicely. A bit of plastic cladding on the wheel arch,
02:06even though this is a front-wheel drive model. Indicator built into the wing mirror there and then the white cover on top.
02:11Camera integrated into that mirror as well. Black roof rails.
02:15You have privacy glass. And then come around to the back here.
02:18I quite like that side profile, how it's chiseled in and then
02:21that belt line runs all the way to the back and then connects with the taillights.
02:24Those taillights are LED and then they stretch all the way around there.
02:28And it's quite a nice looking design. And then the roof is kind of carved out of the boot as well.
02:32So it's got that sleek proportion. Looks pretty cool, I reckon. And then you've got Eclipse Cross written along the rear there.
02:38So yeah, let me know in the comments section below. Do you think the design works?
02:41Is it a little too edgy? I'm keen to get your thoughts. So we are inside the Eclipse Cross. Let's start with the key.
02:47This is what it looks like.
02:48So you've got lock, unlock, then a blank and then on the back there you have the Mitsubishi symbol.
02:53It's a proximity sensing key.
02:55So you just leave that in your pocket. Once you get inside the car, you press the start button and away you go.
03:00Now, let's talk styling. So I think this doesn't actually look too bad.
03:03This isn't as stylish as a lot of the competitors in this segment.
03:06But for the most part, they've done a good job in terms of the appearance.
03:10So you've got this new infotainment screen that sits high up on the dashboard.
03:14You've got soft touch materials along the top of the dashboard and they're an interesting design.
03:18Yes, it's soft touch, but they're a little bit rough.
03:20So it's just a different appearance to what you'd expect in a car like this.
03:24Nothing I'm not sure about though is all this piano black. It's here. It's here.
03:28It's also on the steering wheel.
03:30And my complaint with this is how easy it marks and also how easy it gets dirty.
03:34You can see that section there just looks filthy already.
03:37There's also some faux carbon fibre up the top here and also along the door handles, which is a little bit strange.
03:42But in terms of the touch points, really nice and soft there and also on the doors as well.
03:46We do have a tool for testing those touch points.
03:49If you want to see how this car compares to other cars in the segment, just use the link in the description below.
03:55Now, what about build quality?
03:57Look, that's all sort of moving around a little bit, but for the most part this feels okay.
04:02Let's talk infotainment. So new to the Eclipse Cross is this larger 8-inch infotainment screen.
04:08We've already done a detailed review of this. If you want to watch that, you can click up here.
04:12Today, it'll just be a brief overview. Unfortunately, this infotainment system isn't very good. So it's incredibly basic.
04:18You can see here
04:19there's no inbuilt navigation and, I don't know,
04:21it's just not very good compared to the rest of the competitors in this segment which offer far more detail and a little bit more
04:27interactivity as well. So in terms of audio, you have AM, FM, DAB plus digital radio.
04:33You can also stream through Bluetooth, USB audio, USB video as well.
04:37And then in terms of smartphone mirroring, you have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
04:40This is what Apple CarPlay looks like.
04:43Tiny bit laggy, but it takes up the entire screen.
04:46And this is kind of the saviour to the infotainment system because while
04:50the standard unit isn't very good, you can just use smartphone mirroring for the rest of the time.
04:55And this is what Android Auto looks like. Another full screen integration.
05:00Moves around okay. Still a little bit laggy there. You can see it's not really
05:04moving all that fast. The other thing to note as well is that both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay require a cable,
05:09so it's not a wireless system.
05:10Now I will point out at this point as well that the voice recognition, when you do have smartphone mirroring, it works fine.
05:16It uses your smartphone to interpret what you're saying.
05:19But when you are just using the car,
05:21it is a really poor integration of voice recognition because I can't just press it and tell the car anything.
05:26You have to go into sub menus and even then you have to save voice tags for it to call different people. Like it is just...
05:33Let me just demonstrate so you understand what I mean.
05:35I'm going to try and call Alborz Feller. In most cars on the market that have voice recognition built into the infotainment system,
05:42press the button and say what you want to do. So let's give that a shot.
05:45Please speak after the beep.
05:47Call Alborz Feller.
05:49Could not recognize. Press the sketch key and speak again. So we'll go into the telephone menu now,
05:54which is what I assume you have to do.
05:56Telephone.
05:58Telephone.
05:59Say a telephone number or a voice tag registered name.
06:03Call Alborz Feller.
06:05Could not recognize. Press the speech key and speak again.
06:09So I have to basically save voice tags
06:13to match people's names.
06:14So you have to literally set the car up when you get it so that it can call people instead of just
06:19calling the person that you want to call. So you can go through recent contacts and search for people,
06:24but yeah, it is just really a few steps behind other competitors in this segment in terms of usability.
06:29So in terms of speakers, you have an eight speaker sound system and on the connectivity front
06:33you have two USB ports plus a 12 volt outlet up front. Okay, let's talk safety.
06:39It comes standard with autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection.
06:43You have radar cruise control, which you operate here on the steering wheel. Blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror.
06:48You also get rear cross traffic alert. Now there is this thing here as well.
06:52So it is a camera button. When you push that it actually brings up the
06:56360 degree camera and also a view at the front of the car. You have front and rear parking sensors as well.
07:02But the clever thing here is that you can actually alternate between views as well.
07:06So you can get that curb view and you can do that while you're driving.
07:08So I find that handy when it comes to parking and also positioning the car.
07:12But it is a little bit deceiving because if you have a look at that view there,
07:15it looks like we're right next to the line, but in reality, we're quite away from the line.
07:19So you just make sure you get your judgments right.
07:21And the camera itself is pretty low quality as well. I would have liked to see something a little bit better there.
07:26Let's talk storage. So we'll get rid of this cable.
07:29Where's your phone going to live? Well, it can live up the front here. Caveat is it doesn't actually fit large phones.
07:36So you can only really fit a small phone down the front there,
07:38but you can then slot it into the cup holder if you want to.
07:41Then in terms of cups themselves, you've got our coffee cup here.
07:45That fits nicely into there and it's easy to get out as well.
07:48A lot of the time these cup holders are far too deep and it means that
07:51you end up spilling your coffee if you have a small cup like that. In terms of bottles,
07:55they easily fit in there with little teeth to hold them in and then you've got bottle storage inside the doors as well.
08:00Plenty of room for a big bottle and also spare room either side. Center console is decent sized.
08:06You've got a coin tray plus the ability to fit a full-size bottle in there if you need to.
08:12You also have a glove box down here, which is reasonably sized and big enough for a bottle.
08:17Although it doesn't close if the bottle's in there.
08:20The bottle doesn't go up there either.
08:22There we go. What about comfort? Well, you've got dual zone automatic climate control. You have heated seats for the first row.
08:29I quite like the seat. So it's got this micro suede material.
08:33It's a bit like Alcantara and I think the design looks really cool. The seating position itself is great.
08:38It hugs you in nicely. Steering wheel sits nicely in the hand.
08:41Everything's easy to reach and then you've got paddle shifters.
08:43These are metallic too. And finally you have electric seat adjustment for the driver and manual for the passenger.
08:49Okay, second row. What's it like? Well, I've got a fair bit of room here. Knee room is pretty decent.
08:54Remember, I've got this seat quite far back. Toe room is very impressive and headroom is reasonable.
09:01You have mat pockets, or mat pocket rather, behind the passenger seat.
09:05You've got a center armrest here with two cup holders.
09:08Stick our bottle in there fairly easily and then you've got storage for the bottle inside the door.
09:13There's a 12-volt outlet down the bottom here, but no rear air vents. Just a little bit disappointing.
09:19And then you do have ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats.
09:22This seat belt, which strangely comes across from the side of the boot and then connects in for your center passenger.
09:29Now the interesting thing is these seats don't slide forwards and backwards, but you can adjust the recline.
09:35So if you do want it to sit a little further back or a little further forward,
09:38you just pull that lever and this will also afford you with a little bit of extra boot room as well with
09:43seats that move. Let's talk cargo space. So it has increased
09:47over the last model. You now have just over 400 litres of cargo space available in this area.
09:53If we have a look under here, you have a space saver spare tyre.
09:57It's a fairly high boot floor and then a fairly high load lip.
10:00So you're gonna have to lug stuff over the top of that to get it in.
10:02But you do have storage on the side and also a light built into there. You've got a cargo blind as well.
10:08It's fairly easy to remove. Let's see how it goes with our bags in here. I think there's going to be plenty of room.
10:14Look at that piece of cake. I'll show you what it looks like with that second row down as well.
10:18Once you do drop the second row, space expands to a little over
10:241100 litres and then you can see it's a fairly flat load floor until you get to the seats where it rises a little bit.
10:31So we've hit the road in the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross.
10:34This is an interesting engine because I don't know that Mitsubishi uses it in any of its other cars in Australia.
10:40It's a 1.5 litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine, makes 110 kilowatts of power and
10:47250 newton meters of torque and it's mated to a continuously variable transmission.
10:52Now, what does all that feel like? Well, let's give this a little jab here.
10:58It's actually not too bad. It's got a fair bit of go. So this is front-wheel drive.
11:02You can get an on-demand all-wheel drive version, but I think the front-wheel drive is perfect.
11:07It doesn't have enough torque for torque steer, which is where the steering starts going all over the place as you start accelerating.
11:13So it is right in the sweet spot of where it needs to be.
11:16There is also a system called Active Yaw Control. According to Mitsubishi, it helps this car feel like an all-wheel drive car.
11:23But to be honest, I'm not really feeling it.
11:25It's meant to control the torque at the front and then brake individual wheels to
11:29tuck it in and that kind of thing, but I don't really see it working too well.
11:32So the official fuel economy figure is 7.3 litres per 100 kilometres.
11:37Which is almost exactly where we are now, 8.2. So it's within earshot of that. Worth keeping in mind today is incredibly hot.
11:44It was sitting a little lower earlier on, but as the AC runs and that kind of thing, it creeps up a little bit.
11:50When it comes to ground clearance, you're not going to be doing any rock hopping in these.
11:53175 millimetres is what you'll be able to clear. And on the towing front, you have 1600 kilograms of braked towing capacity.
12:00So that's enough for a very small camper trailer.
12:03And I'd probably go for the all-wheel drive version as well if you are planning on towing.
12:07Let's talk ride. I think this is the part that Mitsubishi has focused a lot of time on. In Australia,
12:11we have some of these dodgy roads and I've explained before in other videos that
12:14Australian roads aren't any worse than any other roads around the world,
12:18but we have a lot of varying road conditions and Mitsubishi's dialled in a lot of comfort into this car.
12:23So it's not overly sporty, which is kind of where they were heading with this chassis, but it is comfortable and that's important.
12:29It's soaking up bumps beautifully and out on country roads, it just really glides along nicely.
12:34So when you do hit corrugations or potholes, they aren't going to be massively jarring. Okay, let's talk about handling.
12:41Tip it into this corner here. Look, it's got a fair bit of body roll.
12:45It's not really a sports car in that sense, but it's fine for what it is.
12:50At the end of the day, a front-wheel drive car like this isn't going to set the world on fire.
12:54But it does have the benefit of that engine being fairly punchy. So when you do get stuck into it,
12:58it sort of gives you the response that you need.
13:00So we don't have an official 0-100 time for the Eclipse Cross,
13:04but we thought we'd put it under the stopwatch to see how it goes.
13:19Road noise for the most part is pretty good.
13:21But if you find yourself on a course chip road like this, it speeds above 80kmph now, it can get a little bit noisy.
13:26There's a fair bit of tyre noise that's coming into the cabin.
13:29And then on the visibility front, I can see clearly out the front there,
13:33plenty of vision out the sides as well with those big wing mirrors with blind spot monitors.
13:37I've also got decent visibility out the back. It is worth pointing out that this
13:42restyled car is actually 140mm longer, which is why you're getting that extra boot space.
13:47And it doesn't compromise visibility out the rear now.
13:49The old one used to have like a split tailgate at the rear.
13:52I'm clearly able to see out the back without any dramas. Okay, let's talk turning circle. 10.9 metres.
13:58That's not too bad for a front-wheel drive car.
14:01Means you're able to get turns done without doing a three-point turn.
14:05So the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross. The car itself is great. It rides beautifully.
14:10The engine has plenty of punch and there's lots of room inside.
14:13But ultimately it's let down on the technology front,
14:16especially when you compare it to the rest of the competitors in this segment.
14:18Think Kia Seltos and that big infotainment screen up the top.
14:22Think Mazda CX-30, another sleek looking infotainment system with a lot of technology built into it as well.
14:28While this does have smartphone mirroring technology, the infotainment system itself really lets the whole package down.
14:33So it's not so much the Eclipse Cross that's the problem.
14:36It is that all of the competitors are two steps ahead of it in terms of tech and the kind of stuff that this
14:42demographic expects these days. So if you do have your heart set on this, the car itself is good. It rides well.
14:47It drives well. It's just that the competitors offer a more compelling purchase option.
14:52So let me know in the comments section below. Did you buy an Eclipse Cross?
14:56What do you think of it?
14:57How's it all going or did you buy one of the competitors after test driving it?
15:00I'm really keen to get your feedback.
15:02So thank you for watching. If you did enjoy this video,
15:04make sure you hit the like button and follow it up with the subscribe and the bell icon if you haven't done so already.
15:09But until next time, take it easy.