Mitsubishi Pajero Sport Review: Not a LandCruiser and that’s okay
In many ways the Toyota LandCruiser is overkill if you’re looking for a seven-seat 4x4 wagon for taking your family adventuring, simply because the Pajero Sport exists.
Not only can it crawl up steep gradients, ford rivers, and heave through thick mud, it’ll do it in that kind of disconnected comfort only a 2.5-tonne four-wheel drive wagon (like a 200 Series or Nissan Patrol or its ageing older brother Pajero) will offer.
Pajero Sport’s also gonna sail effortlessly across the Nullabor and reach into the farthest corners of Australia in climate controlled bliss, regardless of the outside ambient temperature. Just like a LandCruiser.
But the Cruiser is also overkill in terms of price. Not everybody can afford a LandCruiser. It starts - STARTS - at 88 grand, for the GX. And that doesn’t even come with a reversing camera. WTF?
And yet, I want one. I get the Sahara thing; brother had one when I was a kid.
And it was a beast off-road. Automatic hubs were a party trick back then, its low range magically flattened shale inclines and its gurgling straight six struck fear into muddy bogs that dared to challenge its fat all-terrains.
But I’m not a kid anymore. I’m all grown up, with a mortgage, budgets and mouths with no bottoms. As are most of you, I presume.
So, asking you and I to pay $15,500 in Luxury Car Tax on a top-spec Sahara today, with a retail price of $136,000 driveway, is inconceivable for many. Such a waste of money.
So what other options are there? Well, the top-spec Pajero Sport Exceed is $60,000 driveaway un-discounted. And I would argue you don’t even need the Exceed, because there wasn't really anything critial missing from the mid-spec GLS I drove. So imagine how good the value will be if you follow my new car buying advice…
I was loaned a Pajero Sport GLS for three weeks courtesy of Mitsubishi Australia. It came with a full tank, and with only two days left to drive it, I accidentally filled it with $83 worth of diesel at the high-flow pump. Whoops.
FACTS ‘N’ FIGURES
The Mitsubishi Pajero Sport is undoubtedly one of the best value off-road seven-seat wagons on the market.
It can’t do the tricky eighth seat like a LandCruiser, but otherwise it’s going to have all the capabilities of the Toyota. The ones you’re most likely to use, anyway.
That includes a reliable and pretty clever Super Select II auto transmission which has a range of configurations including a high-range 4x4 allowing you to drive on high-traction surfaces (wet roads, icy tarmac, soft or lose gravel roads) where you can’t typically run most 4x4s in anything other than two-wheel drive. This is a massive advantage, especially if you reverse trailers often up steep hills, or if, perhaps, the driveway to your rural property or outter-suburban home is in an especially hilly suburb.
See, most 4x4s can’t be driven in this way because the four wheels take different paths when you turn, so the axles and wheel rotate at different rates and this can cause differentials to ‘wind up’, and can cause serious damage. The Pajero Sport doesn’t have this problem in 4H.
However, you don't get an enormous 4.5-litre twin-turbo V8 diesel, which is the main draw card for some buyers, I'd argue. In fact, for some, it’s the only reason for wanting a LandCruiser. And that’s okay - they sound awesome and offer 200kW of peak power at 3600rpm and impressively, 650Nm of peak torque from as low as 1600-2600rpm. This engine is, however, not long for this world. The 200 Series LandCruiser is due for replacement this year - maybe in the next 18 months, so there’s a collectability to this outgoing model. Provided you can afford that given the median Australian wage was $48,000 last year.
Instead, in the Mitsubishi you get a small 2.4 litre diesel four-cylinder with a more modest 133 peak kilowatts at 3500 revs, and 430 Newton-meters of torque at 2500 revs. But despite its modest size, that’s more than enough to do the majority of the touring and towing work you’re likely to put it through. The LandCruiser is rarely going to be pushed to its limits, meaning you’re paying a lot more money for untapped potential.
And you can definitely light up the rears on Pajero Sport, if you try hard enough.
In terms of output and performance, the Pajero Sport Exceed has a power-to-weight ratio of 63.9kW per tonne, which is beaten outright by the Sahara’s 74.9. But when it comes to moving your family and stuff around, including caravan or trailer, being conservative on performance can only offer you a greater margin of safety. I mean, it’s not a race, right? It’s the same deal with the Prado Kakadu; it actually has a lower power-to-weight ratio (because it’s loaded with gear), but again costs north of $80K.
Pajero Sport’s boot space is more than adequate, even if not segment leading. And I actually took the time to measure the damn thing, before I found Mitsubishi Australia had already done the work for me on their website. Just my luck.
First off, it’s a rather narrow space. Between the wheelarches, you’ve got 1000mm of width, which may not be the biggest, but in real terms, is good enough to do a long list of jobs.
I managed to fit a full adult -size mountain bike in the back, no problems. Without scratching panels or scuffing the bike either.
Lengthways, starting with row 3 up, 393mm of longitudinal space awaits whatever school bags you might fit in there. Drop row 3 and you get 1235mm of length to the back of row 2, meaning you could hypothetically fit a small pallet in the back, like if you had an engine, or tiles or bags of stock feed to bring home, you could keep it all dry.
Then, if you fold and tumble row 2 seats, despite having the locking clamps sticking out, you get 1575mm of cargo length.
And the cargo areas height, to the roof, is 810mm behind row 3 from the boot floor to the roof at boot aperture. The boot space’s aperture is 975mm at its widest,1100mm at the narrowest point (thanks to curved sections allowing for the large hydraulic struts).
Also, the floor is not completely flat, and in fact slants slightly downward toward front. But it’s only slight, and I’m being picky.
And there’s ample room for a baby capsule behind the driver’s seat for an average height driver. However, if you’re exceptionally tall, you’ll probably need to put the capsule in the left outboard rear seat, and a forward facing restraint for bigger kids behind the driver.
GETTING DIRTY
Weight and dimensions play a crucial role in off-roading. But also in how you.might use Pajero Sport around town.
But before you even get to the serious stuff, you have to spend a significant portion of time on tarmac and dodgy back roads just to get to the low-range hardcore fun. So on-road performance needs to be factored in, not just the dirty stuff.
Pajero Sport weighs 2.2 tonnes with a full tank of fuel. LandCruiser is 500kg heavier.
So immediately, the Toyota’s footprint is going to be bigger and harder underneath. It’s going to push harder into the mud and sand, it’s going to put added strain on winches and recovery straps, and because it’s 16cm wider it’s going to scratch along more bushes and sticks intruding along given tracks.
Pajero Sport is 4.82m long, 16.5cm shorter than the LandCruiser, and it’s 11cm less tall. Essentially, it fits inside the LandCruiser’s dimensions. They have the same 700mm wading depth, but the Toyota gets an additional 12mm of ground clearance - like it matters. You shouldn’t be driving over objects where you’re getting hung-up on boulders and ledges. You wanna drive around them, avoid them completely or get off your arse and move them. Or dig.
Off-roading is not about seeing how close you can get to breaking your vehicle (unless you have a purpose-built off-road weapon you don’t care about). You should be driving with mechanical sympathy and a margin of safety at all times.
The aim of going off-road should be to leave as little of the track ripped up as possible (making it easier for others to traverse) which also means you’re giving your vehicle the greatest chance of getting through unscathed.
Nobody should be trying to lift wheels or winch themselves to higher ground, unless it’s strictly necessary. Means to an end, necessary evil etc.
To that end, most families shopping in this segment don't need to worry about the Pajero Sport's outright hardcore abilities. It can handle the vast majority of tracks and unsealed roads you’re ever likely to throw at it. If you’re unlikely to ever go off-road, you’re best looking at the Mitsubishi Outlander, also a seven-seater.
The difference is you get that same level of confidence it’ll get you home, with bigger numbers in your bank account.
For those of you who do wanna push your Pajero Sport, you’ll find an increasing variety of accessories available through the numerous aftermarket brands like TJM, ARB, Ironman and so on.
Pajero Sport will happily run through sand dunes and deep snow (low-range with centre differential locked), it’ll cope with rocky terrain, mud, normal snow and that slushing muddy-snow you get on the road heading into the high country (high-range centre diff locked), or on dirt and loose gravel roads in high-four. It also gets a dependable hill descent control and trailer sway control.
But a key aspect to Pajero Sport’s size, being on the narrower side, means you’re less likely to scrape your mirrors and doors along remote, undroiven tracks where bushes and branches will scrape the shit out of LandCruisers and Prados.
You also get an externally mounted full size all-terrain spare wheel and tyre, fixed at the rear and accessible through the boot floor.
The boot floor access can be both a blessing (if you’re ankle deep in shit, mud and mozzie larvae), and a curse if you’ve gotta unpack the boot to open the stowage panel in the floor, from which you unwind the spare using an adjustable wrench or socket.
You’ll also appreciate the lack of vulnerable low-hanging components (thanks to the Triton ute platform design) so you won’t be busting many mounting points or snagging electrical or fuel lines on those branches you chose to drive over, rather than move from the track.
COMPROMISE & PROBLEMS
There’s no denying, the Pajero Sport’s cabin is a bit on the cramped side if you’re a big family. As in, you’re particularly tall and/or wide individuals. It’s also not as nice to drive on normal roads as a large SUV like Kia Sorento.
I’m not overly tall or wide, but if I were, I know things would start getting a bit cramped. It’s not unbearable - this isn’t a Suzuki Jimny we’re talking about - but it’s something to be conscious of when deciding to buy. Take the whole family and try this when you go for a test drive.
I actually spoke to a random dude recently who was vacuuming his spanking new Kia Carnival Platinum in the driveway, having gotten he and his four kids out of a Pajero Sport. He stood about six-foot-three over me.
“It was an awesome car, the Pajero Sport, did everything it needed to, and it was a weapon off-road,” he told me.
“But it was getting pretty tight in the cabin as the kids got older.”
If you’re still onboard with Pajero Sport at this point, you’ll find the cabin suitably comfy, although chalk and cheese compared with say a Mazda CX-9 which fires shots at Mercedes. Although, the steering wheel position is a bit lean-over truck style, which you might find annoying, ergonomically, or you can keep in mind it’s a minor compromise you should try adapting to for the sake of getting a strong off roader and towing machine for thousands less than a Toyota.
But something you might find utterly irritating is the level of warnings and beeps. On the other hand, this is part of buying any modern car. They bing, they bong, they warning you if you’re not watching the road and they tick you off trying to change lanes without indicating. If you can accept this fact of life, you’ll enjoy the perks of a new touring off-road wagon like Pajero Sport.
There’s also a strip of hard silver plastic running down from the dashboard an along the centre console, which, if you have long legs and do a lot of off-roading, might cause you to bash your knees against if you don’t brace your left leg against the footrest in the footwell (you should be doing this anyway). But if you frequent steepish driveways or carpark entrances, where the suspension rocks sideways, you might smack your knees into it.
Unlike the LandCruiser, you get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
The Pajero Sport's interior is generally a bit plasticky, but the Exceed has more leather and soft plastic. But a plasticky interior isn’t always bad. Kids make mess and it’s easier cleaning harder surfaces and cloth seats than trying to keep gunk out of the stitching in leather seats. It’s also easier to vacuum crumbs out of plastic gaps than rubber ones.
You might find the angle of Pajero Sport’s screen creates more glare than you can tolerate, but I wouldn’t call it awful. It’s hard to find the perfect centre infotainment screen. So don’t sweat it.
Heated seats on Exceed.
Seat heaters are good, there are plenty of USB points as well as a 230-volt plug for a laptop or iPad charger. And yet, for all the adventure Mitsubishi wants you go embark on, Pajero Sport doesn’t come with cooled (ventilated) seats. In Australia. The driest inhabited continent on the planet.
Now, there’s heaps of space in the boot for the majority of payloads you might ask it to carry.
But you’ll need to deliberate over whether to opt for seven seats or five, and there are several reasons for and against.
Obviously, seven seats is going to weigh 40kg more than five, which means less payload you can carry if you plan to load ‘er up with kids, a big boat and heaps of stuff.
The boot space with the third row folded is affected; they fold flat but elevate the floor compared with the five-seater, losing you about 170L of volume. Between the five seater and seven seater there’s 100mm difference in the height of the floor.
This may not matter to most people, or it might be critical to others looking to maximise how they organise their payload. I would argue that if 100mm less height in the boot is a major roadblock to you considering a Pajero Sport, then you might need to recalibrate - there’s always roof racks and luggage pod options you can buy with the thousands you saved by not buying a LandCruiser.
Pajero Sport’s boot space is pretty good - not perfect - but ample.
One big problem however, is the deployment of those row three seats. Having genuinely considered buying a Pajero Sport a few years ago (and no, it hasn’t been updated significantly since), the way those rear seats unfold is clunky and awkward.
I certainly wouldn’t describe them as ergonomic. You have to engage the backrest first, then the seatbase, which means climbing into the boot and leaning over. I’m a fit dad and don’t have a problem, but not everybody is. Surely there was a simpler way to do it with one action.
Then there’s the problem with child seat anchorage. There are two isofix points in row 2 (outboard), but no top tether points. There are DIY top tethers which you can screw in yourself, but the threads are above the row 3 seats way back in the boot. And you should not be self-installing critically important safety items which require a specific torque setting on a wrench. Do not instal the Pajero Sport top tether on your own unless you are mechanically trained.
This isn’t to be intelligence insulting, it’s a safety precaution.
If you don’t have little kids in child seats and they’re big enough where this won’t be a problem, I’m certain you’ll get good use out of the ample leg and shoulder room available.
There's also reasonable support in the seats and aircon stretching to the third row to minimize complaining.
But if your kids are getting especially long in the legs, they'll start going numb after prolonged time up the back, knees around their ears.
Remember this is essentially a Triton ute, built for proper tradies (capable of doing actual useful things in the world like build homes, wire them up and plumb them). So there’s room up front for burly blokes and long kids, but row 3 won’t be a viable long-haul option.
I wish Pajero Sport had ventilated seats, more isofix and top tether points fitted at the factory, better interior design and less irritating beeping…all the time.
And those row 3 seats are infuriating (to me, anyway).
However, if you need to deal with sodden farm tracks and dodgy gravel in-roads to your regular camping sites, Pajero Sport is a seriously smart option. You just have to compromise.
And considering the normal parameters most 4WD or large SUV buyers operate their vehicles in, Pajero Sport does so much right, at the right price, it really is hard to disregard it from a rational buyer’s shopping list.
