MITSUBISHI TRITON new review and buying guide

The affordable family workhorse is back and with roughly a year of sales and real-world use under its belt, the verdict is in for the updated engine, the heavy duty upgrades and that pseudo-safety assist tech.

This new Mitsubishi Triton is the first ute you should consider when shopping for your next family workhorse, because it can do everything at a modest price.

While other utes are good in all the main areas they need to be, Triton is a degree of better. Some utes offer lower prices but less quality, Triton offers great quality at an acceptable increase in price: you get what you pay for, essentially.

Big ticket utes like the Ford Ranger or Toyota Hilux are very good, but you pay handsomely more for the privilege. Ranger offers the V6 grunt for heavy towing, but the Triton offers 90 per cent of that brawn, for about $15,000 less - and with a greater reliability reputation. The Hilux has excellent resale value, but that comes at a higher upfront cost, and you need to assess if that’s worth it in the short term, because the savings you make buying the vehicle outright are hard to ignore in these economically delicate times. And will the negligible few hundred or couple of grand of additional resale value in a Hilux really matter in five or 10 years’ time?

Triton is available in super-cab and single-cab variants, but for the majority of buyers, you’re going to be focussed on the dual-cab and certainly that’s the main reason you’re visiting Best FAMILY Cars.com.au. Am I right?

Speaking of which, I was invited by Mitsubishi Australia to the launch of Triton in South Australia - but they get no influence in what I write or say about the vehicle. Nor do they get to see what I have to say before publication. This report is my honest personal views on the Triton, aimed squarely at trying to help consumers like you know as much about it as possible before buying one.

The Triton has a substantially improved chassis, wheelbase, suspension and overall geometry re-design from the previous version, known internally as the ‘MR’ Triton. The new one also has a 99 per cent new engine, the same trustworthy transmission and an upgraded but very similar 4x4 transfer case for hardcore off-roading. So let’s start with the overall geometry and platform improvements, because they are the most relevant to you for work purposes.

I asked Mitsubishi Australia’s technical guru Owen Thomson what the number one drawback to prioritise fixing with the new Triton over the old one.

Width.

He did say much more than that, but I wanted to highlight that’s how important it was that they got the propostions, the on-road stability and the internal comfort and cabin accommodation drastically improved.

Improving the overall width of the vehicle more or less had a knock-on effect to improve everything

The best part of Mr Thomson saying this is he’s dead right, in so far as I can tell, having driven it for two days in a bunch of conditions: This driving included the Eagle View 4WD facility in regional South Australia, the various country roads to and from Eagle View and Murray Bridge, toward Adelaide, the freeways entering into Adelaide, and the various city streets that got me back to Adelaide airport.

What matters here is that I acknowledge the convenience of leaving the Triton behind to get on a plane, whereas you, the prospective consumer, has to live with this vehicle for the next few years - and it’s your money on the line. So let me give you pure, honest facts about what I think are going to be its strengths and weaknesses, the better for you to make an informed choice.

Firstly, the cabin is really nice - especially for a ute, but not exclusively for a ute. It’s good anyway, but better than most of its rivals, but not quite as nice as the BT-50 (although there’s a subjective element to that in which you might disagree). The shoulder width is particularly noticeable because it never feels claustrophobic in the way the MR Triton did - it was narrow and you always felt more tightly packed than other utes, or even SUVs. Tall drivers have good headroom and wider owners have plenty of inches to spare between the upper window sill, the B-pillar and the centre console.

The rear seats are generous, with plenty of space for mum or dad to lean in and install child restraints, as well as buckling in the kids, or simply retreiving their socks and shoes from the footwell. This is a welcome change from the usual cramped plastic-layered nook that utes of the past have consigned you to.

However, there is one catch here, and that’s the rear doors. Utes are supposed to be practical and, generally speaking, the Triton is exactly that in virtually every metric. But the rear doors just do not open wide enough - but be aware, this is not specific to Triton - because most utes are like this. I’m just pointing it out. The Mazda BT-50 has the same issue. Usually it’s not an issue if it’s just normal adults getting in, but it’s a bit of a hinderance doing stuff with kids and their seats etc. Is it so bad that it makes Triton a write-off for your family ute shopping shortlist? No. Definitely not. It’s just something to be aware of.

There are two ISOFix anchor point pairs on the outboard seats, and there’s a centrally mounted top tether anchor point which to clip your anchor to by threading the strap through a woven belt loop that sticks out of the top of the seatback. This is a system that works, however crude in its execution, and again this is how most utes do this, including the BT-50.

What’s particularly awesome about this setup in Triton is that you don’t have to make the mistake of putting your child restraints into the backseat only to realise the top tether anchor point is behind the seatback and therefore you need to take the restraints back out in order to fold the seatback forward. This doesn’t happen in Triton because the anchor point sits above the top of the seatback, always accessible. Hooray!

In case you’re wondering, the reason why dual-cab utes are so ergonomically compromised when it comes to child restraints is the nature of the cabin itself where the rearmost bulkhead is located forward of the rear axle, meaning it’s right there behind the rear seats. So engineers are very limited in how much space they have to work with and these tacked on anchor points (which are perfectly safe, by the way) are a simple solution when they don’t have all the open space to work with in a typical SUV.

Ford Ranger has its top tether anchor point behind the rear seatback, which means you have to virtually slacken off the entire length of strap in your restraints, attach the anchor, lock the seatback in, then clip in the ISOFix tethers, and then tension the top tether.

In Triton you can leave the restraint in place and simply latch it to the side of the centrally mounted top tether anchor point (via the fabric loop atop the seat shoulder). Then, simply clip the ISOFix connectors, tension everything up and job done.

Elsewhere inside Triton, you’ll appreciate the big easy-to-prod touchscreen buttons on the home menu. This helps reduce visual distraction while driving.

The seats are supremely comfy and quite accommodating for bigger blokes.

You get wireless phone charging across the whole range, everything on the steering wheel is functional and practically located (nothing silly on there), and you’ll appreciate decent sized door bins.

There's air vents in the roof for the back seats, legroom for grown-ups and shoulder room for even bigger adults.

Triton’s wider body means you can get some very decent payload on board with a much greater margin of safety - which is all that was wrong with the old model, really. Below is what I managed to get done with a week in my world (and not on the official Triton press launch, as a guest of Mitsubishi Australia, back in Feb 2024).

I did actual work with the Triton GSR and came away very impressed with how well it behaved, especially downhill into the Eastlink tunnel. Here’s what happened: