squala wrote:So it took them 8 years to come up with a new bumper design? Regardless, this facelift is obviously out of desperation. I remember nearly 2 decades ago when Volvo tried to modernise the front end of the curveless 850 and renaming it S70, but it just didnt go with the rest of the car that was still awfully boxy. Further bad news is the cancellation of the Ralliart, a seriously underappreciated car. They should have at least attempted to put in the Evos turbo and sell it cheaper. Even if it doesnt have its big sisters go-kart handling, at least the extra pace could have kept the lineup significant especially with the imminent arrival of the Mazda3 MPS and Civic Type R. There may be a bright side, however, if the CVT is entirely new and works as well as the one in the current Corolla. We rented a couple of these and compared to the CJs unit, the laggy feel is virtually not there anymore. Its still a bit rough while accelerating, but not unacceptably so.
Like I went in to detail in another thread, the lack of updates to the Lancer is a chicken and the egg scenario. They aren't updating it because of poor sales, but they are getting poor sales (against the Corolla and Mazda 3) due to it not being updated. It's a shared platform too, so any changes to the ASX and Outlander can also be applied to the Lancer, mechanical and other non-panel part wise.
The best thing that Mitsubishi could have done in 2012 is drop the 4B12 since it has been completely neglected since 2007/2008, and put in the 4J12. The reason for the 4B12's neglect is because of the 4J12, which they could have made a 4J11 version of. The 4J12 is essentially the successor to the 4B12 anyway, and I believe it's mostly a major head upgrade rather than a completely new engine.
So, in markets requiring a 2.0 L they should have made a 4J11, and Australia and other markets without such restrictions the 4J12. At the same time they should have shifted to using the CVT8, colour dash display, add en extra fake gear or two onto the CVT (it is after all, fake gears, additional fake gears would cost basically nothing). Great for sales attractiveness.
Furthermore they could updated the rear end (doesn't need to be major), LED stop and tail lights, maybe LED daytime running lights for bling (and safety), lighter panels through use of composite or aluminium, and better sound proofing. They would have been on a real winner, and when you think about the changes I suggested, they aren't drastic. Even the engine and gearbox changes, we already know the platform supports them! Development for the Lancer of these engines would be very simple simply because the engineering was already done for the Outlander. Even the Outlander uses a tweaked 4B11 that uses less fuel than the current Lancer.
Mitsubishi's problem is that they seem to be treating the ASX, Outlander, and Lancer as completely different vehicles, whereas if they treated them as the same platform they could share a lot more components. Absolutely no reason why the Outlander should have a better 2.4 L, or a more efficient 2.0 L (despite the increased weight), among all the other things.
I really do believe they aren't sharing resources across the models as well as they should, especially since they were talking about requiring a whole new platform for a whole new Lancer. Why? If Outlander and ASX are going to stay with the GS platform (or an updated version of it) why does the Lancer need to change? They simply want an excuse not to make it. The Lancer though is an 'iconic' Mitsubishi brand, it's something they should actually be fighting to hold on to. It wouldn't actually require much work either, due to the cross platform sharing! Mind you, sharing that they've obviously lapsed on.
Back to the poor excuse for an update, the 2016 Lancer with the new CVT is supposedly more fuel efficient than the manual version.