A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to drive around a Mitsubishi Outlander. Even though it is an SUV, it definitely had a fun, sporty feel.

Mitsubishi does a lot with rally car racing and many of the features that make them great in that sport is put into their consumer vehicles. They also put a bunch of safety features into the cars, the Outlander has 7 airbags – driver, passenger, 4 side and the last one is under the steering wheel to cushion the drivers knees from impact.

Some of the other great safety features of this vehicle include Lane Departure Warning, Forward Collision Mitigation (the breaks will start to apply if you are about to hit something in front of you and it will alert you to break NOW), Adaptive Cruise Control and a frame that deflects collision energy away from occupants. I also think that the Hill Start Assist should be in every car, I can’t stand the feeling of rolling backwards when driving on hills so this helps keep you still until you get enough gas going.

The dashboard of the Mitsubishi Outlander contains a lot of useful information. There are different screens that can be displayed between the Tachometer and Odometer, when navigation is running this screen even shows the next turn which is definitely convenient.

One thing that I would suggest as an improvement is the user interface of the center screen. It could be a bit more intuitive (especially in the phone and navigation sections) and I would like the focus of the audio screen to be more on the Song/Artist name. These features could easily be fixed through a firmware update.

The Rockford Fosgate sound was amazing and I loved blasting my Christmas music through the car as I drove to and from work.

One thing that makes the Mitsubishi Outlander different is that it is the size of a small SUV but was able to fit a 3rd row of seats. This would be great for a family who normally fits inside a 5 passenger vehicle but every once in a while needs a couple extra seats.

I enjoyed having a trunk door that would open and close itself. Plus, when the 3rd row was down, there was a TON of trunk space. I started my spring cleaning early and took a load of donations to Goodwill, even with 5 boxes of stuff I still had plenty of room.

Overall, I enjoyed driving this vehicle. It had a lot more power and agility than you would expect from an SUV.

What is your favorite feature of the Mitsubishi Outlander?

I was provided with a 2015 Mitsubishi Outlander to drive around for a week. All opinions are my own.