Looking at Mitsubishi Outlander as towcar anyone got any ifo they can help with?

[Wendy3]

Can anyone help with any information about the Outlander as a towcar? It ticks all our boxes inside as we only need five seats as opposed to the seven it offers. It's very roomy front and back and front and second row seats both recline which is excellent for our long journeys touring abroad. Any comments good or bad will be much appreciated.

Thanks Wendy

 

[wombat1]

We have a friend who bought the Citroen verison (mitsubishi & citroen & peugoeut make and badge the same vehicle) to tow with, but he traded it in after 6 months.
He had repeated problems with the clutch (burning out) and he had problems on some slippy stuff, i.e. car couldn't cope with wet grass when one side of car was on the grass and the other was on the tarmac.
Not as good as you might hope it would be.
Avoid.
Wombat

 

[Oldsalt49]

Wendy,
Check out www.honestjohn.co.uk for the Outlander/4007/C-Crosser. Apparently the 1st and 2nd gears are too high and slips the clutch when pulling away with a caravan on the hitch. They now do an automatic version, but I think it still has the same clutch arrangement and it is the gear-changing that is operated by a dual servo system. I would suspect clutch slip could still occur?

 

[PhilGrace]

Wendy,
Traded up from a Pug 407 with 2.2lt diesel to 4007 - same engine but with lower power/higher torque. Can not fault it after a couple of years of use. Tows really well, is comfortable and easy to drive and economy is pretty good considering it looks like a brick..! Haven't experienced any problems with clutch, slipping in wet grass etc.
Th new Outlander - more goodies but underneath pretty much the same I think - is subject of a brief test in latest CC mag and was best in class in recent Towcar of Year Awards.
Phil

 

[Wendy3]

Thanks Phil for the info. We really liked the outlander it seemed to tick all the boxes inside and out but then were put off with the comments about the clutch. We do a lot of towing, we take the caravan abroad most years and travel to the likes of Italy and Spain so having a good/reliable towcar is quite important (not that you get any guarantees it's just some are known to be more reliable than others!).
Wendy

 

[PhilGrace]

Wendy,
Do you see Practical Caravan... the magazine? Article on a snowy trip to Wiltshire in Feb of this year when the van had to pulled off a snowy site by one of the test fleet - the 4007.
Vidoe clip on youtube - put in something like "pulling van of snowy site". Seemed to manage quite well as far as I could see. Has given me a bit of confidence - cetainly worse than anything I have encountered.
Phil

 

[Zafiral]

We have had our 4007 since February, & it has been a great towcar. It pulls our 1480kg caravan with no problems at all. The car is usually heavily loaded with 3 bikes on the roof and the boot fully loaded behind a bespoke dog guard.
It has masses of space in rows 1 & 2, row 3 is a bit small, but our 8 year old & her 10 year old friend find it fine. There is still a fair boot in 7 seat mode. In 5 seat mode the boot is massive.
With regards to the clutch, ours is still on the original clutch at over 30000 miles & the previous owner towed too as when we got the car with 11000 miles on it, it already had a towbar & twin electrics fitted.
The 4007s are good value too as we only paid £16500 for it when it was only 10 months old.

 

[ChrisE]

I do wonder if the clutch problem might be a "give the dog a bad name" problem. The internet is very good at spreading bad news & once there it sticks. If the problem is resolved very few people report that they have not had a problem & so all that is there remains the bad news that was initially reported. I have a feeling that a leaking oil seal was something to do with the problem but my memory is incomplete.

Was this clutch problem solved or are newer examples still suffering from it?

Chris

 

[Zafiral]

I am still on my original clutch after 30000 well used miles.
There are reports on the net of a 'fix' for the oil seal problem that does not involve changing the clutch. Other owners of very early 4007s report that the replacement clutch is more substantial than the one that was removed.

Chris you are spot on that the net & the fact that info years old is still readily available does allow bad news to spread. People shout in complaint much louder than in complaint than in praise. If you believe everything on the net then you probably wouldn't buy any car!!!

Also note that any reported problems only appear on the 2.2 models. Any 2.0 outlanders use a different engine.