2008 Lancer Review Summary & Specifications

Introduction
One of the above all 2008 patterns to land in dealer showrooms, the new Mitsubishi Lancer is a thorough remake from what i read in the wheels up of the company's entry in the compact sedan class. This is not just an exercise in dressing the previous exemplary in a new set of threads. From sheetmetal to upholstery to mechanicals to interior trim, it's a new car.

The body has kept on re-styled, in on a larger amount of aggressive fascia and a wedgier profile. The result, sadly, is mixed. It looks as if it's in fact sharp head on, a little dull ready away. Overall levels are balanced, though, so the closing result is a plus.

The engine is new, albeit the same displacement as before, but now with a dual overhead cam in place of the '06's single, and updated electronics. Horsepower is up by 32, torque by 16 pound-feet of torque (22 and 12, respectively, in suggests provided California emission rules). A Continuously Variable Transmission replaces the '06's automatic, with a five-speed manual still the rule gearbox.
The 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer has gained weight over the '06, between 200 and 400 pounds, depending on ideal and trim. This, up amidst the funny things powerful engine, no hesitation accounts at the very least in part to the lower electricity market's prosperity scores for the 2008 model. Lower, also, as opposed to numerous of the competition, particular of that proper the Lancer by 5 miles per gallon or a good deal more in EPA City and Highway estimates.
Inside, there is roomy seating for five. Instruments and dash are pleasing to the eye and friendly to the fingers, through easy-to-use knobs and switches for the a good amount critical functions. Some details are relatively low as opposed to ideal, but the Lancer is, subsequent to all, an state car and not Mitsubishi's flagship.

The options include comprises value-adding packages. Disappointing is the need to pay supplementary for air conditioning and antilock brakes on the base Lancer. But a high-quality sound process is offered for the two upper trim levels. And astounding for their market value level is a full-featured navigation-cum-music server system around on the top model.

Pricing wasn't announced as this investigate is written. Expect, however, the base exemplary to begin around $14,000.

The Mitsubishi Lancer profits for 2008 after skipping the 2007 model year. Now, just now one engine is available: a 152-hp four-cylinder (143-hp in California emissions form). It comes surrounded by a selection of five-speed manual transmission or optional CVT automatic, a continuously variable transmission. Body style is currently a four-door, five-passenger sedan.

Lineup
The Mitsubishi Lancer DE is the base model. Standard portions are sparse. There is no air conditioning, though the heater does experience micron filtration. Shift knob and tilt steering wheel are wrapped in urethane. Most interior trim pieces and accents are black, as are portion view mirror housings and inside and outside door handles. Driver and front passenger get four-way, manually adjustable seats. The audio method is a four-speaker, 140-watt AM/FM/CD/MP3 unit, but it has DSP and vehicle speed-compensated volume and equalization and pre-wiring for Sirius satellite radio. Windows and outside mirrors are powered, but door locks are not. A driver tips heart hosts a trip meter, electricity market's prosperity information screen and fuel and coolant admonition lamps. Steel wheels wear P205/60R16 tires. There's an anti-theft engine immobilizer. One factory option is offered for the DE, a package consisting of antilock brakes with electronic brake-force distribution, air conditioning, fuel door locks and auto-up on the driver portion window. Dealers sell the fog lights and floor mats.

The Lancer ES comes with air conditioning, cruise control provided steering wheel-mounted controls, electricity door locks in on keyless remote, six-way adjustable driver seat, 60/40-split folding rear seatback with folding core armrest, front map lights, floor mats, the auto-up driver-side window, premium fabric upholstery, silver interior accents, body-color outside mirror housings and door handles, second power point, anti-theft security alarm and steering wheel-mounted redundant audio controls and pre-wired Bluetooth switch. Aluminum alloys replace the DE's steel wheels, and the rear suspension gets a stabilizer bar. The Sun & Sound package includes a 650-watt, nine-speaker, Rockford-Fosgate premium audio system; a six-month, pre-paid Sirius satellite radio subscription; a six-disc in-dash CD/MP3 changer; an auxiliary audio input jack; and a power, tilt-and-slide, glass sunroof. Fog lights are sold by dealers.
The Lancer GTS is the top of the line. Automatic climate control is standard. Leather wraps the steering wheel and shift knob. Driver and front passenger get sport bucket seats with unusual fabric surfaces. Most interior accents get a geometric print. The stereo adds two speakers, for a whole of six. An aero package through front air dam, harm portion air dams and rear spoiler spruces up the exterior. The factory installs the fog lights. Tires are P215/45R18s on alloy wheels. The suspension becomes sport-tuned shocks and springs and stiffened bushings. A cross-brace bar bolted to the tops of the front suspension towers increases person stiffness. The Sportronic version of the CVT, exclusive to the GTS, lets the driver shift gears using steering wheel-mounted, magnesium paddles. Options insert the same Sun & Sound package. The Navigation & Technology package includes a GPS-based navigation system storing mapping data on a 30GB hard disk press (with 6GB set aside for personally recorded audio files). Integrated into the navigation system is the driver info center plus screens displaying, surrounded by other things, ambient temperature, barometric pressure and altimeter; automobile maintenance reminder and calendar; controls for the underlying Rockford-Fosgate audio process and Sirius satellite radio; and customization settings for the Lancer's various interior electronics. Also in this package is Fast-Key, a keyless, proximity-activated, auto-unlock system.

Safety parts record seven airbags, providing a driver's knee airbag augmenting the expected collection of frontal airbags; front seat-mounted, upper body-protecting half airbags; and head-protecting, side-curtain airbags. Front seatbelts hold pretensionsers and drive limiters to help position users for maximum preservation from what i read in airbags in crashes. Rear seats incorporate child safety seat anchors and tethers (LATCH).

Antilock brakes, which enable the driver to steer the car within panic stops, and electronic brake-force distribution, that balances emergency brake application between front and rear brakes for maximum effect, are standard on ES and GTS and optional on DE. Tire pressure monitors, which warn of low tire pressure, are ordinary across the line. Missing, however, is an electronic stability program, which attempts to avoid spin outs, an critical safety feature that's ordinary or at the very least optional on many cars in the Lancer's class.

Walkaround
Were it not for the trademark, three-diamond logo, minimal almost the 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer leads to it is linked in any way to the 2006 model. In now instance, however, right now is good. As terrific a car as who previous edition was, its competitors have leapfrogged it in almost any sense, not the lowest of which is styling.

Where the 2006 Lancer was somewhat minimalist in its approach, with a swept-back hood and squinty headlights, the 2008 presents a brusque face, amongst a strong chin and scowling eyes, a look Mitsubishi not unfairly compares to a shark's snout. Grille and lower intake form a trapezoid horizontally split by the front bumper; Mitsubishi claims such a a jet fighter. Blacked-out blanks short of the bumper balance the headlights and house the projector-lens fog lights when fitted. Mild creases trace the hood's electricity bulge from the grille back to the A-pillars framing the windshield, quitting well-defined shoulders over the front wheel wells.

Side view stays real to the shark theme, with the upper border of the grille looming in the rather flush front bumper. A high beltline (where the side windows meet the smaller door panels) goes down the car's Residual core of gravity, giving it a !no! substantial and more strurdily planted look. A character chain that plays on the car's wedge circumstances begins in a deep groove in the front quarter panel and front door and fills in as it moves to the rear simply below the full-round door handles, fading to a shallow shadow throughout the rear quarter panel before ending at the acutely angled rear side-marker light. Even the base, 60-aspect tires on 16-inch wheels check right in the circular wheel openings.The rear aspect is outstandingly bustle-ish, providing a tall trunk lid. Taillights try to echo the headlights shark-like scowl, but do not pretty allure it off, how surrounded by the egregious spots of surrounding, for the most part flat sheetmetal. In the end, it is a disappointing conclusion to an otherwise sleek design with a healthy dose of personality.

Interior
Autodom's interior styling pendulum turns out to swing according to busy to not-so-busy. One year there are more buttons and switches than any ten fingers and two eyes can manage and of all strange sizes and shapes. Then the next, all folks myriad of drives are buried short of 3 or uni knobs, or in the insane a single monumental one, with a few switches sprinkled right here and there for margin features. In the 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer, right now seems to have been heard caught in mid-swing. Much of the result is good, but a few bits need greater number of refinement.

Most monumental in this measure is the dash, in the instrument cluster and climate and audio controls. In the former, a large, circular tachometer and speedometer bracketing a digital, LCD-based info center in the '08 replace an asymmetrical array of two large and three small gauges in the '06. And therein lies the conundrum. The new, i.e., '08, group looks slicker, a greater amount of contemporary and even a bit sportier than the '06's. But the analog-style fuel and coolant gauges in the '06 were always there, so properties did not have to be identified up by pressing a button somewhere. And they communicated such a guidelines more readily, requiring recently a quick glance in its place of a refocusing of the eye on a little tower of light.There's sharp and not so good, too, in the climate and audio control panels. The most easy functions, covet fan, temperature, mode, volume and tuning, have traditional, relatively large, rotating knobs. They're correctly placed, too, surrounded by climate beneath and audio above, at which it is more accessible. After all, a multitude of lendees adjust audio locations a great deal more repeatedly as opposed to climate. And reasonably sized, well-marked buttons choose station presets and manage funny things media. But the info telltales are merely obscured LEDs tucked away in a slit at the middle top of the dash where deciphering them forces drivers to divert their consideration from traffic and shift this optical focus from distance to close. Again, want the instrument cluster, it all looks like it's good, but comes up very brief in function.

The shining exception to all this ambivalence is the screen and control operate for the GPS-based navigation system. Buttons and rocker switches with firm tactile feel clamor up the desired screen. Moving a joystick in the lower right-hand corner underlines the desired function. Pressing it accesses the function. While Other of the information is supplementary entertaining than essential, like the x/y axis dot graphs popping median speeds and energy economy within the duration of a floating two-hour window (especially when higher speeds coincide among higher energy economy; cool), the ease of use is tops.

The story pretty even exists the same elsewhere across the interior. Front seats are comfortable, with adequate, if not exorbitant depth in the seat underside cushions. The driver's door armrest and the padded top on the front heart console are both too low, and the heart console is too far rearward, for supporting a driver's elbows on straight and boring interstates. The handbrake positioning is not optimal, resting proudly between the driver's seat rock bottom cushion and the heart console at just the ideal height to trip the floor of a slurpee on its way to or of one of the console's two cup holders.

Rear seats are marked improvements over the '06's. There's more definition in the cushions, the seat bottoms are deeper and now there are 3 head out restraints, all adjustable. The fold-down, center armrest in the ES and GTS is more stable as opposed to it looks, which means everyday driving isn't prospective to spill the kids' soda pop.

By the numbers, the 2008 Lancer causes the numerous of its more than two inches of added width within the '06. Careful packaging of interior facets and trim permits the majority of of the present two inches to front seat hiproom and adds basically twice the current to rear seat hiproom. This parks the new Lancer smack in the middle of the pack on this measurement. The Nissan Sentra, the Hyundai Elantra and the Mazda 3 best it, and the Honda Civic, the Toyota Corolla and the Ford Focus fall a bit short. Otherwise, the '08 Lancer could be within an inch plus or minus of the '06 in headroom and legroom front and rear. Versus the competition, the new Lancer once again splits the adjustment in front seat legroom but ratings near the top in rear seat legroom. All the way in the back, the Lancer's trunk betters only the Mazda 3's 11.4 cubic feet and whores up about 3 cubic feet to the most-commodious-in-class Ford Focus's 14.8 cu. ft.

Driving Impressions
For the various part, the new MitsubishiLancer's static-mode idiosyncrasies exhaust significance once the car is in motion. This holds whether the movement is in the channel of fun or work, as the car is equally comfortable and competent on arrow-straight interstates or grapevine-twisted back roads.

Steering response is decent, if not sparkling, truly on folks coming back roads, as the new Lancer is likely to waste some concentration when pointed straight to come for for a while now stretches. For a front-wheel force sedan, it tracks well with corners, in on no astronomical person lean.

The GTS, of course, is the most recomensing driver, amid firmer coil springs, news absorbers and bushings and perfect stabilizer bars than the DE and ES models. The stiffness added by the cross brace on the front suspension towers is tangible in a quicker, more and more precise steering response. Interestingly, however, the GTS' sporty front seats do not add much by way of lateral substantiation within the duration of the ES' buckets.

In ride and handling, two of the competitive brands stand out: the Civic, providing its longer wheelbase (by around two-and-one-half inches), has a smoother ride just generally, but several notably over weather-induced pavement heaves, and the Mazda 3 is a sportier drive.Throttle response is respectable for the class. Only the Mazda 3's top engine pumps out more horsepower (160 vs. the Lancer's 152), but the Lancer is the heaviest of the class, amid the GTS only topping 3000 lbs. Brake pedal feel is firm in the ES, even supplementary so in the GTS, that becomes the Outlander's large discs.

The manual transmission's shift lever requires a bit of a stretch to reach third gear and fifth gear with the driver's seat comfortably positioned for a six-foot tall driver. And the juxtaposition of the brake pedal and accelerator force an awkward ankle contortion to effect a heel-and-toe double-clutch on a downshift. In the GTS amid the Sportronic, the manual up/down choice slot opens to the driver's side of the shift gate, that Other drivers find larger number of normal than away throughout to the passenger's side. This certainly isn't as much an matter in the GTS, however, what in those handy steering column levers.

In all odds due in no diminutive side to that aforementioned weight penalty, the '08 Lancer rather much brings up the rear in power economy. For example, the less important engine in the 200 lb.-lighter Toyota Corolla instigates six more horsepower but betters the Lancer by thre miles per gallon in the city and by seven miles per gallon on the highway, according to EPA estimates. And the more powerful Mazda 3, weighing roughly 100 lbs. less than the Lancer, comes out down the road by 3 mpg and two mpg, city and highway respectively.

The new, 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer may not be the several attractive, the several popular, the most powerful, the most miniature or the several fun-to-drive in the affordable, compact sedan class. But in every of folks measures, it is second in sequence or at the very least competitive. That instigates it well market worth a look when shopping for a car in this class.