Lack of integration

[discorduk]

Now about two months into leasing (motability) an GX3h, and i thought i would take a moment to sum up my findings and feelings, and compared to my previous vehicle a citroen c4 grand picasso 1.6 diesel semi-auto.

First off i love the drive, the smooth acceleration, the general handling and the comfort are wonderful, it is a simple joy to drive, especially with a full battery.

Now the niggles, and theres quite a few, so please excuse the rant

As discussed elsewhere the fuel economy on the motorway stinks, unlike other modern cars where the fuel economy goes up with speed (until wind resistances gets you at 75-80mph) this goes down, and rapidly, even cruising around 70mph its pretty bad, down in the 30's when the huge brick of a 7 seater i drove before would be in the 50's

Nothing but nothing is integrated with anything else, this was a shock for what is a pretty advanced drive train, that the human interaction stuff would be so shockingly slapdash and thrown together.

It has auto wipers so it knows when its raining, it has auto headlights so it knows when its dark, but for some unfathomable reason it never puts the headlights on in the day when its raining, no matter how abysmal the visibility gets, surely this must be an EU regulation by now...

the in-dash control panel one-button interface, why oh why, when you have a pile of buttons on the steering wheel including a nice 4way direction pad, and a fair number of buttons on the radio head unit, why do we have to suffer with the worlds most cumbersome single button interface for the controls. not to mention how dreadful the mpg gauge is, i tried manual mode once, it turned itself off again, its as if they really don't want you to know.

The radio unit (not MMCS on this model) is pretty awful, the best functionality from it is to use bluetooth streaming, as navigation of mp3 off usb is dreadful and down right bloody dangerous given how fiddly it is and how much staring at the screen is required to (mostly not) see what your doing. This is something that can be fixed (read: ripped out) which i am sorely tempted to do.

Istr reading that the reversing sensors are an after market bodge job slapped on at the dock side, why is this not pre fitted and properly integrated, it is a dreadful nasty hack, its way too quiet, it doesn't mute the music, just really shoddy.

Seems like mitsubishi need to get the heads of various design departments together and lock them up until they are forced to actually talk to each other.

there i think thats my venting done, please feel free to rip apart my criticisms

 

[maby]

I'm sure many here would agree with you... I think the answer is what the dealer we purchased from said - Mitsubishi really did not expect to sell many GX3h spec cars - they put it on the list to reduce the headline price, but expected everyone to buy GX4s. When we purchased just over a year ago, there was not much of a wait for a GX4, but a long lead time on a GX3 because they were only being built to order.

That said, the MMCS on the GX4 is not anything too special either!

 

[PeterGalbavy]

Yes, it doesn sometimes feels like it was slapped together from parts, a bit like a Linux system, rather than designed from the ground up. But it is still the best car I've owned, so I'm happy.

 

[maby]

Yes, it doesn sometimes feels like it was slapped together from parts, a bit like a Linux system, rather than designed from the ground up. But it is still the best car I've owned, so I'm happy.

oh, come on! Be fair to Mitsubishi - it's not that bad!!!

 

[westdevon]

I can't talk about GX3 integration, but mpg is a different matter. My last car was a 2012 Hyundai Santa fe, 34 mpg around the hills of Devon, and 36 or 7 on the motorway at 75 ish mph. If I do a 25 mile trip in the GX4, I get the equivalent of 200 mpg from a 60p Economy 7 charge. On the motorway I will get about 34 or 35 mpg if the battery is flat. I'm more than happy with that.

If I spent a lot of time on the motorway I wouldn't want an Outlander, (not a PHEV anyway), that's not what it's for, although it handles it well enough.

 

[gwatpe]

I had some issues with my first PHEV, as other readers will remember.

I too have complaints re poor use of the buttons and the MMCS has a raft of issues. Don't see any fix on the horizon.

Having just driven a significant number of km in a wide variety of conditions, I still have some gripes, but not with the PHEV build mechanically in general.

The body has door and window seals that keep the dust out. The doors do leak air in strong gusty side winds. the particular place is along the top of the driver and passenger doors. The large exposed area of plastic rear bumper is going to scuff over time. Will need to look into protection here, and there are options, but plastic is not the best design from the factory.

The computing and display data that interacts with the driver, say predicted range is woeful, and why not just have a remaining kwh in the battery, or litres in the tank.

I have made my own mods to make the PHEV easier to drive for me, and am working on more.

I, like others just use screens that are useful and ignore the failings. I know we paid good money for all the systems to work in a useful way, but I don't see fixes any time soon. The GPS has many faults with maps, and not just updates for new roadworks. Major roads are just not there, and it seems to be related to the presence of black top.

I have learned to live with many failings, and cannot presently justify a replacement, even if there was one. My own mods to the SAVE and CHARGE button operation has made enough difference to the PHEV day to day drive that I can live with it. The dual EV - hybrid modes that are available suit my driving needs and I have a separate GPS. I have enough additional instrumentation to satisfy my needs.

Alternatives are not available yet and I will have a long check list to be met, before I replace my PHEV.

 

[greendwarf]

As discussed elsewhere the fuel economy on the motorway stinks, unlike other modern cars where the fuel economy goes up with speed (until wind resistances gets you at 75-80mph)

None of these are a gripe for me but then I have, no doubt, a very different usage pattern. However, I don't understand the above quote. Once you are in top gear/overdrive the faster you drive the more energy used and wind resistance also increases all the way up, not just at over 75mph. Surely you can't beat physics :?

 

[jaapv]

Driving conditions and use patterns differ so widely over the world that many of these gripes are by no means universal. I may be lucky that I can use the car as intended: a suburban cruiser with occasional longer runs and only rarely in conditions that require the 4 WD (but when needed it is there), but it suits me just fine.
Even the much maligned MMCS apears to work well once one has gotten used to it. It is, I suppose, more of a matter of the driver adapting to the car -and being willing to- than the other way around.
And yes, I know what I am talking about, I have more than 1.5 million Km behind me in all sorts of cars, mainly things like Volvos and Jaguars, and roadsters.

The headlights do come on in the daytime when needed but then I have set the system to sensitive. They do not need to come on for every drop of rain, that is what daylight driving lights, fitted standard, are for. I do not know of any car where the two systems are linked. It seems to me to be rather logical. Low light level - lights on, wet windscreen-wipers on.

Come to think of it, I do know of a car that did this. I had an Alfa Romeo Guilietta in the far past where operating the windscreen wipers would switch on the righthand head light as well. But then, switching on the lights would operate the lefthand indicator.. The electrics were worse than Lucas, and that is saying a lot.


Just have clear plastic protection foil fitted on your rear bumper, like many people do on their estates.
I do not have rear sensors, it came with a rather nice camera, but the front ones are not very good, suitable for corner protection only.
Your dealer can do something about your door seals. Firstly by adjusting the doors better, secondly by replacing the seals with more hefty ones.

 

[jaapv]

As discussed elsewhere the fuel economy on the motorway stinks, unlike other modern cars where the fuel economy goes up with speed (until wind resistances gets you at 75-80mph)

None of these are a gripe for me but then I have, no doubt, a very different usage pattern. However, I don't understand the above quote. Once you are in top gear/overdrive the faster you drive the more energy used and wind resistance also increases all the way up, not just at over 75mph. Surely you can't beat physics :?

Wind resistance and mechanical resistance increase exponentially with speed, this remark is indeed surprising, additionally the fuel economy of the car when running on petrol is in line with the economy shown by vehicles of similar size, weight and frontal area with petrol engines, with the hybrid system giving it the edge in some cases..

 

[discorduk]

The headlights do come on in the daytime when needed but then I have set the system to sensitive. They do not need to come on for every drop of rain, that is what daylight driving lights, fitted standard, are for. I do not know of any car where the two systems are linked. It seems to me to be rather logical. Low light level - lights on, wet windscreen-wipers on.

Last car, 4 year old (by now) citroen C4, had nice bright white LED DRL's, but when the auto wipers get up to the point of constant wiping it would switch to headlights instead, meaning you then have lights front and back making you more visible to other drivers in the lowered visibility of rain and spray. It was definitely synchronised to wipers, not just external brightness.

 

[discorduk]

None of these are a gripe for me but then I have, no doubt, a very different usage pattern. However, I don't understand the above quote. Once you are in top gear/overdrive the faster you drive the more energy used and wind resistance also increases all the way up, not just at over 75mph. Surely you can't beat physics :?

Once you reach that top gear, yes, but many newer cars i have driven are geared such that the peak efficiency in top gear is well up into motorway speeds where the dominating factor then becomes the wind resistance.

It just seems to me that despite the direct drive only being mandatory above 75mph that the gear ratio in the phev is aimed at a much lower speed, so efficiency drops off really quickly

 

[jaapv]

The headlights do come on in the daytime when needed but then I have set the system to sensitive. They do not need to come on for every drop of rain, that is what daylight driving lights, fitted standard, are for. I do not know of any car where the two systems are linked. It seems to me to be rather logical. Low light level - lights on, wet windscreen-wipers on.

Last car, 4 year old (by now) citroen C4, had nice bright white LED DRL's, but when the auto wipers get up to the point of constant wiping it would switch to headlights instead, meaning you then have lights front and back making you more visible to other drivers in the lowered visibility of rain and spray. It was definitely synchronised to wipers, not just external brightness.

A nice trick, but as switching on the lights will dim the gauges and display; it will be rather annoying if the light remains fairly bright. That is one of my gripes: that the display panel etc. is not synchronized with the day/night settings on the navigation.

 

[discorduk]

The headlights do come on in the daytime when needed but then I have set the system to sensitive. They do not need to come on for every drop of rain, that is what daylight driving lights, fitted standard, are for. I do not know of any car where the two systems are linked. It seems to me to be rather logical. Low light level - lights on, wet windscreen-wipers on.

Last car, 4 year old (by now) citroen C4, had nice bright white LED DRL's, but when the auto wipers get up to the point of constant wiping it would switch to headlights instead, meaning you then have lights front and back making you more visible to other drivers in the lowered visibility of rain and spray. It was definitely synchronised to wipers, not just external brightness.

A nice trick, but as switching on the lights will dim the gauges and display; it will be rather annoying if the light remains fairly bright. That is one of my gripes: that the display panel etc. is not synchronized with the day/night settings on the navigation.

Ah, thats how i can be sure it was not just outside brightness in the citroen, when it turned on headlights for rain during the day it did not dim the dash displays, they only dimmed when it was triggered by being dark outside. The two previous citroens i had did the same, so i foolishly assumed it was a common thing now.

 

[jaapv]

Citroen is always a bit off the beaten track