Mitsubishi Colt, the first impressions

Wifey and I picked up our new Mitsubishi Colt last week. This time it’s a real car, not a toy. After some struggle with the contracting etc. (fact is – it all went relatively smooth, comparing to what I’ve heard from other buyer’s experiences), it was finally delivered… Okay down to a review:

Basic model info

Exterior

Nothing much to say here – the car follows modern trends of the super-minis for European target market. Shapes are oblique, smooth and friendly, even though the headlights give a bit sharp impression. The car is silver, which was our third choice, since the sky-blues (from the commercial) were sold out, and so were reds.

Door mirrors are huge – almost like those found on the vans. They are also very easy to adjust via remote control (which is great when there’s more then one driver using the same vehicle).

All inside areas are easy reachable from the outside, I’ll just have to watch my head each time I’ll be stepping in in the driver’s place after my wife drew it (she’s slightly shorter than me).

Interior

We opt for a red, fire resistant seats. There’s plenty of room for the legs, even in the back portion. When the rear seats are pushed back for the greatest comfort, luggage space is suffering. But again, for a price it’s an adequate compromise.

Ergonomics

Seats are not spoiling… some passengers won’t appreciate it on the long journeys. However it’s not that bad – you won’t notice it unless you are on the bumpy roads, like those in Croatia sometimes mostly are.

The driver’s seat is adjustable vertically (up/down) and horizontally (forward/backward). The steering wheel is adjustable by the vertical axis (up/down), but can’t be pulled or pushed toward the driver. For us both there’s no need for this, anyway. We found the existing set of options quite sufficient.

When set high, driver’s seat gives you nice overview of the car and quite fine sense of size… just after a few minutes, I was able to estimate the narrow parking spots, which I was afraid would be a problem in the beginning.

If you’re not used to your door mirrors when parking a car, you might be in trouble, as the columns are pretty thick (this is spotted on competition models, too).

Driving

Steering is very light. There’s almost no feedback, which is greatly appreciated by my wife, but is a little bit strange to me. When I was on the road, the corrections in the turns were not very accurate. I like to feel the physics and adjust the path accordingly. Oh, well, I’m probably just neat picking here.

Breaks are super-sharp, another thing I will have to get used to. With the ABS and EBD (electronic brake-force distribution), there’s little left to driver’s skills. Again, this ain’t no pure sports car, so I see no trouble with this. Just something one should be aware of.

The gear changing is short and precise, but that’s what’s expected from Mitsubishi.

Practical

For the value, we got very flexible, and somewhat universal, car. Sometimes it’ll be a down-town hustler, sometimes it will take us on a longer trips, and sometimes we’ll drive our dogs (and the whole damn equipment) on a dog show weekend in Austria, Germany or even Belgium or Netherlands. The Colt can do all of that and that’s why we bought it in the first place. Plus, we just love Mitsubishi cars.