Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV a good towcar?
Personally I thought that the PHEV might be my 'holy grail' of towcars but now I'm not too sure. After reading the TC of the year report I have some concerns. Here is a short extract from it, but I'd love to actually hear from anyone who has one of these
Outlanders with experience of towing to find out what 'real world' consumption/cost is on a typical tow of say 200 miles. Also the last paragraph flags up concern over hill start ability....? All too vague I felt, was this purely on petrol or electric, definitely
needed more explanation for something as important.
"All clever stuff, but what kind of economy do you get in the real world? If your commute is short enough, you can go days or weeks without relying on petrol at all. On journeys starting on electricity alone but increasingly relying on the petrol engine,
our team routinely saw mpg figures in the mid-60s.
You’ll save more money on fuel if the car is used mostly for short journeys and so can be run on electricity alone. On long hauls, the diesel will be cheaper to fuel (Mitsubishi says once over 106 miles, the sums come out in the diesel’s favour).
In Practical Caravan's own economy testing with
What Car?’s True MPG team, the Outlander returned 40.6mpg when towing a 1500kg caravan with a fully charged battery. Repeating the same 26-mile route with the pure-electric range reduced to zero gave a figure of 24.7mpg.
However, in testing for the
Tow Car Awards 2014, the
Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV showed itself to be unhappy when stopping and starting while towing on a steep slope. It barely crept forwards when starting on a 1-in-6 hill.
Judged purely on towing ability, the Outlander PHEV does a decent job, with the poor hill start the biggest concern for the test team."