Mitsubishi Motors Australia Limited (MMAL) has added more safety equipment to its popular Lancer for 2010. All Lancer sedans and hatches now come with standard side curtain airbags.
Lancer now offers more occupant safety than any of its direct competitors totalling seven airbags, driver and passenger SRS airbags, side and curtain airbags and driver knee airbag standard on every model.
To compliment the cabin safety is Mitsubishi’s acclaimed RISE (reinforced impact safety evolution) body, stability control, traction control, ABS with brake assist and electronic brakeforce distribution and seatbelt load limiters.
Robert McEniry, president and chief executive officer of MMAL, said the news on Lancer “just keeps getting better and better.”
“2009 was a standout year for Lancer, and it recorded the best-ever result with more than 21,000 vehicles sold,” McEniry said.
“And, now, with side and curtain airbags fitted as standard to each and every vehicle in the range, Lancer is guaranteed a great start in 2010.”
so currently it is just Toyota, Nissan and ford which have failed to give all airbags standard for a small size car.
“Lancer now offers more occupant safety than any of its direct competitors totalling seven airbags, driver and passenger SRS airbags, side and curtain airbags and driver knee airbag standard on every model.”
Check the ANCAP crash ratings on the Holden Cruze and you’ll see that it’s ahead of the Lancer overall. More airbags does not mean more safety. In fact, driver knee airbags are a quick fix for cars that have poor protection in this area due to their design.
How are knee airbag’s a quick fix when it costs car companies so much more money to develop this technology for the car then redesigning a plastic dash? I doubt the inventor of the knee airbag Lexus, is using these for a quick fix.
And whats the cost of re designing the whole car to improve knee crash worthy-ness??
Its not just a bit of plastic on the dash, but the whole steering assembly design aswell.
Spot on, Andrew M.
If you think about it in reality a knee airbag has no real purpose. If you’re wearing your seatbelt in an accident you wont be thrown that far forward. Unless the accident is severe enough to push the engine compartment right up against your knee, the knee airbag has no purpose. And if you think about all the new safety cells and Mitsu’s RISE system which are made to prevent a crumple of the sort which would trigger this airbag, the new airbag is redundant or vice versa for the Crumple Zones.
Hey groovejet,
Lancer has an ANCAP 5 star safety rating. The issues for Holden was the Rebadged Daewoo’s ( Korean Built Holden’s) had a very poor safety record with the old Barina only 2 stars (Daewoo Kalos). So Holden is highlighting that safety of Korean Built Holden’s to erase the previous poor safety record. Lancer always had good safety features & has reputation as a safe car, unlike the Korea built Holden’s or Daewoo’s.
ANCAP 5 star ratings are too easy to obtain IMHO. Read the detail in the comprehensive reports and you’ll see there are differences.
In detail the Lancer scored more than the cruze on frontal impact & cruze scored more on side impact tests. I would still be more comfortable in driving a Lancer over a Daewoo. I would not trust the Daewoo ESP to operate correctly.
Kenn,
You’ve looked beyond the simplified star rating. Good. There’s a lot of good info in the detail for those that are interested in reading it.
The point of my first post was to object to a statement claiming the Lancer has the highest safety in its class, without me finding any clear proof of why, but the statement implies that having 7 airbags is the reason.
I’d like to see some thorough testing of ESP systems, and not just the 2 ISO tests as Toyota hopes would be the case. Some of their ESP systems don’t seem to compare favourably with competitors in certain real-world situations. I imagine there’d be a few surprises if this was done on a large scale.
What’s this obsession with Daewoo around here?
nowhere do they say the Lancer has the highest safety rating in the class
Hey groovejet
No obsession with Daewoo’s. As you know the Holden Cruz etc are rebadged Daewoo’s manufactured at the Daewoo factory in Korea.
And as you probably dont know many have claimed that the ESP system in the Cruze is damned good as its calibrated by Opel for local conditions. All Daewoo did was style the interior, exterior and actually build the car. Since its a “euro” ESP system it has to be good, right?
Opel for local German conditions? If its a Bosch system you can pretty much assume its going to be OK hardware wise.
groovejet – 5 stars is 5 stars, both are very safe cars, what are you trying to prove?
He is displaying the art of splitting hairs….
See my reply to Kenn above.
Lancer is the best buy in that class. More features than all the other competitors in that segment. Very reliable car to run, probably the safest car in that segment & Japanese built. Best value for money, if I am in the market for small car Lancer would be my first choice.
Lancer is one of the safest.
Just about all of them get 5 stars.
Cant really go too wrong in the class for safety nowdays.
Totally agree on the best value car.
i30 also matches the money for kit of the lancer, but the lancer is a much better designed car, and a much better car to drive.
Then why did the i30 win best mid sized car under $28,000.00????
Bosch designed ESP. Car manufactures have only bought the licence to make them. Call it what you like DSC, ESP, VSC it is the same system.
price versus kit……….simple.
The korean do it cheaper, but its still not the better car.
its an old line those car awards.
Firstly, which awards system is the real deal?? there are that many out there that award differently.
and also,
how many cars that have won those sort of awards turn out to be lemons???
Although its good bragging rights to win one of those awards, you would be nuts to buy solely off of someone elses recommendation
Different buyers have different tastes. What seems the best buy for you may not seem like the best buy for another. In my work carpark, Mazda 3s, Volkswagen Golfs and Honda Civics are far more common than Lancers.
Are you comparing apples with apples Ken? What model Lancer ES,VR,VRX, what model Cruze? It maybe the Lancer VR is better but the Cruze CDX is $4000 cheaper.
Hey Frenchie
You have got it wrong the standard driveway price of a Lancer VR is $ 30,416 & a Cruze CDX is $31,343. I think the best buy is the Lancer RX lot of kit & driveway price is $22k.
mate a fully loaded Cruze driveaway(CDX Diesel Auto) is 29 990 driveaway. Your right on the Lancer price though. But i think you’ll find the Cruze has the most value in class and has been named one of the top cars in its class safety wise. leather, parking sensors, auto wipers/headlights, heated seats, 400 litre boot, 6 sp auto. No other car in its price bracket has even half these features as standard let alone as options.
The VR lancers now are $26k DA. I bought mine late last year for $22.5k. That was the steal of the year for me.
Lancers are always sold for much less than that, maybe $6k less because there is enough margin in them to do so. They are nice cars, good features great looks but they are so hollow it is damn loud on the roads! Better sound insulation would make this a much nicer car. I would take any other competing Jap car instead of this.
Agree the RX is a great car. Seen the Cruze CDX grand cheaper drive away. I was quoting RRP prices though!
In-laws bought a VR sportsback ex-demo for $25000 driveaway. Ask why he didn’t buy brand new he was told had to wait 8-12 weeks for his colour (effect grey).
Hey Frenchie
As I indicated $31,343 is the maximum drive away price or the list price as well as the Lancer’s maximum drive away price is $30,416. You cannot compare the discounted price of the cruze against the list price of the Lancer. Mitsubishi has been discounting all the 2009 built stock (u could get about 5k off the list price), so u can get very good bargains. I just purchased a 09 built Outlander with $6.5k off the list price.
Shak
Just because a Daewoo wearing a Holden badge doesn’t mean value for money. Holden always try to spin all the value for money crap & safety crap. Other than the blind Holden fans, lot of the ppl who have owned a Holden r very unhappy & will not buy a Holden again. Mainly due to reliability, High service costs. Holden should be able to sell the Cruz lot cheaper than the Lancer as it is Made in Korea, where the manufacturing costs r lower than Japan, but still screws the blind consumers (u r 29,990 is the discounted drive away price. Lancer VR has special discounted Drive away price of $24,990, still the Lancer VR is ahead of the so called Cruz).
Who?
U r blabbering about the previous model Lancer 2010 model update Mitsubishi updated the noise reduction
Im also going to take a guess that the top pic of the Lancer is not the current model.
I reckon its the first series……
Any takers??
It is the current model. There are not much or no external visual differences between the Sedan VRX of 2007 or the Sedan VRX of 2010. All I am aware of are other things like increased engine capacity to 2.4L, extra sound deadening, centre console, cup holder, aux input covers
Dont forget the tail lights.
For me I can see just a snippet of the 1st series tail lights
Does anyone else really hate the rear end treatment to the Sportback? I cringe every time I see it. It is worse on the base models.
Yer I don’t like the rear of the sportback either. Don’t like the back of the sedan much either. Rear looks alright on the VRX though.
From the back, it looks terrible. But from certain other views/angles it looks quite good. That said somehow I ended up with the hatch :S
I don’t like the look of the back of the Sportback. The sedan looks OK though.
Yep i agree with you Baddass especially that big blank in the middle of the back bumper where a fog light should be looks just plain nasty.
A bad car is a bad car, plain and simple. It does not matter how much more you put into it.
Which car is bad? Your car?
The bad car are Falcadores
IMO – the Kia cerato is the best looking car in this class. Not sure about driving dynamics because I haven’t driven all of them, but it definately wins in the looks department
I really like the look of the Kia Cerato too. It’s right up there in the looks department in its class.
Might be in looks, a generation [or 2] behind in quality and engineering
I actually like the new cerato, but one thing I cannot get over korean cars in terms of body panels is that the rear quater panel is plastic. WHY?
Yep Cerato by far is better looking!!! SLI is very nice
it least on the outside,anyway.mazda3/cruze kills it inside…
All well and good to have a 5* rating, but a neighbour a few doors down is getting out of hers. It’s an 09 model, just replaced by the insurance company after her previous was tail ended at under 30Km/h (I was a witness and can attest to the traffic at the time and the fact that the offending car had braked hard prior to impact). Boot was bent, as was the boot floor and bumper etc all as you would expect for that type of hit. The boot latch still worked so wasn’t that big a hit, till you looked at the turret above the drivers door and the way the drivers door was caught on the front guard! Had to physically bend the trailing edge of the front guard away to open the door. Sorry but I have seen plenty of cars be tailended at speeds higher than that and not be written off. Fornt and side impacts protected by bags are one thing when going for stars, in real life give me a stronger platform any day.
It would be no more damaged than any other vehicle in its class which would be impact damage by the same vehicle at the same time at the same speed.
Rather crash in a Japanese car than a Korean ANYDAY!
Sorry, but I have seen enough prangs to enough cars to say that the result was atrocious. If it was only a normal result (which is what the boot lid looked like) I wouldn’t go on about it. Oh and the ’01 323 that hit it didn’t break a headlight… Not a big hit at all..
I believe, if I might say so, your concept on no damage to the body work = safer is wrong. In the olden days cars were made as thick as steel in the belief that it was safer. However, in recent years and as shown and developed by Mercedes (or was it volvo?) that crumple zones are more effective at absorbing and dispersing the energy from a crash to AROUND the cabin and now directly into the cabin as per older cars. This is why bumpers crumble in newer cars.
So to sum up, from the outside the car may looked more smashed but what is more important is the safety of those inside the car. In the end of the day you will be thankful it is YOU that is safe, and not your precious car.
A M E N!
Let them eat cake and crash in lap-sash Kingwoods!!
Totally agree with the crumple zone etc.. when I was a kid my old man used to repeatedly tell me it wasn’t the fall the hurt, but the sudden stop at the end. That is what crumple zones are there to get rid of, they are instead 2 foot of rapid deceleration. However, the degree of severity to the degree of damage is the point I am making…
Around the time I worked with the Salesman, I had a customer in Matiz T bone a VN and the Matiz’s roof showed similar creases to the Lancer mentioned above, and that was front on at (braking from) 50km/h. Yes the Matiz was written off as you would expect, but it was a bigger hit than the Lancer above.
The aim of safety is occupant safety, not multiple panel salvage.
I saw an AU falcon rear ended and turned into a hatch back.
I couldnt believe how folded up the back was. The longer I looked at it I realised the damage stopped at the rear of the back seats. Crumple zone at work there saving the passengers at the expense of its own body work
Good work Mitsubishi. Now I can buy a Lancer ES and not have to worry about the availability of a car with the airbag option.
In fact, I came close to buying a Lancer ES late last year, and it was only the unavailability of a car with the then optional side airbags that stopped me.
As to crashworthiness, I have read the Lancer crash test in detail – some points worried me, but that is true of the crash test on almost any car I’ve either bought or been thinking of buying. You know, car A has a greater risk of injury to the knees than car B, but car B is worse than car C in some other detail. You could go mad if you look too closely.