Mitsubishi Triton: let’s go clubbing

What is it?

Mitsubishi’s Triton has been a staple of the Japanese brand since it set up shop down under in the 1980s.

A ute with two or four doors, it’s always been user friendly and as tough as old boots, and the latest version is no exception.

Cosmetically, it’s moved from a soft, rounded nose to a more hard-edged, upright, styling.

The Club Cab is a two door with four seats, two of which are temporary drop downs — although calling it a passenger carrier is a bit of a stretch.

The Triton range is almost exclusively powered by diesel, with a sole petrol model at the bottom of the range.

Transmissions are 5-speed manual or 6-speed auto.

Our test vehicle, the basic Club Cab with four-wheel drive capability, packs a 2.4-litre 133kW/430Nm diesel.

Fuel consumption is a claimed 8.6L/100km.

What’s it cost?

At the time of writing, it’s $39,990 driveaway. That’s with a 7 year/150K warranty, and 3 years capped priced servicing.

Underneath is a tried and true combination of leaf springs, struts for the front, with drum brakes on the back.

Rubber is all terrain style, featuring a meaty tread pattern.

Up front is the Mitsubishi shield motif, slimline headlights, sharper looking edges to the bumpers, with an almost untouched profile and rear.

Colour choice are: grey, blue, red, black, white, and the test car’s silver.

Inside it’s received the lightest of freshen ups, with cloth covered seats fore and aft, and vinyl floor coverings.

The rear drop seats are completely non-adjustable, with just enough room for smaller people.

The plastics look slightly classier, with plenty of cutouts in the dash for the features that come with higher spec models, which makes it look untidy.

Seats are manually adjusted and face a dash that has a DAB equipped 7.0 inch touchscreen with no satnav but Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability — a nice touch in a mid-spec working class car.

A pair of 12V and USB sockets are standard — but wait, there’s more . . . 

Lane Departure Warning is standard, Trailer Stability Assist is standard, and Forward Collision Mitigation Warning with pedestrian detection is standard.

Side and rear vision is excellent and the rear vision mirror provides a good wide angle view.

Auto wipers and headlights are standard as well.

Airbags? Seven, thank you.

What’s it go like?

This particular test vehicle coincided with a business trip to Melbourne and covered almost 2000km all up.

Economy on the highway run didn’t drop below 8.8L/100km, even with cruise control.

There’s 430Nm of torque available from 2500 revs, but has bucket loads of torque below this anyway.

At 110km/h, our “nothing can frighten” Triton was ticking over at around 2000 rpm.

Although it adds a gear, the 6-speeder is looking dated, with the competition now boasting up to 8-speeds — a corresponding increase in cogs would boost economy.

A cargo tray cover would also help with airflow, preventing the air from hitting the tailgate and generating turbulence which adds to fuel consumption.

Mitsubishi’s eco monitor is better than most, with real time updates. So gentler driving sees the expected range go up and displayed on the fly.

The 245/70/16 rubber felt spongy across every tarmac surface and that’s unavoidable.

It does however smooth the ride out and is actually quite comfortable, but road noise is tiresome.

The brakes need work, with plenty of travel before they bite, and go long even with a hard press to haul up the Club Cab.

Steering is somewhat vague and indecisive in the rack itself, and the nose is prone to understeer.

The engine, though, is a willing lugger.

It’s reasonably quiet when stroked along gently, gets a touch thrashy when pushed, but never feels as if it’s not up to task.

The gearbox is mostly smooth, but sometimes clunky, jerky, and slow to change. The gears themselves are selected via a “J-gate” style selector.

We left the driveline mainly in 2WD but put it into 4WD high range on wet roads for safety.

Low range is best suited to muddy work sites such as a farm environment.

Approach angle is 30 degrees, departure is 22 degrees, and breakover is 24 degrees, with ground clearance is 205mm unladen.

It’s a big unit at 5270mm in overall length and 3000mm for the wheelbase. This means car parking can be a touch tricky.

The tray is a huge piece of work, with 1085mm between wheel arches, 475mm cargo bay height from floor to wall top, and a 1840kg rear axle load.

Like most utes of this style it can tow 3000kg.

What we like?

• New assertive looks
• DAB audio and decent quality speakers in a work ute
• High overall build quality

What we don’t like?

• Unavoidably spongy ride
• Economy not as good as expected
• Tiring road noise

The bottom line?

The new look has copped  a bit of stick but we like it.

It ties the Triton to the rest of the Mitsubishi family successfully, and there’s no mistaking it for anything else. It’s a design ethos some other companies should look to (Holden, you’re one of them).

For a “humble” work ute it is well featured, as safe as they come at this level, and that seven year warranty isn’t half bad either.

Admittedly, it’s not going to be used on long country drives but an extra cog or two would make it more flexible and potentially more cost effective between refills.

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