Weekend Athlete: 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander

Loading things was a little tricky because the opening didn’t seem that wide. I felt like I was reaching around a corner to load things, and I really had to angle my bike to fit it in. However, it was nice to have a hatch as I had to park in a parallel-parking space. The barn door on the Toyota RAV4 would have been a real pain. In fact, the hatch was easy enough to live with that I never bothered to open the bottom part of the clamshell section.

This is the first three-row SUV I’ve had where someone had used the third row. There were instructions on the seatbacks describing how to fold those seats, so I didn’t have to track down the owner’s manual. Nice touch.

The second row flopped forward so easily it was almost comical. You just yank on the second-row recline lever and — blammo! — they’re down. However, the Outlander loses nearly all of its points in the seat-return process. You have to pull on a loop on the bottom of the seat, then pull another loop to fold the seatback upright. Not only is it a two-handed job, it requires too much effort. My guess is the same springs that catapult the seat forward have to be overcome to set the seat upright. Finally, I felt the fabric loops were stretching a lot and were going to rip off in my hand — but that’s subjective, so I don’t take off points for that.

Rating: 7.6 out of 10

The score of 7.6 is just above the RAV4 and PT Cruiser. The base price is more than the RAV4’s, but it doesn’t top out as high as the Toyota, and they’re similar in terms of cargo-carrying ability, and both require two hands to fold the seats. It edges ahead of the RAV4 because it has a hatch and ahead of the Cruiser because its cargo area is a little larger with the second-row seats upright. Also it was easy to parallel park, so the visibility was good and, again, slightly better than the Cruiser’s.