2009-2011 Mitsubishi Outlander used car review - Drive
In Mitsubishi's case (and it was hardly alone in this) the response was to pull some cost from the cars it was making. The current-model Outlander is a great example of this and its interior presentation and materials are the big giveaway that somebody was watching the bottom line more closely than usual (if that were possible). Which means that if you don't necessarily want a brand-new Outlander, then a slightly used one from the previous series might be the way to go. The pick of those are the last of the ZH series which was facelifted in 2009, adopting a more... Yes, dropping all-wheel-drive is a great way to reduce production costs, but it also makes the vehicle lighter, reduces fuel consumption and makes more of what the engine delivers. The thing you need to get your head around, of course, is that a butch looking thing like an SUV appears as though it could cross deserts but, in two-wheel-drive form, can't. But really, unless you make annual trips to the snowfields, do you really need an SUV for its all-wheel-drive capability when even the versions will all four wheels driven still pull up a long way short of a proper off-road vehicle. That said, the majority of Outlanders from this period were, indeed, all-wheel-drive and it was only the later models that really started to leverage the two-wheel-drive advantage. Source: www.drive.com.au
