Mitsubishi ASX review

The ASX is pretty cheap compared to its rivals. Its starting price undercuts the Seat Ateca and Skoda Karoq, and the only Nissan Qashqai you can buy for similar money is quite poorly equipped. Should you live somewhere that makes four-wheel drive a necessity rather than a luxury, it’s worth bearing in mind that an ASX with four driven wheels is much cheaper than similarly equipped rivals.

The ASX occupies higher insurance groups than most of its rivals. Servicing intervals are every 12 months or 12,500 miles and Mitsubishi offers fixed-price servicing packages, although these provide extra clarity but no big cost savings.

Having a big, non-turbocharged petrol engine doesn’t do its fuel consumption or CO2 emissions any favours. As a result, every ASX renders company car users liable for the top 37% benefit-in-kind tax rate.

Mitsubishi has a simple two-trim range for the ASX with no options from the factory available and only a few dealer fit accessories. Don’t worry, you can still pick from a range of colours, though.

Kicking off the range is Dynamic trim, which offers much of the equipment most buyers will really need. It includes 18in wheels, LED lights, keyless entry and start, a rear-view camera, climate control, heated front seats and cruise control. This level of standard equipment certainly compares well to those of more expensive entry-level Peugeot 3008s, Seat Atecas and Skoda Karoqs.

Exceed adds the option of an automatic gearbox and four-wheel drive, as well as some extra safety kit, but it’s otherwise not worth upgrading to. Although you might like the idea of the panoramic glass roof it comes with, taller buyers should be aware that it brings a compromise in head room, as our interior space section explains.

As a brand, Mitsubishi finished in a reasonable 13th place (out of 31 manufacturers) in the 2019 What Car? Reliability Survey for new cars, but the ASX wasn't represented as an individual model. In our 2018 survey, it finished in the bottom quarter of the family SUV class.

The ASX can’t match the seven-year warranty offered by Kia, but there is a five-year warranty with up to 62,500 miles of cover. Three-years pan-Europe breakdown assistance is also included and there’s a 12-year anti-perforation warranty. Extended warranties are available if you’re prepared to pay extra.

At first glance, the five-star Euro NCAP rating of the Mitsubishi ASX seems impressive. However, the car was tested so long ago that the rating is no longer vaild, and even when it was, the ASX's adult occupancy test was blighted by weak and marginal scores. It's unlikely that it would match the safety ratings of rivals like the Peugeot 3008, Seat Ateca and Skoda Karoq, which have all gained five-star ratings in later, more stringent tests.

It isn’t available with automatic emergency braking (AEB), a key safety feature that’s standard on many rivals these days. Exceed trim gets blind spot warning, rear cross traffic alert and lane-change assistance, though. All versions come with anti-whiplash head restraints, front, side and curtain airbags and one for the driver’s knees, as well as brake assist, stability control and an emergency-stop signal system.

In terms of security equipment, all versions get locking wheelnuts, a Thatcham-approved alarm and deadlocks.