Sports Cars
Date : Months in Fleet: Current Mileage: 19,145 miles
Average Fuel Economy: Range: Service: Normal Wear: Repair: Our long-term Sportback Ralliart is piling on the miles, and the warm weather has brought an increased frequency of vacations and trips—the car has picked up 10,000 miles in just two months. Venturing around the Midwest and journeying as far as Florida, Rhode Island, and Appalachia, the hatchback has long since made its transition from snow machine to highway cruiser.
Summer Rubber As soon as winter turned to spring, the stock 18s and their 215/45R-18 Yokohama Advan A10 rubber were fitted back into the wheel wells. The much smaller sidewall and the harder rubber compound have vastly improved the loose rear end we experienced with the snowshoes. But even on the factory wheel-and-tire setup, we’ve found the car a little softer than we’d like during spirited driving. However, there have been only compliments on how the car tracks and rides on long journeys.
Staffers are still enjoying the very precise and direct steering provided by the Ralliart, but not everyone is keen on the dual-clutch automated manual transmission. The box performs rapid shifts once it’s moving, but its lag in off-the-line takeup has all of us wishing for a three-pedal option. Another major point of contention has been our tester’s optional—and profoundly bolstered—Recaro seats. The logbook is filled with comments from both sides of the argument. The seats were very useful during our
, but in everyday use, the bolsters feel too extreme. Many have voiced a desire for height adjustability, as outliers on both ends of the height spectrum have difficulty finding a comfortable driving position.
Hatchback Versatility Here at Car and Driver,
we aren’t shy about confessing our love for wagons and hatchbacks. They’re able to swallow people and cargo much like an SUV but offer more entertaining dynamics. In the past few months, the Sportback has been stuffed with photo and video gear, acting as a mobile studio on various shoots and comparison tests. But perhaps the best example of why we adore the hatchback came from technical editor Michael Austin. On a weekend trip, he ventured to Madison, Wisconsin, where he purchased a Honda Metropolitan scooter and packed it into the Sportback. He simply folded the Mitsubishi’s rear seat, removed the scooter’s mirror and front tire, and
— voil!
— it was an easy fit.
Service Stops Thus far, the Lancer has remained
almost trouble-free. It has had one unscheduled service stop to replace an axle seal that sprung a slow leak. The seal and the labor were covered under warranty.
Other service stops were for scheduled maintenance: a general inspection, oil and filter change, and tire rotation every 5000 miles. The first round cost $60, and a lazier dealership tech rang up a $79 tab for the second. The 15,000-mile service added a cabin-air-filter replacement and totaled $164. At this point, the Ralliart has $303 in maintenance costs, which is pretty low for our long-termers. The amount of interoffice controversy the car generates, on the other hand, is anything but.
Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/car/10q1/2010_mitsubishi_lancer_sportback_ralliart-long-term_road_test_wrap-up/update_one_page_2
Download our to enter your own data to adjust for weather conditions.
One of the best uses for these is to track the effectiveness of modifications done on a car. First you test the car in stock condition and record the results. Then you install a new exhaust system, or whatever, and test it again.
But there’s a problem: A car will run faster on a cool day than it will on a hot day because cooler air is denser and contains more oxygen, allowing the engine to burn more fuel. Similarly, high barometric pressure produces more power than low pressure, and dry air has more oxygen than moist air. So how do you know if a quicker run was due to the new exhaust or more favorable weather?
Because we conduct much of our testing in Michigan, with its extremes of bitter cold and withering heat, we are always dealing with this problem. To eliminate the effects of weather we use a mathematical calculation to adjust our test results to dry air at sea level (barometric pressure of 14.7 psi) and a temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. If it’s cold out, the weather correction typically slows down our raw results, and conversely, when it’s hot, the performance results improve.
In summary, we always measure the prevailing wet- and dry-bulb temperatures and absolute barometric pressure at each of our test sessions. We use these data to calculate the amount of dry air present and refer to a series of charts to adjust our raw performance numbers to compensate for these conditions.
Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/05q2/correcting_for_weather-feature