FAMILY CAR REVIEW: 2019 MITSUBISHI ASX

The central console of the ASX has two large cup holders in front of the central storage box, these were both large enough to hold a reusable or disposable coffee cup, or my large refillable water bottle. The central console storage box is a good size and has a little shelf in the top of it that you could put your phone on and there are ridges in the top to feed a USB wire through.

In front of the gear lever is a small rubber lined shelf with two USB sockets above it. I found this good for my phone so I could charge it but also there was no sunglasses case in the ceiling so I had to keep my sunglasses there too.

I could get my wallet in the glove box in the ASX but the iPad wouldn't fit.

The door bins in the front are a good size and will hold a large refillable water bottle as well as my wallet.

In the back storage is minimal! There are two cup holders in a fold-down armrest in the central seatback that is well sized to hold a reusable or disposable coffee cup or an infant drink cup fitted too.

There is only a single map pocket on the back of the front passenger seat that will hold but not conceal an iPad.

The rear doors do not have door bins, there are small wells in all the door handles though.

The boot opening is nice and wide, making it easy to put things in and out. The boot floor is nice and flat making it good for emergency nappy changes!

There is a plastic well on one side of the boot which I found useful for putting the suncream or sandy shoes into to keep them seperate from the rest of the contents of the boot.

When the boot is empty I could fit 11 shopping bags.

The Mountain Buggy Duet twin stroller fits with two shopping bags.

The Britax Flexx tandem stroller fits with four shopping bags.

The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle single stroller fitted with four shopping bags.

The Mountain Buggy Nano compact stroller fitted with seven shopping bags.

The parcel shelf is a basic solid shelf that is held on with a loop of cord on either side, it is removable and then you can carry a medium sized dog in the boot.

The media system in the ASX is nice and easy to navigate and simple to connect my phone to, it does have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as well.

The reversing camera image is a bit fuzzy but a nice big image and you can only mute the sensor beeping by turning the sensors off with a button, down by your right knee, which also turns off the senor visual which in front of the steering wheel.

Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!

That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.

If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?

It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?

A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.

Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manoeuvring in the car parks I have to triple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!

I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.

The ASX is a bit of a beepy little, baby waking SUV! When you start the engine if you don't have your seatbelt fastened or the driver's door shut then it just beeps this very loud alarm constantly until you do both! I found it really frustrating over my test week.

We quite often load our daughter into the car together in the morning, I will load everything into the car while hubby installs the child and then I start the engine get the air-con going etc with the door open while he fastens her in and then he’ll come round and give me a kiss goodbye. (This is normally very rushed in a ‘we should have left five minutes ago, have a good day kind of way'! Not the idyllic picture you may have painted in your head!!) However, I got a bit of a shock when the ASX started screaming at me the first morning because my seatbelt wasn’t on and my door was open!!! That started us off with a nice relaxed ambience for our drive to daycare… NOT!!!

The indicators have a surprisingly quiet tock-tock sound that is not adjustable or baby waking. However, the actual stick they are on makes a big clunk each time you move it!

The ASX didn't have inbuilt Sat-Nav.

The lane departure warning beeps to alert you when you go out of your laneway and can be turned off with a button down by your right knee.

Both the doors and windows of the ASX opened nice and quietly but closed with a clunk. They could be locked from the driver's door control panel.

I found I could come to a stop with the engine running and get out without beeps and alarms going off.

Since becoming a mum I spend A LOT of time parked up somewhere with a nice view while my daughter is asleep in the back! If it's hot I need to leave the engine running and the aircon on but I do like to get out and drink my cuppa tea in the fresh air while enjoying the fact my limbs are free from said dangling child!!

SO this is a very important test as I have found that sometimes I have been held hostage by a cars BEEEEPING alarms when I have taken off my seatbelt or opened the door while the engine is still running!! (I only stand outside the car, I am not a bad mother!!)

The cruise control buttons on the steering wheel are very basic and they're easy to use. There is no digital speed display at all in the ASX which I hate because it's so hard to be accurate with your speed without one.

There is a distance to empty display for the fuel which is great.

The distance to empty display becomes extra important as a mum because getting fuel with a baby is a whole new world of difficult. If they are screaming in the car you definitely do not want your journey prolonged with a fuel stop! If they are asleep the turning off of the engine, doors opening and locking and unlocking, then re-opening the doors and closing, starting the engine again, beepers going off because you haven’t got your seatbelt on when you start the car or because you blink in the wrong direction, do you take them out of the car when you go in to pay? If you do will you get them back in the seat again or will they have a complete meltdown and you’ll be stuck on the fuel station forecourt with a screaming baby!! Hopefully you are starting to gather the anxiety that what was once a simple fuel stop can be for a mum!!!!

For this reason the distance to empty display can let you know if you have enough fuel to make it home with bub and then go out and get fuel another time when you will not have to take bub with you.

The seatbelt alarm is for both the front and rear passengers, a light display also comes on in the driver's display to warn if a seatbelt has been removed too. There is also a warning display in the central console dashboard.

The wind noise is quite bad in the ASX and the engine makes itself well heard when accelerating up hills too. It wasn't baby wakingly loud but did sound like it was struggling at times.

The ASX has three top tether anchorages, the outer two are within plastic guides near the bottom of the seat backs and the central one is not in a plastic guide and up the top of the seat back. The outer two anchorages are difficult to connect to and it is as if they are installed upside down because I hd to connect them backwards.

There are ISOFix in the two outer seats, they are not within plastic guides but were quite easy to connect to.

I could fit two child seats in the back of the ASX, I could just sit between them and I'm 162cm, I wouldn't want to do it regularly, it was quite a squeeze! With a rear facing child seat installed a 170cm passenger could sit in the driver's seat.

Posting bub into their seats from outside the car was fine as the door openings are quite wide. When posting bub from inside the car I found it fine too.

Australia being a country of weather extremes- blazing sun and torrential rain, mean you may find it easier to put Bub into their seat from inside the car sometimes. If it’s hot you can get the air-con going, cool the car down and not stand out in the sun while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether Bub can be easily installed from either direction!

The seats were perforated black leather that made them difficult to clean as sand and general child crumbs collect in the perforations.

I found the driver's seat to be much more comfortable than a previous model I have driven.

The headrests were not adjustable but I found I could have a ponytail while driving which was great!

I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get it just right too… said no new mum ever!!!

For mum in the back sitting at the side, you don’t have much headroom but there is good legroom, in the central seat you are pressed up against the child seat.

For the first year of Tulsi’s life when we would go out as a family, if I wasn’t driving, I would travel in the back with Tulsi, I know many other mums that do too, so it’s important to check the comfort of the back seats as you may be spending a lot of time in them! They were never something I gave any thought to before but I definitely notice a good or bad back seat now!

The steering wheel was fully adjustable in/out and up/down with a rather clunky lever.

There are four air-con vents across the front dashboard, two in the centre and one at either end and none in the back of the ASX.

Mitsubishi please change the air-conditioning controls! I just could not get to grips with them the whole week I had it! There were three dials on the dash that you would think would make it simple but there were notches all around the dials and some were red and some not and I just could not work out what was what on them! It was a really odd system for me to get used to and I didn’t manage it over the review week.

The front seats are heated too, so the seats have perforated leather upholstery, which is a bit harder to clean with kids spills and crumbs.

There are two lit vanity mirrors for the front passenger and driver, as well as an enormous sunroof which you can illuminate with an orange light all around the outside of it, which kept my daughter very entertained while driving at night!

There are handles in the back above the doors that are well positioned to hang a toy for entertaining rear passengers.

There are carpet floor mats throughout the ASX I tested which you can remove for cleaning.

The windows were tinted in the ASX which was great as I did not have to install window shades.

Visibility was very good for the driver in the ASX. The windows were nice and large, you sit in a higher driving position and the vehicle is small making it easy to place its extremities when maneuvering to park.

Visibility for passengers was also very good with the deep windows and higher riding position.
The sunroof on NOT sun blasting days was a welcome distraction for our rear-facing infant and kept her entertained for the journey! A great BabyDrive feature!!

The reversing camera is very good in the ASX and the large wing mirrors add together to make reversing, parking and maneuvering a breeze.

The general aesthetics of the ASX is that it is basic and most of the surfaces look clean and neat. It is the only car in its size and price and so it is hard to compare it or to go past it as an affordable and practical little family SUV once your children are not rearward-facing you will have better leg room.

The Mitsubishi ASX has seven SRS airbags as standard. In the front, the driver and passenger have side and frontal airbags and one for the driver's knee. As well as curtain airbags the length of the car for the front and back side passengers.

The Mitsubishi ASX was given a five-star ANCAP safety rating in 2014. Getting a total of 34.13 out of 37 overall. For the frontal offset test 14.13/16 and 16/16 for the side impact test. Scoring 2/2 for the pole test.

The ASX does not have AEB which is standard in most modern cars. The Exceed model I tested does have forward collision warning (FCW), lane departure warning (LDW), blind spot warning (BSW), lane change assist (LCA), rear cross traffic alert (RCTA), automatic high beam (AHB), emergency stop signal function (ESS), emergency brake assist system (EBA), hill start assist (HSA), active stability control (ASC), active traction control (ATC), anti-lock braking system (ABS), electronic brakeforce distribution (EBD) and brake override system (BOS).

Although forward collision warning (FCW), lane departure warning (LDW), blind spot warning (BSW), lane change assist (LCA), rear cross traffic alert (RCTA), automatic high beam (AHB), are not standard on all variants.

Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert or the parking sensor beeping sound.
I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when Tulsi’s asleep!