Let me start off by saying I am a safe and considerate driver. I wear my seatbelt as a reflex. It's like tying shoes. It goes on without hesitation or a second's thought. Always. I use my turn signals and I plan ahead so I don't cut people off when I turn. I stop and get out when I get to someone's house, rather than honking.

But . . . I run with the devil for up to 7 seconds a night. I stop in front of my garage, set the brake, get out of the car and open the garage, jump back into the car and pull in. During that short breath of time, I stare death in the face and don't wear my seatbelt.  And the damn 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander won't SHUT THE HELL UP about it. This car beeps like nothing I've ever heard before. Not just a couple "Whoops? Perhaps you forgot your belt?" along with the illuminated red guy in the photo above. Nonstop, and loud. More like a kid kicking your seat on a Translatlantic flight, or a yap dog at your window when you're hungover. I'm an adult. I'm pretty sure I won't be T-boned over the last 12 feet of my alley/garage.

I realize this is a modern-day horror. From ATMs to gas pumps, the beeping is unrelenting. The madness must stop. Some cars are particularly incessant (the Mercedes R500 when the hatch closes) and some are downright cool, like the G35, which beeps a couple times and then STOPS! It got its message across. Now it's your decision.

Doug Lloyd, Senior Copy Editor @ 24,029 miles

Relaxation was the only thing on the menu over the weekend, and our 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander fit into my plans unexpectedly well. The wildflowers are in season in Southern California, so I took day hikes on both Saturday and Sunday.

The Outlander was its usual comfortable self. I've always liked the shape of its driver seat, and its ride quality is excellent, considering how steady it feels through the turns. And there are many of those, since most of the trailheads, even in Los Angeles County, are off two-lane roads. Once I was at my destination, I pulled right off the pavement without a second thought, because, well, I was in a crossover SUV with a little extra ground clearance.

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I've had the chance to drive our Outlander many times over the last year. Mostly because it serves my photography purposes well.

It's fast, it carries a decent amount of gear and it has a smooth ride. It also has a good nav system just in case we need to find a new location and/or if we get lost.

So it's kind of sad to know that the car is going to depart our ranks soon. I've grown found of the paddle shifters, the hard drive music system and it's fun drive factor. It makes those long drives back from photo shoots much more enjoyable.

Scott Jacobs, Senior Photographer

Out 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander was back at Stokes Tire Pros today. As you'll remember, last time our trusty Mitsu hit the tire shop it was the mule hauling some hyper-sticky rubber for our M3. Today, however, it was for something way less fun.



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Around here, at least in the dank nether regions of the photo department, the Outlander is known as 'The Mule'. It's our vehicle of choice for road trips, hauling gear and car to car photography. The seats fold down easily. The cargo area is pretty much unobstructed and flat. The V6 is strong enough to haul us and our gear up and over 4500 foot mountain passes, but tractable enough to do smooth low speed car to car photography runs. The cup holders hold more than just cups and the climate control system has never let us down.

Around here, the Outlander works for a living.

But on a recent trip to some border town, sans Thunderdome, I let the Outlander loose for a little R&R. It was nice to see that our Mitsu hasn't forgotten how to have a good time.

Kurt Niebuhr, Photo Editor @ 23,474 miles

Last week we ordered a new set of tires for our 2002 BMW M3 on Tire Rack. The plan was to buy the stickiest set of tires we could get in the original equipment 225/45R18 front and 255/40R18 rear sizes. We thought about going with R-compound tires, but Yokohama Advan Neova AD07 "extreme performance summer" tires were the best we could do in our size. These Yokohamas sell for $263 per front tire and $321 per rear tire.



Our tires arrived over the weekend, so today we drove over to Stokes Tire Pros and had all four of them mounted. The whole process only took 15 minutes. Installation cost $105. You'll recall that we already had an alignment performed at the BMW dealer, so mounting and balancing was the extent of it.

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Our time with the 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander XLS is winding down, and as this might've been my last drive in it, here are a few general parting thoughts.

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I was surprised this weekend to find our long-term 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander already had nearly 21,000 miles on the odometer. Was less surprised when I flipped back through the logbook and realized the Mitsu had been in our care since March 16, 2007.

With just over four weeks left to go in the Outlander's year-long test, the SUV has achieved the following fuel economy:

Best tank: 26.8 MPG

Worst tank: 13.2 MPG

Average over life of the test: 19.26 MPG

Kelly Toepke, News Editor @ 21,045 miles

First off, I didn't take the above picture. That was the work of our talented photog, Scott Jacobs. But the photo does speak to how I feel about our 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander lately.

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About the only positive thing I have to say about the paddles on our long-term 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander is that they kind of look like Batman's ears (spiky movie Batman rather than TV). That's it. I'm not really much of a fan of paddles on automatics in general, but they just seem like a marketing trick in this application. They're great for coaxing all the juice from an engine that's a bit sluggish at the low end, but I don't find that the case with the Mitsu.

For example: I tried 'em out yesterday during a long left-hand turn. But since they don't move with the wheel, by the time the wheel was straight enough to shift up to 2nd, the revs were so high it felt as if the engine was going to explode. The floor-mounted D+/- would have been more than adequate for this situation.

Other editors speak highly of the usefulness of manual-shift mode for engine braking, which I can't really speak to. I guess I feel that if you really want to do all these things, just get a manual and downshift. On those rare occasions when you need some extra passing power, the floor-mounted shifter is ample.

Doug Lloyd, Senior Copy Editor, @ 20,671 miles