Mitsubishi Pajero Sport Pricing and Specs

The last decade of dual-cab four-wheel-drive utes have emerged as the tow-vehicles of choice, and you see them everywhere filling roles exactly like the one you have planned. Popular models include the Ford Ranger you’ve nominated, Toyota HiLux, Mazda BT-50, VW Amarok, Mitsubishi Triton, Nissan Navara and Isuzu D-Max. But there are also cheaper alternatives including makes like the South-Korean made Ssangyong and various Chinese brands like LDV and Great Wall.

Just make sure you know exactly how much you need to tow before making a decision as some of the cheaper models don’t have the same outright towing capacity and even if they do, some of them don’t have the engine performance to make towing as easy as it should be. For parts availability, the Toyota would be king in really remote areas, but any of the major brands are pretty well covered in Australia.

Meantime, don’t rule out ute-based wagons such as the Ford Everest, Isuzu MU-X, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport and Toyota Fortuna. These offer better ride comfort when unladen thanks to more sophisticated rear suspensions and most have as much or almost as much towing capacity as their ute brethren.

The fact that all these features have gone AWOL all at once suggests the display unit itself might be the problem. That, or perhaps a fuse that controls the circuit the display draws its power from. If it was one function on its own, then you’d suspect a sensor for that system might be the problem, but when they all disappear at once, the digital readout unit would be the place to start checking.

However, don’t forget that your car has a five-year factory warranty, and this is most definitely a problem that – on the surface – appears as though it would be covered by the Mitsubishi warranty. Even if you bought the vehicle second-hand, provided the car has been serviced correctly, the warranty should still apply regardless of how many times the car changes hands.

You could try for a computer reset by disconnecting the battery overnight, but make this Mitsubishi’s problem, not yours.

This is not necessarily a problem, but rather a characteristic of modern, multi-ratio transmissions. They can give the impression that they’re constantly searching for the right gear for the conditions, and it’s worse in hilly country or if you’re towing something. By constantly trying to be in as high a gear as possible, the engine will theoretically use less fuel.

Probably the real question is why a computer-controlled turbo-diesel engine needs an eight-speed transmission in the first place. The answer is that it’s all to do with recording a better fuel consumption number than your opposition on the official test. Sometimes, the vehicle has more gears than it can actually use in Australia. Our 110km/h freeway speed limit meant that early examples of the Toyota LandCruiser 200 Series (which had `just’ six gears) wouldn’t shift into top gear. That’s because the factory calibration told the transmission it could only use sixth gear at speeds of more than 115km/h. Which, just wasn’t happening for the vast majority of 200 Series owners in this country. A reflash for the computer fixed the problem, allowing the Cruiser to select top gear at closer to 90km/h, but it’s a great example of where transmission tech is heading.