Since its arrival, the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross has had a rough life partially due to its name. Unconventional styling further complicated things and made the SUV less appealing to mainstream consumers. For 2022, it gets a refresh, featuring the new corporate Mitsubishi look, conventional taillights, and a single-piece rear window. It also gained an updated multimedia system that banished the annoying touchpad. With these changes, does the 2022 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross have a chance? Let’s take a closer look.
2022 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross: Tweener-Sized
The Eclipse Cross lives in the tweener space occupied by vehicles like the Kia Seltos and Toyota Corolla Cross. As a result, it seats four comfortably and has a lot more space than the typical subcompact SUV. Thanks to the revised rear end, you also get more usable cargo space. Rear seats that fold nearly flat also add usable capacity for bulky items from Ikea. However, it could use a little more storage for phones and other small items because your only one is the cubby below the center stack.
Things start to go downhill once you look closely at the materials throughout the cabin. While most land solidly mainstream, certain bits and pieces feel cheap and chintzy. Many of them are near areas you touch often too like the controls on the dash, turn signal stalks, and the shifter. On the highway, excessive amounts of road and wind noise enter the cabin, detracting from an otherwise calm environment.
Aging Less Gracefully
All of the cosmetic changes in the Eclipse Cross may have freshened its looks but the tech features expose its age. Mitsubishi’s in-house infotainment system uses an 8.0-inch touchscreen with slow responses and grainy graphics. Thankfully, the controls are easy and there aren’t many submenus in the main display. You also get a small gauge cluster display showing key metrics like fuel efficiency, your trip computer, and the AWD system’s power distribution. The available Mitsubishi Power audio system sounds muddled and lacks clarity, especially at high volumes. Customizing it helps but not by much due to the tuning being so heavy on the bass and treble.
Every Eclipse Cross gets forward collision warning, pedestrian detection, and front automatic emergency braking as standard. However, you need to go up to at least the LE trim for lane departure warning and the SE grade to get blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert. Adaptive cruise control is exclusive to the SEL grade and requires the Touring package. Unfortunately, these components have slow reaction times. Additionally, adaptive cruise control inputs excessive stopping power when slowing down, resulting in the car getting jerky.
Soft and Short on Power
If the name suggests that the Eclipse Cross had sporting intentions, erase them immediately. One turn is all it takes to realize that this SUV possesses a softly sprung suspension. Excessive amounts of body roll and vertical motions amplify the softness even more. Slow, disconnected steering highlight the Eclipse Cross’s pedestrian leanings. At least it rides reasonably well and does an okay job filtering out broken pavement. However, certain types of road imperfections upset it, making harsh impacts feel worse than they are.
Equally unremarkable is the powertrain. The 1.5-liter turbo-four makes 152 hp and 184 lb-ft of torque routed through a CVT automatic. While that might seem acceptable on paper, it isn’t when you consider the SUV’s 3,505-pound curb weight. The transmission does all the work extracting everything out of the engine. However, turbo lag and a narrow power band add to the leisurely demeanor and general lack of pace. Wind the engine out and you get more noise than forward momentum. To add insult to injury, the Eclipse Cross isn’t very efficient and not a single model manages to get 30 mpg on the highway. This SEL test car checks in at an unremarked 25/26/25 mpg city/highway/combined according to the EPA.
2022 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross: Closing the Previous Chapter
Mitsubishi’s last product that it developed from scratch 100 percent in-house will be remembered as the model that closes the previous era. With the brand now allied with Renault and Nissan, its future shines a little brighter. As for the Eclipse Cross, it’s a bit of a missed opportunity. This SUV could’ve been great but things didn’t work out as planned for the North American version.
Further complicating things is the price: At $24,990, it’s in the same ballpark as larger compact SUVs. My SEL example with AWD and the Touring package stickered at $34,075, once again in the same price range as larger vehicles including some electrified ones. Other global markets got a 221-hp plug-in hybrid variant, which has a lot more potential even if it costs more had it been added to the lineup here. While the current car offers good levels of practicality and comfort, that’s not enough to save it from its shortcomings.
