Mitsubishi Montero Sport Handed Over To UK Lab For Fuel Emissions Testing

MANILA: It wasn’t all dull and gloomy for the Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors, before they got hit by a major glitch related to the fuel economy claims in their cars. Initially, this issue was only limited to the Japanese market. Nevertheless, the manufacturer encountered a major setback as fuel economy for their Sports Utility Vehicle, the Mitsubishi Montero Sport was put under questioning in over 6 markets across the globe. This also includes Mitsubishi’s highly profitable market in the Philippines, which was also affected by the wrongfully claimed fuel consumption figures in the Montero Sport. While their sales continue to decline, Mitsubishi certainly cannot let go of their prized SUV that sells like hotcake in the ASEAN market.

Hence, to solve this problem Mitsubishi Motors have finally brought in a third-party firm from the UK named Horiba Mira Ltd. to investigate and hopefully provide a viable solution. Thankfully for the Filipinos, the issue is currently only limited to the previous generation models of the Montero Sport. The services of the UK-based testing facility was done personally by MMC (Mitsubishi Motor Corporation Chairman Osamu Masuko, who stated the events as unfortunate and also acknowledged the Philippine and ASEAN market to be extremely important for their organization. The investigation has already been in progress as Horiba Mira was hired for the task in May, and the results are expected to be out by the end of July. This investigation will also include a special test conducted by the company representatives in the Philippines.

The Mitsubishi Montero Sport is already one of the top sellers for the automaker in the Philippine market and is also promoted as the company’s top performance vehicles globally. Hence it would be easy to understand why the manufacturer would go to such lengths to rectify the problems with their top selling vehicle. Although it would’ve been certainly simpler for MMC to correct these problems before their vehicles were out in the market, we can only hope that the third-party testing facility can shed some new light on the problem and provide answers to bigger markets such as the UK, Denmark, India, Australia, Germany, and Singapore.