Our Vans: Mitsubishi L200 2.4 MIVEC
20 April 2016: What's all that bleeping noise?
The Details
| Current mileage | 1350 |
|---|---|
| Claimed economy | 42.8mpg |
| Actual economy | 30.3mpg |
"Bleep, bleep. Bleeeep. Bleep bleep bleep. Bleeeeeeeeep." No, this isn't my award winning Star Wars R2-D2 impression. It's the Mitsubishi L200. And it's quite annoying.
Over the past two weeks I've noticed that my Mitsubishi L200 is very vocal, especially in reverse. The issue is with the parking sensors. Sometimes they work fine, with a couple of well-timed bleeps to warn you of a car or passer by. Other times they take a life of their own, squawking away with no rhyme or reason.
It's not just reversing that causes the issues either, the L200 will also go full R2-D2 when moving forwards, with the lane departure warning bleeping away every time you approach a bend on a B road. I've tried everything I can think of to fix it - washing the exterior, checking the sensors for marks, shouting threats - but nothing seems to solve the bleeping noise.
To make matters worse, the L200 won't allow me to switch off the reversing sensors. You can deactivate the lane departure warning, but not the reversing sensors. Things do improve slightly with the lane departure warning system having an off switch, but it's only temporary and the system reboots everytime you restart the vehicle.
Our L200 has lane departure warning, but its overactive nature can be a tad annoying
There is a way to avoid the reversing sensors - don't add them as an option. It's not a standard feature and adds around £120 to the price for the rear sensors and £140 (excluding VAT) for the front. I’m beginning to wish I'd chosen a more basic pick-up because the bleeping noise is driving me round the twist.
That said, it's not all been bad. I've found that the L200's choppy ride improves dramatically when you put a heavy load in the back. At the weekend I helped my Dad - who's a builder - move some materials for a job he's working on and the L200 proved to be quite the comfortable and capable workhorse.
With a one-tonne payload, the L200 is ideal for work, carrying everything from bags of sand to bricks and blocks. The wide load bed also increases the practicality, while the numerous tie down points make it easy to prevent loads from moving about and damaging the load bed.
Fuel economy hasn't improved all that much though. The L200 has crept up to 30.3pg, but shows no signs of getting anywhere near the heady heights of 42.8mpg, which is disappointing as the L200 is costing a lot more to run than I anticipated. Mitsubishi claims the L200 will do more than 700 miles on a single tank, so next week I'm going to fill it to the brim and see exactly how far it will go...
« Earlier: Roll up, roll up! Later: Will the L200 really cover 700 miles on a single tank? »
