The time has officially came. We are in the market for a new vehicle.  We literally have no idea where to begin looking.  Part of me just wants a new car, the other part an SUV, the mom in me a minivan, and I’ve always dreamed of a pick-up truck. So here we are. Searching.

The Search Begins

We recently planned a “friend-cation” to Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos and thankfully Mitsubishi let us test drive the 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander GT S-AWC for our trip. We only have two girls and our family doesn’t plan to grow anymore, however we are looking for something that allows our girls to take a friend each with them on our travels. For this trip, Andrew wasn’t joining us, but my girlfriend and her two littles would be. The rest of the week that we had the trip would be just us seeing how we liked the vehicle.

I’ll admit I was a bit nervous when the car arrived. We had four kids in car seats – three of whom are rearfacing, plus luggage and food. The Mitsubishi Outlander has generous space for a small family when you have two children, but four children and luggage, it was going to be a tight fight. The optional third row can be:

• down completely
• up completely
• one side can be left down while the other is up
• or down completely with one side of the second row also down.

When the optional third row is up, there is limited trunk space. I didn’t measure, but I would roughly estimate it to be between 13-15″. There is extra space for belongings underneath also (this is where headrest are stored when not in use).

On road!! #greatwolflodge

A post shared by A Arnold (@mrs_aarnold) on May 10, 2017 at 4:13am PDT

But we did it.

We were able to get the following into the 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander:

• 2 adults
• 4 children in car seats (3 rearfacing, 1 in 5pt harness forward facing)
• large duffle bag
• average size suitcase
• diaper bag
• case of water
• 4 canvas reusable shopping bags full of food
• a day bag for the park (needed before we could check in)
• a pack and play
• a bumbo chair

and I’m sure a few other things I’m forgetting at the moment. It was crammed, but my friend and I were both pretty amazed that we got everything we needed into the 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander.

We drove the almost 3 hours from my house to Great Wolf Lodge and finally arrived, amazingly barely using half a tank of gas. Score!

Once we were home and our friends were gone, we were able to see more about the features for just our family.  Our girls have been recently fighting in the back seat of our car. “Don’t touch me.” “You’re on my side”. Repeat. Constantly.

One of the best things about the optional third row was that I was able to keep our 4 year old in the back and the baby in the second row.  They didn’t argue once!  It was bliss! 

The last day that we were reviewing the 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander, our oldest begged to sit next to her sister again.  They got along for about 3 minutes until I was ready to move her back again.  For that, the optional third row was pure blissful joy.

Let’s talk about the features: 

Some of these are optional features depending on ES, SE, SEL or GT 3.0 S-AWC models – 

• Starting at $23,495
• 25/30 MPG
• Seats 5 comfortably with optional 3rd row for 7 total seats
• 10 year/100k Miles Powertrain Limited Warranty
• Forward Collision Mitigation System
• Super All-Wheel Control
• Rear Cross Traffic Alert System
• Blind Spot Warning and Lane Change Assist
• Multi-View Camera System – 360 degree view
• 7″ Touchscreen + Apple Carplay + Android Auto
• LED Headlights
• Heated front seats
• Heated steering wheel
• Front Dual-Zone Automatic Climate Control
• premium Rockford Fosgate surround sound

  

Once we got home from our trip, we definitely enjoyed our little family inside. All the features were fun to play around with and I loved the sun roof on the warm days that we were getting as the weather warms up. I think if you have a small family who does limited traveling, this could be the perfect option for you (I’m already tired of the girls fighting again).