The Mitsubishi Outlander is, on paper, one of the safest small SUVs you can buy. It has good small overlap, moderate overlap, side, and roof scores, as well as a decent amount of front crash prevention technology available in optional trim packages. It’s also one of the few small SUVs on the market with a 3rd row option. It competes with a bevy of small and compact crossovers in the US market, including the Kia Sportage, Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Nissan Rogue, Mazda CX-5, Subaru Forester, Ford Escape, Jeep Compass, Hyundai Tucson, and Jeep Patriot. In other words, it’s got company, which is part of why a number of parents might not know about it. But those who do tend to be quite loyal fans of the Outlander.
As a result, when I had the opportunity to look into the Outlander’s performance in puzzling 3 car seats across the back row (and a few extra in the 3rd row), I couldn’t pass it up. This 3 across guide covers several generations of the Outlander, and while it’s not as large of a list as I’d like it to be, it’s already the largest on the Internet. Before going into the car seats I was and wan’t able to squeeze into that back rows, let’s take a quick look at some basic elements of car seat safety, in terms of which seats to use and when in order to keep your kids as safe as possible while on the road.
The safest configuration we know of when it comes to vehicle safety is rear-facing. This goes for adults as well! Rear-face your infants, toddlers, and preschoolers for as long as possible (ideally until 4!), before forward-facing them in harnessed convertible or combination seats (ideally until at least 5 or 6!). Once they outgrow their harnessed seats, it’s best to keep them restrained in high-back boosters until they’re physically and psychologically ready to use adult seat belt systems (which typically happens between 10 and 12). We want our little ones in the safest positions we know of for as long as possible to give them the greatest advantages in a collision.
Keeping these ideas in mind, I set to work to find which infant, convertible, combination, and booster seats would work best in 3 across combinations in the Mitsubishi Outlander. It’s my goal to make this list the most thorough on the Internet. If you find the list helpful when shopping for car seats, you can shop through my Amazon link below. I’ll add more seats as I test them over time.
You can access the complete 3 across guide for every vehicle here and the complete list of recommended seats here. The Canadian car seat guide is here. 3 across car seat images are courtesy of Wikipedia.
2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 Mitsubishi Outlander
Guaranteed 3 across installations:
Clek Fllo (x3).
Clek Foonf (x3).
Clek Oobr (x3).
Peg Perego Flex 120 (x3).
Maxi-Cosi RodiFix (3).
Chicco KeyFIt 30 (x3).
Diono Radian RXT (x3).
Diono Radian R120 (x3).
Diono Radian R100 (x3).
Combi Coccoro (x3).
Clek Oobr (x2), Chicco KeyFIt 30.
Clek Fllo, Diono Radian / RXT, Diono Radian / RXT.
Tips and Tricks:
The current generation of the Mitsubishi Outlander is 183 inches long and 71 inches wide. This is on the longer end for a small SUV, but it’s also on the narrower end. And when you consider the fact that there’s a 3rd row squeezed in behind the 2nd, you quickly realize that you’re going to have more challenges fitting car seats into this vehicle than you’d like. However, let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons.
Good things about the current generation Outlander are that you can remove the head restraints if you need to, and that you can move the back row seats a bit forward and backward, which helps with leg room flexibility since you’re not dealing with a particularly long vehicle.
Bad things about the Outlander primarily involve the center seat in the 2nd row; it’s a very, very narrow one, and when you’ve got car seats in the outboard positions, it feels even narrower. The head restraint above this seat is also a short one. More importantly, there is a slight crossover between the buckle stalks in the center and those on the driver’s outboard side, which is often the kiss of death for car seat installations. The Radians, for example, will fit in that center position, but won’t fit as well as I’d like them to. Additionally, you can’t adjust the shoulder belt height in the 2nd row, which makes booster use more challenging than it should be.
The 3rd row goes from bad to worse. It’s better than the 3rd row in the 2nd gen Outlander, but it’s still hard to get to and you aren’t allowed to use any rear-facing seats there; everything’s got to be forward-facing, per the owner’s manual. This is almost certainly due to the short amount of space between the 2nd and 3rd row. Beyond that, you don’t have access to any top tether anchors in this row, which is significant when forward-facing tethering is important and since you’re pretty much only going to be forward-facing anyway. Oh, and you can’t sit there if you’re taller than 5’3″, per Mitsubishi. There’s also pretty much no leg room and the seat cushions are practically nonexistent. Don’t try to use the 3rd row with anyone but perhaps short kids and pre-teens in boosters. To be honest, they probably won’t be happy there either. However, it’s definitely possible to fit them there.
Because of the length of the vehicle, if you want to make the most of your money, I’d strongly recommend Radians due to the minimal amount of space they take up with angle adjusters; your legs and front-row passengers will thank you.
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Mitsubishi Outlander
Guaranteed 3 across installations:
Clek Fllo (x3).
Clek Foonf (x3).
Clek Oobr (x3).
Peg Perego Flex 120 (x3).
Maxi-Cosi RodiFix (3).
Chicco KeyFIt 30 (x3).
Diono Radian RXT (x3).
Diono Radian R120 (x3).
Diono Radian R100 (x3).
Combi Coccoro (x3).
Clek Oobr (x2), Chicco KeyFIt 30.
Clek Fllo, Diono Radian / RXT, Diono Radian / RXT.
Tips and Tricks:
The second gen of the Mitsubishi Outlander is around 183 inches long and just under 71 inches wide, or just about the same as the 3rd generation. The fact that you can fit 7 passengers into a vehicle this length is impressive. However, when it comes to car seats, you’ll again have a narrow selection to choose from due to the narrowness of the vehicle and the nearly impossible-to-use center 2nd row seat (see the extended information in the write-up for the 3rd generation Outlander above). As before, use your seat belts for every installation; LATCH will rob you of extremely valuable real estate.
Once again, because of the length of the vehicle, if you want to make the most of your money, I’d strongly recommend Radians due to the minimal amount of space they take up with angle adjusters; your legs and front-row passengers will thank you.
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If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can bookmark and shop through this Amazon link. Canadians can bookmark and shop through this link.