Mitsubishi Pajero – BS - IV compliant now; Power downgrade for a generation old SUV!

Ho hum .. Yawn. So here’s another piece of News, Mitsubishi has upgraded the Pajero’s engine to meet with the BS – IV compliance norms. Another yawn.

Now don’t get me wrong. The Pajero is one of my favorite SUVs - Rugged performer and the only SUV to win the most grueling off-road challenge ever conceived by man, the Paris-Dakar Rally, 12 times since its inception in 1979. Not only that, it also won the rally seven times straight, from 2001-2007. Truthfully it is one of the best SUVs to be ever manufactured by any car maker world over.

Bombshell - The last three years have been bagged by VW’s Touareg. And that is where my digression from the original headline of the story begins. My analysis that explains this blasphemy - Mitsubishi’s philosophy of ‘no change, only upgrade’ is the culprit and hence the ‘ho humming’ you encountered at the beginning of this writeup.

True to its tradition of no change only upgrade not to mention government pressure for over a year has led to another upgrade of the Pajero, this time it’s the engine. The new Mitsubishi Pajero is now BS – IV compliant - a move has also been put into place to boost the falling sales of the SUV in India.

And the good news doesn’t end here (sense the sarcasm please!) The Pajero is now powered by a 108 PS engine against the earlier variant which produced 118 PS of power! A power downgrade for a version of vehicle that is already a generation older than what the company is offering in the markets world-wide. It’s just appalling.

Mitsubishi I love the Pajero, but pull up your sleeves and instead of treating India as a dumping bag bring on the real thing. We don’t want the third generation Pajero to be BS-IV compliant, we want the fourth generation Pajero which by the way is Euro –V or VI compliant. And since I am being wistful, may as well ask for another wish that probably won’t come true any time soon – Get out with the Fifth generation already! We gotta kick some butt.