Mitsubishi Triton 2022 review: GSR

The body is tough looking with slab-like sides and a tall profile, but the pointed nose makes it appear longer than the average ute.

The GSR has contrasting black accents and roofline but this makes the chrome bullbar stand out like a sore thumb. Extending those black accents to items like that would have achieved a more unified and aggressive look.

It’s the interior where it shines. Our GSR has the optional two-tone orange leather and it stands out from its competitors, where you’re often left with black upholstery, and even on some higher-spec models, the seats still tend to be cloth or fake leather.

It adds a plush factor to a style of vehicle where that is usually not the priority.

The Triton still holds onto its roots with the pared back buttons and dials and the use of the flip switches for the heated seats. The mix of simplistic and modern has been handled well.

Overall, it looks good at the kerb but you don’t get tonnes of customisations in the Triton range as a whole – there are only four colours to choose from on this GSR variant, and just three on the cheaper models!

All Triton 4WD’s have 2.4-litre, four-cylinder turbo-diesel engines and this GSR is responsive and punchy off the mark while easily keeping up in traffic.

It has a good amount of grunt without it whining at you when it goes up hills. It defaults to two-wheel drive during normal circumstances but you can switch it across to four different off-road modes via an easy access rotary control wheel.

Just a note that during heavy winds on the highway, this vehicle can feel like a wind sail and I ended up fighting the steering wheel more than I liked this week.

So, all in all, it drives pretty well but it’s still a truck. While I feel the jostling is part of the experience, it’s a rough ride, even by ute standards. Having said that… if you want the smoothness of a sedan, than buy a sedan.

The Triton is relatively narrow by ute standards and you feel that the most in the back seat where the middle occupant will feel cramped.

The legroom isn’t great behind my drivers position and I’m only 168cm (5’6″), so it would be a tight fit behind a taller driver.

2022 Mitsubishi Triton GSR I Seats

2022 Mitsubishi Triton GSR I Seats

2022 Mitsubishi Triton GSR I Seats

Front occupants will benefit most from the cabin space where the legroom and headroom are sufficient for comfort.

2022 Mitsubishi Triton I Tray

2022 Mitsubishi Triton I Tray

2022 Mitsubishi Triton I Tray

2022 Mitsubishi Triton I Tray

Storage throughout is typical for a ute, but I would have liked a few more cubbies, particularly in the front. The high seating position is great and made my five-year old feel like a king on the road.

The tray is relative to a big SUV’s boot space and you’ll get a lot of gear back there.

It’s a no-brains operation inside the cockpit and the sort of vehicle where you can just jump in and go without fussing about with ‘what’s that/this?.’

The side steps are a must have and meant I didn’t have to hoist my son in and out all week.

The tray has a soft tonneau cover, which offers flexibility but isn’t super practical for my needs.

I would invest in a hardtop/lockable roll-top because it just didn’t sit well with me that I couldn’t properly secure the tray.

A rubber cargo liner would also help with things sliding around. Particularly, given I couldn’t reach in from the sides to grab gear that had rolled to the back without climbing in (or tossing my five-year old in) to retrieve them.

The Triton is long at almost 5.5m with the bullbar and towbar and it can feel like it’s overhanging a parking space, but the shorter wheelbase makes it surprisingly easy to manoeuvre around a car park and tight ramps.

It wasn’t difficult to park it anywhere, actually, the reversing camera is clear and you also have additional camera views to the side and front which can be accessed on the steering wheel, which is great.

There’s plenty of standard safety features on the GSR, like: lane keeping aids, rear cross-traffic alert, autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection, hill descent control and a good reversing camera with an additional 360-degree view.

But that extra mode isn’t as crisp as it could be and would have benefited from better camera technology.

It also has an ‘Event Data Recorder’, (which is not a dash cam). The EDR gathers information on your vehicle in the event of a serious crash.

Information like: how fast the car was travelling, whether you were using your brake and what the systems in the car were doing. Could be handy if you’re ever unfortunate enough to be involved in an accident.

The Triton has a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating but it was done ages ago, in 2015.

There are two ISOFIX mounts and two top-tether child seat mounts, so you’ll only be fitting two harnessed car seats in the rear which could limit some families.

Although, a highlight is that you don’t have to pull the seat forward to get to the top tether anchors. There’s a very clever zip that you access via the armrest and means you don’t have to undo both car seats if you need to take one out for whatever reason – which is better than most utes.

Although, I did find it difficult to get the tension I would normally set on my top tether because there’s no clearance behind the seats.

There’s an okay amount of room for front occupants when a 0-4 years rearward facing child seat is installed, but it will affect the drivers position the most.

The traditional workhorse feel has been retained but refined. The tech won’t blow your socks off but everything serves its purpose and that’s kind of the running theme for the interior.

The instrument panel isn’t fancy and has minimal customisations but still looks robust.

The 7.0-inch touchscreen multimedia system is basic, no fuss and easy to use but the actual display is smaller than the average screen as it has a thick black border with touchpads.

It’s unusual for a ute at this price-point to not have built-in sat nav but it does have wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which are simple to connect to.

There are four USB-A ports and a 12-volt socket in the cabin, and also a HDMI port. Which could come in handy if you ever have your DVD player and want to watch a movie while on holiday.

It does have heated seats, though, which is always a plus in my books.

The GSR will cost you $55,690, before-on road costs, but ‘my’ model also has a few optioned extras that add $7689 to the price tag.

Those extras are: orange leather interior, tow bar kit, bullbar, orange contrast stitch detailing, rubber floor mats, and a REDARC wiring kit for trailer brakes.

These extras are pretty practical for a ute, though, so I’d want them. It’s a well-appointed ute for under $65K and that’s super competitive for the market.

It was surprising that this didn’t perform better with the fuel economy. It isn’t terrible but certainly thirstier than some diesels I’ve driven. Especially after all the long trips I did this week, so I imagine this would be much heavier in the city.

However, the big selling point is the whopping 10-year/200,000km warranty that the Triton comes with!

You also get 10-years/150,000km capped priced servicing, which is outstanding. But it averages at $609 per service, which is expensive for the class.