This is an interesting discussion!

Anyway, regarding the door weight issue, I'd agree with some comments made on this thread regarding the physics of heavier doors. I would indeed expect they're, on average, more likely to provide better protection in an impact.

That being said, door weight really has nothing to do with the quality of a vehicle. American cars have pretty much always had heavy doors, yet they've historically, and with shocking consistency, sucked rancid *** puss in terms of quality. (How do you like THAT descriptive phrase, eh? Heheheh ) Mitsubishi, similarly, has NEVER built a car that compares to the likes of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, even Mazda in terms of reliability (at least for the Mazdas designed and built in Japan, that is-- NOT the Ford influenced crap).

I've ripped before on the things I dislike about our Pros, but I still made the right decision in terms of reliability and overall quality: The Protege has always been a stellar car in that regard-- Way better than Mitsubishi. Look at the historical data and rest easy, and when your friend has to first take in his (ugly ***) Lancer to the shop, laugh at him for me. Heavy doors or not, the Lancer is a piece of *** drop compared to the Protege. Unless the Lancer breaks away from the Mitsubishi trend (which would be cool-- I'm in favor of all car makes being as good as, say, Toyota), it will have problems long before yours ever does...

 

unless it's followed by 'Evolution'

 

Me too, I owned an 88 toyota supra, wow the doors were made out of like 3/16" sheet steel, heavy as a ****.

One of the newest forms of steel that will be put in cars is what we call TRIP steels. TRansformation Induced Plasticity. Basically if you get into an accident, some of the energy from the accident will cause a change in the grain structure of the steel, which instantaneously both absorbs energy and makes the steel stronger. Really cool stuff. The only draw back may be that you can no longer simply bang out and reweld dented or damaged parts. Replacements will have to be new parts. Bad for the insurance companies, good for us. This sort of stuff is about 10 years away if it even makes it that far.
Stocker.

 

My first car was a 1993 mazda MX3 GS. I was T-boned by a GMC Safari traveling at an estimated speed of over 60Mph. I am still alive to tell about it. I was hit on the drivers side as well, ripping my seat completely out of the frame of the car. If I find pics I will post them. My whole point is if a lil MX3 can handle that much brute force then I feel safe in my P5. The MX3 doors felt pretty much the same as the P5 doors as far as lightness is concerned. When it comes to safety I give Mazda some kudos.

 

This topic seems to have already been discussed a lot, but what is probably going on is that Mitsubishi has engineered the doors on the Lancer to *seem* heavier and more "solid" than other compacts. Market research has shown that one of the main things people use to judge the quality of a car on the showroom floor is to listen to how the doors sound when they're slammed. A nice solid "thunk" makes people think "gee, this car is well built and it must be high quality and safe!"

I guarantee that it has more to do with added sound deadening foam than with actual strength or crash safety. It's all psychological and it worked on you, sucker

 

Really guys, our doors are not that light in the first place. Go look at a Nissan hardbody pickup. Even when you slammed the door it still wouldn't have enough weight behind it to close it shut. I hope the newer frontiers are better. The medium weight combined with the solid seal of the doors make the P5 much better than a lot of other cars. That cool sound the door makes when it's shut hints to the fact that much air isn't leaking out around the door seals. It almost sounds like a air compression chamber.

When a door closes, the air inside pushes back against the closing door because the air pressure is building and you get that air seal sound. If leakage occurred, the air pressure could escape through the other door seals and you would just hear a dull "thud".

 

i too noticed how very light our doors are. i think its the lightest door i ever felt.
light doors = cheap quality ?????? hrmm at first i thought that way, but i guess it doesnt matter.
its just that im not a door slammer, and almost half of the time I close my door on my p5, its not closed all the way. im used to cars that when i just give a light push/pull, theres like a force or something that helps me close the door all the way. oh wellz...

 

I know what you mean. I have the same problem sometimes. I dont like to slam doors, but sometimes I close my door, and it doesnt close. I dont think the quality is not there, its just that the doors weight less. I remember the doors on my dads old LTD. Man where those monsters!

 

weight doesn't matter too much as long as it's designed properly... if you guys wanna get SUPER geeky then HERE GOES:

The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, hence momentum is conserved... so in a collision (mass1)*(velocity1) must equal (mass2)*(velocity2)... SO for collisions where our cars hit stationary objects, having a lower mass1 would reduce the net energy and hence reduce the maximum possible damage.... however, in collisions where a larger vehicle is colliding with our cars, a larger vehicle would have a greater mass, meaning to maintain the energy balance, the velocity of our vehicles after the collision would be greater and we would suffer more damage...

but in short! just check this out!
http://www.highwaysafety.org/vehicle...html/99005.htm

 

Chumpman's right, weight don't matter none. The only thing that really matters is energy absorption and dissipation, and there are several ways to do that.

 

I really dont get why ppl would actually relate light doors = bad crash worthyness...

anywayz...all the geeky answers from momentum, conservation of energy (lol) to TRIP steels all have been talked about~

what I wanna add is...what really save lives in side collisions are the steam door beams and how those steel beams are attached to the doors~

seriously...I mean...having thicker steel panels (add weight) wont add crap to crash worthiness...in order for the panels to do "something" in side collisions, they'll have to be as thick as armor platings!!! (eg. Volvos~ haha) or they'll have to have some sort of honey-comb structure that's energy absorbing~

even MB and BMW have moved away from heavy doors~ the older E-class and S-class that my gf's parents drive had super heavy doors...their new ML and E have light doors! but then the new doors are stronger, due to more advanced structural engineering!

therefore!
heavy doors = more weight but NOT = safer!!!

and besides~ Proteges have twin-latches in the rear doors

To correct wimpy sounding:
replace the rubber seals!!!
often the cause for wimpy sounding doors after a few years is due to old, cracked rubber seals around the door~ instead of the seals providing some cushining when you close the door and create a good "thump", you get metal to metal contact between the door and chasis!

rip the old seals out and put in new ones (go for quality stuffz)~ will cure clunky, ***** sounding doors 99% of the time

 

I can't help it if i'm geeky... i'm a ubc engineer!!! n all we do is drink beer, hit on the nursing chicks, hang vw beetles from bridges, and give geeky, scientifically correct answers (or "estimates" that we whip out of our *****! hahahha!)

As for strength to weight... just to give you an idea, we had a design competition for a bracing structure, where 3/8" by 1 7/8" crappy quality wooden sticks bolted at joints with 1/4" steel rod held up 4400lbs, when the damn thing weighed only 11lbs...

so if we apply that directly, that means that our 3000lbs cars should technically be able to take... well you get the idea!

don't worry about the way it sounds... the car is SAFE. if you'd like it to sound better, my doors sounded a lot better after i dynamatted them...

 

hehehe~ cool cool~ you go to UBC too?

I'm finishing my Honours Environmental Science program soon~ haha~ maybe not as smart as your "Engineers"...but still geeky enough to enroll in an honours program~ ha~

yeh...dynamat works too...but if it's poor rubber seals, then dynamat wont really help much~

omg dude...you have an entirely Alpine setup?
damn...I just went to Vaders, and they helped me put together pretty much the same parts!

hmm...maybe I'll get something else~ haha~

hey...come checkout www.MPSport.net

 

if one should think that heavy is safer, then they should look no further than F1 for an answer. F1 cars are, IMHO, the safest cars in use today due to their use of monocoque chassis and energy absorpstion/dissipation. Last year at Spa, Pedro Diniz (i think it was him. if wrong, please correct) was run off the road by Eddie Irvine (Jaguar/Ford) and crashed into the tire wall @ 180mph. injuries? yeah, bruises. sorry, no Earnhardt crap here.

Thanks to engineering, another F1 driver was saved and will continued to be saved for years to come. I aplaud the British, Canadian and other European engineers that developed the techniques and those American ones who helped develop composites like kevlar and carbon fibre. Unfortunately, until Americans get their heads out of their NASCRAP asses, they will see anything but what in the box, rather than whats outside of it.

now lets look at NASCRAP, oh Im sorry-NASCAR. here we have a sport that refuses blatantly to update their use of technology and in doing so, have aided in the killing of more drivers than any other racing series in recent history. NASCRAP's racord is appalling to say the least. their cars are heavier than F1 cars are which, as already stated causes more problems than most think. and unlike F1, they still think that their "space-frame" chassis is the best out there still. this only shows the difference in the philosophy between know-it-all Americans, and the rest of the world.

this translates into the various cars made by different manufacturers in different countries. American auto co. prefer to still make (and dumb narrow close minded americans still prefer) heavy, energy-wasting cars, while europe and the rest of the world prefer the opposite. the only reason americans think heavier means better is because we are taught to think that way by ourselves. its only once you "think outside the box" that you see any different.

chris j.

 

Let me suggest that 'Build quality', and door design/weight, are very different subjects. I own a P5, and the doors seem solid when closed. As for someone complaining the doors do not close properly unless slammed, this is partly a factor of the passenger compartment being quite airtight when all windows are closed (not a bad thing).

Frank