Our Everest has now notched up 5000km in our company, and so I thought it an excellent time to look at fuel consumption. I’ve been tracking use since it arrived with us and it’s getting better as it runs-in and loosens up.

Our first few weeks saw it regularly returning around 10.7L/100km, but things have evened right out. Our mileage has accumulated across an uneven mixture of bitumen and dirt but with enough slow-speed off-road work to offer a fair assessment of overall fuel use in the real world.

Having just totted up all of the numbers in the logbook, the Everest, at the end of 5000km has returned an average of 9.0L/100km which is a lot higher than the claimed combined 7.1L/100km that Ford lists but still very good. Some weeks I’ve even managed to get into the high-8s. But, taken as a total, returning exactly 9.0L/100km is impressive, I reckon. This is a vehicle regularly driven with more than two people on board and a boot full of stuff. When driven off-road, it’s usually on a mixture of fast and slow dirt roads. All in all, it’s impossible to fault the Everest’s fuel consumption. 

If you follow the Unsealed 4X4 website, and you should be because we post new content to it every day, you’ll have read a recent Everest update where I talked about the hill descent control. The Everest’s hill descent control is excellent, able to be adjusted down to just 4km/h (although the seat of the pants feeling is that it’s much slower than that) for proper feet-off downhill driving. And it’s smart too, it’ll even stay active if there’s a slight rise on your way down the hill, and it works in reverse also.

2019 Ford Everest Titanium

We have three months with the Everest Titanium to find out if the bi-turbo engine, the seven-seat layout and its rough-road ability make it a must-buy for families.

Survival of the fittest. That’s evolution. 

Introducing the HTX2, the natural development of the market-leading hybrid HTX. 

The best is obsolete. Better has evolved.

But it was while testing out the system and wanting to get a photo of a small vehicle and a big hill that I stopped on the, er, hill. I pulled on the handbrake and put the transmission into Park, and then went to climb out of the Everest. Just as I took my foot off the brake pedal, I noticed a slight slip. It was so small that I thought I’d imagined it, but my foot had instinctively pressed the brake again.

Looking around, I checked I had applied the handbrake and that the transmission was in Park. I took my foot off the brake again. And it started sliding. About a foot this time. Only this time there was a graunching noise, and the vehicle stopped. And then just as it stopped, it started sliding again. Then the same graunching sound and the vehicle would stop sliding. And then slip, graunch, stop and so on.

See, the problem I’d experienced is the same problem that affects most other 4X4s, and that is that the handbrake only works on the back wheels. The foot brake works on all four wheels, so, when you’re pointing down a steep hill with most of the vehicle’s weight leaning on the front wheels, the back wheels are ‘light’. So, take your foot off the brake and rely on the handbrake only and you’ll find the vehicle won’t be able to hold its weight and will start to slide.

The graunching noise I’d heard was the centre clutch closing when it detected slip and then opening again when it felt it had retained grip, and then closing and then opening, and so on until the Everest had slid to the bottom of the hill.

“Just as I took my foot off the brake pedal, I noticed a slight slip. It was so small that I thought I’d imagined it, but my foot had instinctively pressed the brake again.”

So, no fault of the vehicle’s but I figured it was worth mentioning because we’d heard of a similar situation where the driver had been stopped on a hill and then jumped out of their vehicle, only to watch it start sliding down the hill. So, consider this a friendly reminder to be careful and make sure that it’s safe to get out of your vehicle.

What else about the Everest this month? I’m impressed with the tie-down points in the boot. At first glance, they look like cheap chrome-esque plastic loops but grab hold of them, and you realise they’re metal and feel sturdy. They fold flush into the floor, which means they don’t get in the way and are easy to flip up when needed.

Even better is that they’re mounted on the floor, which is where they should be installed, as it allows you to ‘tie something down’. Too many wagons and pickups have their tie-downs mounted high up on the sides, which is just pointless.

I had been hoping the Everest would be wearing its bull bar and snorkel by now, but there’s been a delay. Follow our weekly-ish updates to stay in the loop. I’d hazard a guess and say, by the time you read this we’ll have had that stuff and more fitted. I hope.

Follow our weekly updates by clicking here.

2019 Ford Everest Titanium Specifications
PRICE From $73,990+ORC
WARRANTY Five-years, unlimited kilometres
SERVICE INTERVALS 12 months, 15,000km
SAFETY Five-star ANCAP (2105)
ENGINE 2.0-litre bi-turbo four-cylinder diesel
POWER 157kW at 3750rpm
TORQUE 500Nm from 1750-2000rpm
TRANSMISSION 10-speed automatic
DRIVE All-wheel drive with low-range
DIMENSIONS 4649mm long, 2180mm wide (with mirrors), 1837mm high, 2850mm wheelbase
GROUND CLEARANCE 225mm measured
ANGLES 29.5-degrees approach, 25-degrees departure, 21.5-degrees rampover Wading 800mm
WEIGHT 2446kg (fuel, no driver)
GVM 3100kg
GCM 5900kg
TOWING 3100kg
BOOT SIZE 450-2010L (loaded to the roof)
SPARE Full-size underslung
FUEL TANK 80L
THIRST 7.1L/100km claimed (9.0L/100km combined after 5000km)