VEHICLES
The Everest is easily the best riding and handling ute-derived seven-seat 4X4s on the market. But for this update we thought we’d look at its ability to haul people and stuff.
With powered seats it’s easy to get comfortable behind the Everest’s steering wheel (although it doesn’t offer a lot of adjustment). Too many 4X4s will have the driver’s seat mounted too high meaning that taller drivers will feel like their bumping the roof; not so in the Everest with the seat able to be lowered right to the ground for that racing car driving position. Similarly, shorter drivers will be able to raise the seat up nice and high.
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.
What are we testing? The 2019 Ford Everest Titanium
Who's running it? Isaac Bober
Why are we testing it? To find out if the Everest is the best family rough roader wagon.
What it needs to do? While we’ve got the Everest, we want to find out if it can do it all, from the school run to the supermarket shop, to highway runs, towing and off-roading.
Vision is good from the driver’s seat; you can see the bonnet edges and the convex-edged mirrors mean there’s almost no blind spot. Shoulder checks for taller drivers are okay but we’ve heard from shorter drivers that the grab handle on the B-pillar is tricky to see around.
There’s good storage in the front of the Everest with everything from a deep centre storage bin, cup holders that are big enough to hold a 500ml water bottle without fouling access to the gear shifter. There’s storage at the base of the centre stack and door bins too.
Climb into the backseat and there’s plenty of room for three adults with good head and legroom, the back seats can slide forwards and backwards and the back rest can be tilted too. The climate controls are mounted on the back of the centre console with air vents in the roof, making them easy for both adults and kids to reach and adjust to get the best airflow.
The tricky part with the Everest is access to the third row. For a vehicle designed and developed here it seems like an annoying oversight that the 60 per cent part of the 60:40 split-fold is on the kerbside, which means you’ve got to shift a large section of the seat to get into the back, or else climb in from the road side which is much easier.
And you’ll need to be a contortionist to clamber across the folded seat and then fall into the third-row seat. Once there it offers no room for an adult. While the seats are comfortable and there’s good headroom and arm rests too on each side, there’s just no room for your legs and feet which could be a problem if you've got, er, legs and feet. The seats can be folded down or raised via two buttons in the boot.
“Shoulder checks for taller drivers are okay but we’ve heard from shorter drivers that the grab handle on the B-pillar is tricky to see around.”
What we do like is that there’s still a decent amount of boot space with the third-row seats in use (450L loaded to the roof). Fold them down flat into the floor and the boot space is huge (1050L loaded to the roof). The second-row seats can be folded down flat too for a massive boot space (2010L when loaded to the roof).
In terms of payload, the Everest Titanium offers 654kg which includes an allowance of 100kg (dynamic) on the roof. However, our Everest Titanium has a roof load limit of just 80kg because of the panoramic glass roof. Does the glass roof similarly alter the static roof load limit by a similar amount? We’ve asked Ford Australia and will advise when we hear back.
Riding on 20-inch alloys is great for the road but not super useful for driving off-road and that’s one of the main limiting factors on the Everest. But, and here’s where you need to be smart…if you want a Titanium but you also want to fit smaller wheels, well, you can, via Ford (18s) but you’ll need to order your vehicle at the dealership with them. You can’t retro-fit 18s to a Titanium because Ford claims the suspension is tweaked to suit the wheels.
Another gripe is that the Everest doesn’t have a lot of wheel travel or ground clearance (compared with a Prado, for instance). See, we’ve measured the Everest at 210mm to the bottom of the diff pumpkin (despite a claimed 225mm by Ford), but the rear sway bar sits down lower and was measured at 200mm. The Everest offers a wading depth of 800mm which is impressive for a stock vehicle and the angles of 29.5-degrees approach, 25-degrees departure, 21.5-degrees rampover are okay too.
Driving the Everest up one of our test hills (and we had a Prado GXL on test at the same time) saw it run out of travel in areas where the Prado was tippy-toeing through holes. But running out of reach didn’t stop the Everest…
Unlike the Prado, where engaging the rear diff lock kills the traction control at the front, the Everest is best being driven off-road with the rear diff lock engaged because traction control remains active on the front. This means you’re getting the best of both worlds.
That said, watched from the outside, the Everest is a whole lot more dramatic in a technical hill climb than, say, the Prado with the wheels spinning and a lot of bouncing as it works its way up but on the inside it feels entirely comfortable and controlled.
With its Terrain Management System, the Everest you can tailor the traction control, throttle response and transmission to suit the surface you’re on and it makes a big difference. Choose the wrong setting and you might get too much wheel spin or not enough and bog down. And the Everest’s hill descent control is excellent; able to be dialled down to just 2km/h it’s one of the better systems I’ve experienced and much easier and quieter to use than a Prado’s hill-descent control.
But while we’re talking about Hill-Descent Control systems…you should know that as good as these systems are, they can and will overheat the brakes. Indeed, on the Everest, the manual advises that HDC will deactivate if the brakes become too hot and reactivate when they’ve cooled. How will you know? The HDC icon will begin to flash, and you’ll end up descending the hill a lot faster than you’d planned.
If the hill descent is long and steep, we’d advise selecting low-range and leaving the shifter in Drive to make use of engine braking instead. This will help cool the brakes if you’ve had to turn off HDC.
Follow our regular 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 210mm 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)
VEHICLES
What are we testing? The 2019 Ford Everest Titanium
Who's running it? Isaac Bober
Why are we testing it? To find out if the Everest is the best family rough roader wagon.
What it needs to do? While we’ve got the Everest, we want to find out if it can do it all, from the school run to the supermarket shop, to highway runs, towing and off-roading.
The Everest is easily the best riding and handling ute-derived seven-seat 4X4s on the market. But for this update we thought we’d look at its ability to haul people and stuff.
With powered seats it’s easy to get comfortable behind the Everest’s steering wheel (although it doesn’t offer a lot of adjustment). Too many 4X4s will have the driver’s seat mounted too high meaning that taller drivers will feel like their bumping the roof; not so in the Everest with the seat able to be lowered right to the ground for that racing car driving position. Similarly, shorter drivers will be able to raise the seat up nice and high.
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.
Vision is good from the driver’s seat; you can see the bonnet edges and the convex-edged mirrors mean there’s almost no blind spot. Shoulder checks for taller drivers are okay but we’ve heard from shorter drivers that the grab handle on the B-pillar is tricky to see around.
There’s good storage in the front of the Everest with everything from a deep centre storage bin, cup holders that are big enough to hold a 500ml water bottle without fouling access to the gear shifter. There’s storage at the base of the centre stack and door bins too.
Climb into the backseat and there’s plenty of room for three adults with good head and legroom, the back seats can slide forwards and backwards and the back rest can be tilted too. The climate controls are mounted on the back of the centre console with air vents in the roof, making them easy for both adults and kids to reach and adjust to get the best airflow.
The tricky part with the Everest is access to the third row. For a vehicle designed and developed here it seems like an annoying oversight that the 60 per cent part of the 60:40 split-fold is on the kerbside, which means you’ve got to shift a large section of the seat to get into the back, or else climb in from the road side which is much easier.
And you’ll need to be a contortionist to clamber across the folded seat and then fall into the third-row seat. Once there it offers no room for an adult. While the seats are comfortable and there’s good headroom and arm rests too on each side, there’s just no room for your legs and feet which could be a problem if you've got, er, legs and feet. The seats can be folded down or raised via two buttons in the boot.
“Shoulder checks for taller drivers are okay but we’ve heard from shorter drivers that the grab handle on the B-pillar is tricky to see around.”
What we do like is that there’s still a decent amount of boot space with the third-row seats in use (450L loaded to the roof). Fold them down flat into the floor and the boot space is huge (1050L loaded to the roof). The second-row seats can be folded down flat too for a massive boot space (2010L when loaded to the roof).
In terms of payload, the Everest Titanium offers 654kg which includes an allowance of 100kg (dynamic) on the roof. However, our Everest Titanium has a roof load limit of just 80kg because of the panoramic glass roof. Does the glass roof similarly alter the static roof load limit by a similar amount? We’ve asked Ford Australia and will advise when we hear back.
Riding on 20-inch alloys is great for the road but not super useful for driving off-road and that’s one of the main limiting factors on the Everest. But, and here’s where you need to be smart…if you want a Titanium but you also want to fit smaller wheels, well, you can, via Ford (18s) but you’ll need to order your vehicle at the dealership with them. You can’t retro-fit 18s to a Titanium because Ford claims the suspension is tweaked to suit the wheels.
Another gripe is that the Everest doesn’t have a lot of wheel travel or ground clearance (compared with a Prado, for instance). See, we’ve measured the Everest at 210mm to the bottom of the diff pumpkin (despite a claimed 225mm by Ford), but the rear sway bar sits down lower and was measured at 200mm. The Everest offers a wading depth of 800mm which is impressive for a stock vehicle and the angles of 29.5-degrees approach, 25-degrees departure, 21.5-degrees rampover are okay too.
Driving the Everest up one of our test hills (and we had a Prado GXL on test at the same time) saw it run out of travel in areas where the Prado was tippy-toeing through holes. But running out of reach didn’t stop the Everest…
Unlike the Prado, where engaging the rear diff lock kills the traction control at the front, the Everest is best being driven off-road with the rear diff lock engaged because traction control remains active on the front. This means you’re getting the best of both worlds.
That said, watched from the outside, the Everest is a whole lot more dramatic in a technical hill climb than, say, the Prado with the wheels spinning and a lot of bouncing as it works its way up but on the inside it feels entirely comfortable and controlled.
With its Terrain Management System, the Everest you can tailor the traction control, throttle response and transmission to suit the surface you’re on and it makes a big difference. Choose the wrong setting and you might get too much wheel spin or not enough and bog down. And the Everest’s hill descent control is excellent; able to be dialled down to just 2km/h it’s one of the better systems I’ve experienced and much easier and quieter to use than a Prado’s hill-descent control.
But while we’re talking about Hill-Descent Control systems…you should know that as good as these systems are, they can and will overheat the brakes. Indeed, on the Everest, the manual advises that HDC will deactivate if the brakes become too hot and reactivate when they’ve cooled. How will you know? The HDC icon will begin to flash, and you’ll end up descending the hill a lot faster than you’d planned.
If the hill descent is long and steep, we’d advise selecting low-range and leaving the shifter in Drive to make use of engine braking instead. This will help cool the brakes if you’ve had to turn off HDC.
Follow our regular 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 210mm 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)