VEHICLES
Authorities are clamping down on mobile phone use in vehicles, especially in New South Wales where phone-use detection cameras are being either piggy-backed on existing camera infrastructure or via mobile gantries. Yet you still see people holding their mobile phones while driving. Stay with me…
Now, when Ford released its SYNC3 infotainment system in Australia it made a big fuss about how it understood the Australian accent. Great. But, does anyone who owns a Ford running SYNC3 use the voice control function? Or do you stick with ‘Hey Siri’ or ‘Okay Google’?
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.
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Having just switched to a new iPhone 11 Pro I’m concerned that Siri has become both hard of hearing and surly. When I’m connected to the Everest and ask Siri for something…the wavy rainbow line on the infotainment screen takes an age to display and from my phone, Siri utters a disinterested ‘uh, huh’. Hmmm. And despite having allegedly been trained to listen to my voice, it’s constantly getting things wrong when I ask for it to play a particular singer…offering instead, a singer whose name is nothing like the one I asked for. Sure, my taste in music might be a bit rubbish but I’m not ready for phone to start acting all 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Where I’m going is that voice recognition systems seem to be a bit hit and miss. Or maybe I just mumble. Or so I thought.
Pressing the voice activation button on the Everest allows you to speak and control the infotainment system. Now, I’ve tried these systems in other makes and models and most of them are rubbish…if you’re in Sydney and command the vehicle to set a course for somewhere or other it’ll generally either not understand or guide you in completely the opposite direction.
The system in the Everest is pretty darn good, though. I started with simple things, like find me a coffee shop… it’ll search its nav bank for coffee shops nearby. And so on. You can then click on one that’s displayed on the screen and the system will navigate you to the shop. Nice. I even asked it to fiddle with the climate control and it did a great job with not a single misstep. I asked it to change the temperature in the front and the back and it did it.
What I’m suggesting is that if your vehicle has some sort of voice control function then I reckon you should use it to reduce your eyes-off-the-road distraction time. And if your phone is in your vehicle then make sure it’s running through Bluetooth or your using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. If you’ve got an older vehicle, then consider a Bluetooth unit… don’t think that calling someone, pressing loudspeaker and then putting the phone in a cupholder is the same thing. It isn’t. Driving and holding your phone is dumb.
“Having just switched to a new iPhone 11 Pro I’m concerned that Siri has become both hard of hearing and surly.”
So, the infotainment system in the Everest is pretty darn good. Indeed, it’s right up there with anything you’ll find in a BMW or Audi. The menu structure is simple and the fact that a ‘return’ button is displayed on the screen makes getting back out of rabbit holes so much easier.
And while controlling, say, climate control can be done with either your voice or by tapping the screen, the fact that Ford still has physical buttons below the screen is to be commended. Too many makers are moving away from physical buttons to declutter their interiors.
The rest of the general controls are pretty good too. Everything is clearly labelled and easy to reach but I’ve found that, on the move, I sometimes struggle with the fact the buttons are quite small and sit flush with their surroundings. Small gripe.
Behind the steering wheel is a partial digital display; on the left is media display, then there’s a large central speedo with fuel and tacho, and more displayed on the small right-hand screen. You can get a lot of information in the screens, but for me they’re just a little too small to easily digest the information they’re displaying, especially the right-hand screen.
Moving around the vehicle, the steering wheel could do with more movement but the driver’s seat, at least, can be adjusted easily to get a comfortable position whether you’re short or tall. The back-seat seat controls can be a little tricky to master for some, and it’s easy to forget the process for dropping down the seat to get into the back (third-row seats). At least raising the third-row seats is a simple button press via the boot.
The point of this update is to commend Ford’s SYNC3 infotainment system in the Everest. It’s user-friendly and the voice recognition works very well indeed. Shame that the graphics are very ordinary, but this has been remedied with SYNC4 that will roll out on new Fords next year.
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.
Authorities are clamping down on mobile phone use in vehicles, especially in New South Wales where phone-use detection cameras are being either piggy-backed on existing camera infrastructure or via mobile gantries. Yet you still see people holding their mobile phones while driving. Stay with me…
Now, when Ford released its SYNC3 infotainment system in Australia it made a big fuss about how it understood the Australian accent. Great. But, does anyone who owns a Ford running SYNC3 use the voice control function? Or do you stick with ‘Hey Siri’ or ‘Okay Google’?
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.
Having just switched to a new iPhone 11 Pro I’m concerned that Siri has become both hard of hearing and surly. When I’m connected to the Everest and ask Siri for something…the wavy rainbow line on the infotainment screen takes an age to display and from my phone, Siri utters a disinterested ‘uh, huh’. Hmmm. And despite having allegedly been trained to listen to my voice, it’s constantly getting things wrong when I ask for it to play a particular singer…offering instead, a singer whose name is nothing like the one I asked for. Sure, my taste in music might be a bit rubbish but I’m not ready for phone to start acting all 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Where I’m going is that voice recognition systems seem to be a bit hit and miss. Or maybe I just mumble. Or so I thought.
Pressing the voice activation button on the Everest allows you to speak and control the infotainment system. Now, I’ve tried these systems in other makes and models and most of them are rubbish…if you’re in Sydney and command the vehicle to set a course for somewhere or other it’ll generally either not understand or guide you in completely the opposite direction.
The system in the Everest is pretty darn good, though. I started with simple things, like find me a coffee shop… it’ll search its nav bank for coffee shops nearby. And so on. You can then click on one that’s displayed on the screen and the system will navigate you to the shop. Nice. I even asked it to fiddle with the climate control and it did a great job with not a single misstep. I asked it to change the temperature in the front and the back and it did it.
What I’m suggesting is that if your vehicle has some sort of voice control function then I reckon you should use it to reduce your eyes-off-the-road distraction time. And if your phone is in your vehicle then make sure it’s running through Bluetooth or your using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. If you’ve got an older vehicle, then consider a Bluetooth unit… don’t think that calling someone, pressing loudspeaker and then putting the phone in a cupholder is the same thing. It isn’t. Driving and holding your phone is dumb.
“Having just switched to a new iPhone 11 Pro I’m concerned that Siri has become both hard of hearing and surly.”
1 MIN SETUP, COMFORT FOR 2
So, the infotainment system in the Everest is pretty darn good. Indeed, it’s right up there with anything you’ll find in a BMW or Audi. The menu structure is simple and the fact that a ‘return’ button is displayed on the screen makes getting back out of rabbit holes so much easier.
And while controlling, say, climate control can be done with either your voice or by tapping the screen, the fact that Ford still has physical buttons below the screen is to be commended. Too many makers are moving away from physical buttons to declutter their interiors.
The rest of the general controls are pretty good too. Everything is clearly labelled and easy to reach but I’ve found that, on the move, I sometimes struggle with the fact the buttons are quite small and sit flush with their surroundings. Small gripe.
Behind the steering wheel is a partial digital display; on the left is media display, then there’s a large central speedo with fuel and tacho, and more displayed on the small right-hand screen. You can get a lot of information in the screens, but for me they’re just a little too small to easily digest the information they’re displaying, especially the right-hand screen.
Moving around the vehicle, the steering wheel could do with more movement but the driver’s seat, at least, can be adjusted easily to get a comfortable position whether you’re short or tall. The back-seat seat controls can be a little tricky to master for some, and it’s easy to forget the process for dropping down the seat to get into the back (third-row seats). At least raising the third-row seats is a simple button press via the boot.
The point of this update is to commend Ford’s SYNC3 infotainment system in the Everest. It’s user-friendly and the voice recognition works very well indeed. Shame that the graphics are very ordinary, but this has been remedied with SYNC4 that will roll out on new Fords next year.
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)