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Posted on: Jul 04 2007

ENDEAVOUR XLT

The much awaited giant of an SUV from Ford India is finally here, deliveries being held up because of a delay in homologation. Yogendra Pratap gets in behind the wheel of the behemoth to discover through this exhaustive road test whether it really delivers all that it promised in terms of a discerning customer's practical, safe and luxurious alternative to the homegrown self-styled SUVs.

This vehicle has had its origins from the Mazda Fighter and or the Ford Ranger which is built for the south-east Asian markets at the Ford-Mazda JV plant at the Thai port city of Rayong. Its underpinnings remain very much that of a pick-up truck while its engine is a Mazda derived unit used for its low cost of manufacture coupled with the requirements of these markets in terms of emission norms, fuel efficiency and most of all - affordability. A Hiroshima based design team worked to develop the Endeavour aka Everest and give it the qualities desired by the developing markets. As we finally get to put the Endeavour through the OVERDRIVE road test we discover all the areas where the engineering team has been able to get the Endeavour up to expectations and also those areas which leave something to be desired still.

Chassis & Suspension:
The basic chassis is from the Ford Ranger/Mazda Fighter, pick-up trucks that are quite popular in Thailand. Even though the wheelbase of the Ranger was shortened to make the Endeavour more manoeuvrable specially for city traffic, at 2860mm, its wheelbase is still longer than that of the Pajero by 80mm. The construction of the Endeavour is of a body bolted on to an overlap, cross-braced ladder type frame. This type of chassis has been persevered with to make the Endeavour a rugged vehicle, capable of taking on the worst of roads in developing countries and offer true off-roading capabilities.

The Endeavour uses a double wishbone front suspension, using torsion bar springs and a stabiliser bar. The innovation here is that an upper arm mount made of rubber has been used to provide a smooth ride over gravel and moderately rough roads.

At the rear Ford has gone along with the dated, rugged leaf spring suspension with low friction pads. Leaf springs with the Berlin Eye design have been used at the rear with the system having been designed to achieve progressive spring characteristics rather than a simple two-stage (laden/unladen) design. Tubular double acting composite oil/gas filled shock absorbers do duty all around.

  
Style & Build:
If size does matter then you need look no further. Because this is without doubt the vehicle with the largest overall dimensions to grace these pages. Only the Mercedes-Benz S-class beats it for sheer length! Even though the truck chassis of the Fighter/Ranger was lengthened for the Endeavour, its imposing size has been augmented with some nice small design features and the darker colours are set-off by loads of chrome. The body is essentially similar in construction and in shape to the old Pajero and the Qualis (although on a much grander scale) but the boxiness has been well masked with some contemporary design cues. The front features clear headlamps and driving lights along with a mini bull bar that has been well integrated with the bumper. Wheel arches, floorboard and chrome door handles along with the huge 7Jx15-inch alloy wheels take the monotony away from the huge sides. These are one of the best set of wheels we have seen on an SUV for some time. The bonnet is a vast expanse and might come in handy for a picnic spread. Jokes apart, the size of the bonnet would come as a culture shock for someone who gets in behind the wheel of the Endeavour after being in a small car. But all credit to Ford that despite the expanse of the engine hood, visibility is superb. The boxiness has been well masked from the rear as well with the chrome cover for the door handle and the number plate light. The wheel on the rear door has a chrome cover which bears the Everest legacy with Endeavour badging. The high mounted brake light on the rear spoiler, lights running up on the pillars either side of the rear door, the reverse light integrated into the bumper below the floorboard all add to the looks and overall image of the SUV apart from obvious safety enhancements. The reversing mirror that we had on the test car is an option though.

The build quality on the car we had was immaculate. Body panels and gaps running true all around, doors that shut with a reassuring thud etc. There was a slightly wider gap between the front bumper and the fender body panel though and from what I could remember of the Everests in Thailand, this seems to be a design feature or flaw.
  
Performance:
It is only if you are looking for outright performance that the Endeavour will fall short. For all daily commuting needs whether they be on the road or off it, the Endeavour will heartily oblige, provided you keep the revs over the 2000rpm mark. Keep the motor ticking over that mark and driving will be effortless. That is all very easy to say but there is always that time when you start and the revs will be below the 2000rpm mark and… well, you will face some very harsh facts of life with the Endeavour.

All said and done, the Endeavour is the quickest of all the homegrown diesel SUVs and not too far behind the petrol ones.

It gets to 100kmph in under 20 seconds and crosses the kilometre mark in just over 40 seconds. Okay, agreed that these figures aren't all that exciting, but then you have to remember that this huge SUV weighs close to two tons, has the capacity to seat seven people and isn't designed for the best aerodynamic efficiency. Considering that, one realises that the roll-on figures (the figures that will make a difference in your daily driving, unlike the flat out acceleration ones that you might not even do once in your lifetime in the Endeavour) are pretty decent when the engine is ticking over a rev range from 2000rpm to 3500rpm. Thus when the engine crosses over the 2000rpm mark at a speed of just under 60kmph in fourth gear does the SUV get quick, getting to 70kmph in under three seconds and then to 80kmph in just over three seconds.

Ninety and 100kmph each come up in around three and a half seconds by when the car is already getting close to the 3500rpm mark and starts to run out of steam. Top speed we achieved was a very creditable 142kmph although the SUV does take a long time to get to that figure.

Fuel Efficiency:
This is a huge hulk of a vehicle and the technology that drives it isn't know to be as efficient as the ones in use these days. So we weren't expecting the Endeavour to come up with any decent fuel efficiency figures, but it did. For our city run with only the front air conditioning turned on the SUV returned 6.9kmpl while on our highway run with the engine ticking over at slightly over 2000rpm in fifth gear, the Endeavour went 12.2 kilometres for every litre of diesel. With a tank capacity of 71 litres the Endeavour would travel 866km on the highway, but if you were to do just 25 per cent of your driving on the highway and the rest in the city, then the Endeavour would be good for 580km.

Engine & Transmission:
Indirect injection technology is on its way out for diesel engines the world over, even for passenger cars. Be it because direct injection engines are more efficient or be it because it is easier to meet contemporary emission norms using direct injection technology. In fact direct injection engines have been preferred over indirect injection engines for a long time now for most applications except where smoothness is required. But now with better fuel injection technologies, higher pressures achieved, better control and better materials direct injection engines are also quite smooth. They may also be using other techniques to tame the behaviour of the engine, such as two–stage injection, electronic control, and acoustic shrouds and fancy engine mounts to mask the roughness.

So I really wonder why Ford decided to adopt the Mazda 2.5-litre 4-cylinder engine. The 2499cc engine features three valves per cylinder and is turbocharged and intercooled for increasing efficiency. Maximum power is a decent 110PS, down from the 121PS Everest that we had driven in Thailand, and it comes in at 3500rpm. Maximum torque of 272Nm is produced at 2000rpm slightly more that the Thai car. Manufactures say that the single overhead cam turbo-diesel engine is intercooled for increasing its power delivery, has a refined intake system for quieter operation and has twin internal counter-rotation balance shafts to minimise NVH by cutting down on second order vibrations. This engine also features diagonal exhaust gas flow into the turbocharger to optimise charging efficiency and reduce turbo lag while at the same time improving response at low speeds. I wonder how much worse the turbo lag would have been had it not been for this diagonal exhaust gas flow because below the 2000rpm mark the engine is a dud. Looking at the engine compartment itself one can see that this is not a vehicle that was designed for what it is but an amalgamation of different things which best suited the purpose. Better location of the turbocharger and or better piping might have been one way to overcome the significant turbo-lag.

The engine is mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox. While a two-wheel drive version is also available, we tested the four-wheel drive one. A floor mounted transfer case shift lever is used to chose between neutral, 2WD, 4H and 4L. While shifting into 4H can be done on the fly, one has to come to a standstill to shift into 4L. This 4WD system is a bridge between the old ones where one had to wage a battle with a gear lever to first engage 4WD and then had to manually lock the freewheeling hubs to get into 4WD and the modern ones where 4WD is either manually selected by turning a knob or is intelligently selected by the ECU itself.

I don’t mind the gear lever to engage 4x4. In fact I prefer it to the knobs as an extra gearhift lever gives the interior of an SUV some character. That is as long as it is as simple to operate as turning a knob. But in the case of the Endeavour there is another button that you should remember to press after you are through with the off-roading for the free wheeling hubs.

Equipment & Interiors:
First and foremost the cabin is long and narrow as the Endeavour mirrors the outside inside. Shoulder space for the 2nd row of passengers is 1470mm, about 100mm less than some other comparable SUVs. Theatre like seating sounds good in theory but if it means that the third row of seats is on the floor, then I am not for it. So despite it huge size the Endeavour can seat only four adults absolutely comfortably and seven in a crunch. Or else one can remove the third row seat completely liberating luggage space and still providing seating for five. Once that has been figured out, I must say that the cabin is filled with good ideas many of which are extremely utilitarian and practical. Cup holders for all the seven passengers, air conditioning for all three rows of seats, place for stashing away mobile phones in pockets on the front seat backs, two separate holders for sunglasses etc.

That said the interiors are a slight let down, specially after what we had seen in the cars in Thailand. The wood panelling and inserts have been replaced by silver finish ones and the steering wheel and the gear knobs have both lost their precious woods. The silver finish that has replaced the wooden one on the central console does not have the same class. The air con control panel and the music system both look like lifts from the Ikon and even though Ford India might be waiting to offer the wooden finish trims in a later variant, it has lost much of the luxury image that it was trying to attach to the Endeavour right from day one. The Endeavour comes with decent levels of equipment. ABS is standard as are airbags for the front passenger and the driver. Besides there is a host of small things like central locking, power mirrors, fog lamps and the like.

Verdict:
The best part of the Endeavour has to be its pricing. Where else would you get so much car for that much money? And with that pricing the Endeavour is going to carve out a niche for itself as it has virtually no competition in its segment. For those who aren't looking at a performance oriented SUV but like size nonetheless, the Endeavour makes a good choice.
source: indiacar.com