Test drive Ford Explorer 2001 - 2005 SUV

Three times forty thousand

White flies flew, the first ice was tightened with water, it means that the demand for SUVs will increase sharply. A typical phenomenon at the beginning of winter. And the choice is more likely than ever. What to prefer? Hefty monsters immediately disappear due to the price and difficulty with parking and management, and we will leave parquet jigs to wives and friends. What to buy in the range of thousands of forty dollars? Dear for you? For us too. But what to do, a good thing costs good money
After some thoughts, we took Mitsubishi Pajero (not the usual, but the new Sport, released mainly for the North America market) and Infiniti QX-4 (luxury version of Nissan Pathfinder). And finally, the third in the company is a typical American jeep Ford Explorer. All five -door, gasoline, but the last two with an automatic transmission.
It is quite difficult to compare such diverse machines, but we went deliberately for this diverse selection. Put the two almost identical in appearance and technical characteristics of the car. There are almost no differences now! So, the instrument shields are different, but the emblems on the hoods are different.
So, let's begin. Let's try Sport. Naturally, mitsubishi, and, of course, Pajero. And all in one person. There are not so many these cars on our streets. Before us is a rather squat SUV, which slightly resembles in forms and dimensions (here, the vicissitudes of fate) ... Toyota-4runner! A fairly convenient salon, unfortunately, leaves a rather plastic impression. Not all buttons and levers you find right away. They seem to be hiding from the eyes. A large, high person is not too comfortable both in front and behind. The review is limited by the low outline of the windows. This is about sad. Now about cheerful. Sport prefix appeared here not by chance. And it's not even about dynamic indicators.
The silhouette itself is quite light, swift, and the muzzle is in a good aggressive, combat. Perhaps this is not a prize-winner, but a healthy, without bad habits, an amateur athletist. Planting behind the wheel is close to the ideal not relaxing, but mobilizing, sports.
Perezing to Ford, at first we seemed to return about twenty years ago, in good glorious times, when the front sofa was whole for three, without a console interfering with a protruding lever. And it grows (lever, of course) from the steering column. Immediately recall the old police militants, where the brave cops chase the terrible local mafia.
Explorer is really somewhat archaic, although in its own way is kind. Outwardly, after the update passed three years ago, it looks more fatal. In front, especially thanks to a large grille, it even looks like an exedition older brother. Spacious doors, back (fifth) with a separate glass leaning upward. The bottoms of the sidewalls, including the extensors of the wheel arches, are faced with silver plastic. A primitive decoration of the salon, a large bagel, but at the same time there is a cruise control and air conditioning, as well as many convenient little things, such as, for example, double visors.
Compared to brothers in the class, the overview of Explorer, to put it mildly, is peculiar. High glass allows you to see even the plane in the sky, but a huge convex hood closes almost all the space in front of the car. The mirrors also pumped up. Their size and shape cause bewilderment: try to see something behind! Perfectly even flat seats allow you to sit on two rows and all: three in front and, having squeezed, four behind. And in the luggage compartment, a lonely low bench of miniature sizes and amazing stiffness was long ago. For whom it is intended unclear, but as a result, you can shove a whole crowd into the salon.
Next to this shirt-parish, QX-4 looks like a true intellectual. Infiniti externally discreet and neat, stylistically completed and at the same time mysterious. The front doors handles are horizontal and the rear vertical. Under the headlights, two more levels of fog of tummons are one above the other. The color is exclusively metallic of noble shades.
Inside, too, everything is in its place. Almost an aviation display, with a serious Bose radio and multifunctional climatic installation. The unobtrusive convenience of soft leather seats with electric and heating is tuned in a lyrical way. It is even strange that this is a Japanese-American product, and not, say, British.
The convenient ergonomic steering wheel is supplemented by the Cruise Control control directly from the lamb. The best review among competitors and well -felt dimensions allow you to move to Infiniti in a close stream no worse than on a car. Noise insulation here is also at an altitude sound at idle, the motor and at the working turns will not annoy your hearing. This, by the way, can not be said about other participants in the run. Mitsubishi is noisy in all modes, bringing a slight rumbling to a formidable roar, and Ford, quiet in the parking lot, bubbles with half -reached wheezing during acceleration, to which you will not immediately get used to it.
But enough about statics. It's time to ride. In principle, we have not discovered America. The whole Trinity turned out to be American. It is not for nothing that they are sold almost only in a new light. Excessively soft pendants predetermine the foliage and smoothness. Explorer was especially distinguished here. After a pair of gentle waves on the asphalt, he does not immediately extinguish fluctuations, making two or three soft slander. But on the other hand, it goes off -road, as if on a flat one. You don't feel the bump at all. All obstacles seem to drown somewhere far below the bottom and giant wheels. The Ford accelerates is also not particularly willing, albeit not to say that slowly. The thoughtful automatic box, as it were, reluctantly, even with full gas, is overwhelming its four programs, and the speed is still small. Do you have to twist thirty seconds up to a hundred? Yes! Only to a hundred miles, and this is one hundred and sixty cam! We noted the same thoughtfulness in the brake system, and this is already dangerous. I don’t know, maybe this is a feature of a particular copy, but I repeatedly barely fit with braking, and almost took out the front cars at a traffic light a couple of times. It seems that the car weighs not two tons, but all four. Maybe they gave us an armored version? It seems not. So at speed you have to be careful.
Now about Mitsubishi. Against the background of most other, somewhat slanted, inaccurate jeeps, this car stands out for its own, I would say, concreteness. The passage of turns is performed quite predictable. The suspension holds a body with minimal rolls. With the front -wheel drive disconnected, the machine behaves typically for the classics, and the handling lever itself is well familiar with other Pajero: the first position of the rear -wheel drive, the second full, the third lowered with the center blocking. All switching occur more clearly than that of competitors.
A fairly elastic motor with a typical Mitsubishi high return from a liter of volume allows you to stay in the stream in the first positions.
But what a jeep without a sortie into nature! Frankly, we didn’t want to torture these brilliant brand new cars on heavy off -road. But the instinct of the natural scientist has overcome the caution of the potential private owner. I had to get out on the steep banks of the Moscow River, where the sand smoothly passes into clay, covered with half-stroke autumn grass.
The first to be allowed Explorer (researcher) the name obliges the very name. If the sea is knee -deep, then the river is for sure. No, we did not dare to swim (what if we drowned?), But along the edge of the Moscow River to the waist in the water we drove plenty. We crawl to the shore, turn the reduced gear switch located on a torpedo. And when we climbed to Kruchi, and when we thoroughly overcome the deepest track, we did not have any difficulties. Mitsubishi also holds well as well as well as well as not as hooligan as Ford. We connect the Mitsubishi Super Select, reduced using the famous Mitsubishi Super transmission, and crawl through the bumps and bumps frozen in the autumn wind. The highest of them still reach the suspension and thresholds. Although the craving is also not bad, you feel that in severe conditions, all power is used almost to the fullest. Infiniti at first we decided to regret it even painfully, it seemed to us pampered and refined. And then after all, after all, this is a full-fledged jeep. So, go ahead. True, the inclusion of blocking in the luxury version of Nissan is not often used. By plowing the coastal field, you feel that the car, albeit a strong, but spineless frame, is not here, and the bends of the body are warned against the most risky maneuvers. Nevertheless, his path is rather than the snowdrifts of our northern winters and periodic sorties to nature than a regular struggle against off -road.
In conclusion, I will say that our entire trinity is intended primarily for the American market with its own characteristics. The true Yankee Ford seemed to us very specific, Mitsubishi turned out to be the most familiar jeep, and we would call Infiniti an almost passenger luxury sedan in running qualities and almost an SUV outside the highway.
Vladimir Smirnov
Photo by Alexander Nozdrin
 

 

Source: Cars