Test Drive Ford Explorer since 2010 SUV
Ford Explorer and Honda Pilot crossovers find out their relationship
Honda Pilot against Ford Explorer. Semyst parquets find out their incoming relationships ... working on the design of Pilot, Honda sought to create an image of the fortress on wheels. Outside, it turned out to be more or less, but in the interior did not come around.
The front panel reminded the not the cast-iron control panel of the excavator, and the glass female table on which the powder should lie. As a result, Pilot did not pass the casting for the role of Ares in an ancient Greek tragedy, but successfully played the secretary, able to stand up for herself, Mount the printer to the offender. The Japanese pretty quickly asked the imaging inconsistency and during the recent restyling, without changing the trifles, made the most important table carried out. It was one of the most efficient point restyings ever carried out in the automotive market. Almost the only thing that was done was added black. Thus, the front panel got rid of visually pronounced glass fragility and finally acquired a thorough view, expressing reliability. Will the Japanese help this newly acquired inner confidence in the Ford Explorer duel?
No. The American has long ceased to play the day of the paratrooper. Priorities changed. Externally, he still looks like a bouncer, although fashionablely dressed, but inside the string stuffed with teenage-hipster rims, because of which his interior is not much different from the Sony player.
First I penetrate Pilot. It happened during unhurried walks around the city. It was especially nice to manage the Japanese after the American. The crossover gently overturned through any asphalt obstacles and always kept himself in his hands. But Ford, on the contrary, constantly went out of myself. Take a simple maneuver: to pick up the intersection with short green, cross the tram tracks, rebuild to the right and roll into a close alley, passing unexpected pedestrians. Sitting in Pilot, you can not notice how it happens. Everything will happen by itself. Explorer also lives a hundred lives during such a maneuver. Gas and it flies too dramatically to the intersection, the brake and he is hard to fall on the front axle, pulling the driver's head to Earth, turning the steering wheel and he catches his left knee, as if ready to fly to the sidewalk. Each Ford movement begins with an excess and ends as an excessive attempt to stop. Now you understand why all the way I felt under the nose of ODU Japanese creation and was already ready to give him the palm of championship.
Snake.
Here Ford literally humiliated Honda. Cheerful acceleration and short clear steering wheel made her business
Explorer's electronic helpers are much more difficult and more diverse than Pilot, and sometimes it brings it.
The corpse is sailing
Soon we were at the test site, where the first snake I worked on Pilot and mentally set him a choir .. An ordinary smooth suitcase. In the measure walks along the trajectory, as usual sluggally responds to a sharp handle, it becomes familiar with an automatic box. And only when I got behind the wheel Explorer, it became clear how hard the Japanese. The fast six-speed American automatic machine gave point forward the five-way with the island. The most powerful six-cylinder gasoline three-grade ford motor Motor, having 46 horses more than the opponent, accelerated a huge parckarter much more. Short, informative EXplorer steering wheel entered the car between cones clearly and, most importantly, did not require the interception of hands. Ford's demonstration performances immediately turned Pilot in an outsider. It turned out that the whole charm of the Japanese, manifested in the urban time, is the result ... the shortcomings of the chassis. Update on the snake in a unsuccessful attempt to have time for the American, Honda, then and then flew out of the trajectory. What helped her in a cork is what the best rule wait until the corpse of the enemy sails by, it became fatal on the high-speed track.
Charade.
The dump of the buttons on the central billet is very slowly fixed in the consciousness of a person
Large. Fine readable devices. Such today is rare ...
Off-rhoid arsenal. Central Lock
Format. Normally, but somehow flat
Third row.
Once Pilot was the leader in this discipline, but now no
With difficulty rubbing among the vegans
When we moved to the sandy quarry, Ford burned a bit. In part because it was immediately rested by the skirt of the bumper into a frivolous tubercle and, in addition, on the first gentle, began to be helplessly twisted with the wheels diagonally. Honda rushed without a mark, but after a while such a movement was tired of me. Magnifying the American car with a bunch of settings. For crossovers on off-road, there are not so much permeability as comfort. Explorer drove on the blind solid squeeza as a beach sand: neither serious shaking or shallow tremors. And when we finished driving around in the walking mode and arranged the race, Ford overtook the opponent and proved that it does not always leave before crossing and brief soils. Pilot with difficulty flew in his tail ...
Excursion to the area
Amazing painting painted. Honda Pilot was good everywhere, where instead of the drive was required by body peace and a relaxed state of the spirit, whether in a dense urban stream or on the lazy Promenade on Off-Round. Ford Explorer flashed in situations when the rules of the spirit of competition and ecstasy, in a sandy race, Drag Rake and Snake. It seems that the old American spirit is more just in the Japanese. It seems to be naturally the main market for Pilot just North America. But so after all for Explorer too!
Style.
Beautifully ... But with a rapid shields
Fantasy. Similarity with wristing clock obviously
Off-road on. Glory Land Rover does not give rest to anyone
Passengers. Speecually and spacious
Third row. Here is beautiful
Finally, we left a comparison of interiors, multimedia systems and climate management bodies, as well as an excursion to the third-party area of \u200b\u200bthe seats, because many consumers, especially in the United States, prefer these cars due to the large passenger capacity. The Ford multimedia system made losers from Sony (professionals in this area work on completely different brands). In Honda, the electronic stuffing was easier. The navigation screen, judging by the quality of the graphics, was taken somewhere on old warehouses, and the algorithms of control of the main systems located on the front panel were borrowed by Catholics, whether the Mongols are in general, anyone, only not in people who understand In ergonomics.
Crossed. In Honda as in a tin can. Shakes, steady, beats
Comfort. That's what basically feel on off-road, sitting in Explorer
In the convenience of the third row of Pilot seats, no one more recently doubted. It was generally recognized that Honda is leading here. All other options, excluding except all-wheel drive, but passenger Mercedes R-class, were not considered. New Explorer Japanese advantage destroyed. His third row is much more spacious. Thus, the victory deservedly won a large American parquetnik, another generation of back the ex-versatile SUV ...
Honda. Dream wholesale
Ford. The trunk is even more
CAREFULLY! Technical details
Technically Ford Explorer The nearest relative of the Taurus sedan and the Flex crossover, it is created on the same passenger platform D, the initial start from the Volvo S80 of the first generation. But from the nose to the engine shield at Explorer, the original structure with hydrocal spars and more compact suspension racks, which has shorted the front OTA. Rear suspension multi-section. Instead of the mid-sieve differential, a package of electromagnetic control. And no demultitors, no levers in the cabin. Now the driver is only necessary to rotate the Terrain Management system controller to the appropriate Normal position (for ordinary roads), MUD / RUTS (dirt and pursuit), Sand (bulk coating) or SNOW (snow and ice).
Pilot is built on the basis of Acura MDX crossover, on the same platform based and the ACCORD of the eighth generation for the American market (Accord and Pilot are assembled at one plant in Alabama). McPherson front racks, multi-dimensional suspension from behind. For the sake of improved noise and vibration insulation, the engineers fastened the fastening of the rear suspension to the body. The car is equipped with an electronically controlled multid-wide clutch in the rear wheel drive. Under normal conditions, Pilot remains a front-wheel drive, and when the front axis start or slipping the front axis is clamped up to the full blocking. Forced lock mode runs up to 29 km / h.
Author: Dmitry Leontyev, photos of Alexander Insurance Baranova
A source: 4x4 magazine [January / 2013]
