Honda Pilot test drive since 2009 SUV
Ford Explorer and Honda Pilot crossovers find out their relationship
Honda Pilot against Ford Explorer. Seven -seater SUVs find out their unexpected relations ... working on the Pilot design, Honda sought to create the image of a fortress on wheels. Outside, it turned out more or less, but it did not grow together in the interior.
The front panel was not a cast -iron control panel of the excavator, but a glass women's table on which the powder should lie. As a result, Pilot did not have a casting for the role of Ares in the ancient Greek tragedy, but successfully played a secretary who could stand up for himself, throwing a printer in the offender. The Japanese quickly cut through the image inconsistency and during the recent restyling, not exchanging along the little things, made the most important table. This was one of the most effective point restyling ever carried out in the automobile market. Almost the only thing they did was added black. Thus, the front panel got rid of visually expressed glass fragility and finally acquired a thorough, expressing reliability of the view. Will this newly acquired internal confidence in Ford Explorer will help the Japanese?
No. The American has long stopped playing on the day of the paratrooper. Priorities have changed. Outwardly, he still looks like a bouncer, albeit fashionably dressed, but inside the tie is stuffed with teenage-hipster lotions, because of which its interior is not much different from the Sony player.
At first I was imbued with Pilot. This happened during unhurried walks around the city. It was especially pleasant to manage the Japanese after the American. The crossover gently exceeded any asphalt obstacles and always held himself in his hands. But Ford, on the contrary, constantly lost his temper. Take a simple maneuver: to cut at a crossroads with a short green, cross the tram tracks, rebuild to the right and turn into a cramped lane, missing unexpected pedestrians. Sitting in Pilot, you can not notice how it will happen. Everything will happen by itself. Explorer will live a hundred lives during such a maneuver. Gas and he flies too sharply at the intersection, the brake and he leaning heavily onto the front axle, pulling the driver's head, turn the steering wheel to the ground and he crouches on his left knee, as if ready to fly out onto the sidewalk. Each Ford movement begins with an excess and ends with an equally excess attempt to stop excess. Now you understand why all the way I hummed under my breath of an ode to the Japanese creation and was ready to give him the palm of the championship.
Snake.
Here Ford literally humiliated Honda. Peppy acceleration and short clear steering wheel of the American did their job
Explorer electronic assistants are much more complicated and more diverse than Pilot, and sometimes it fails
The corpse will swim
Soon we found ourselves at the training ground, where I worked on the first snake on Pilot and mentally put him a choir .. An ordinary clumsy suitcase. Moderately walks along the trajectory, as usual languidly responds to a sharp rule, familiarly stupidly stupids with an automatic box. And only when I got behind the wheel of Explorer, it became clear how slowly the Japanese was. A fast six -speed machine gun gave a point forward five -speed from the island. The most powerful six -cylinder three -axle Ford engine in the class, having 46 horses more than that of the opponent, accelerated a huge SUV much more freak. The short, informative steering wheel of Explorer entered the car between the cones clearly and, most importantly, did not require intercepting the hands. Ford demonstrations immediately turned Pilot into an outsider. It turned out that the whole charm of the Japanese, manifested in the city crowd, is the result ... of the disadvantages of the chassis. Finding himself on the snake in an unsuccessful attempt to catch the American, Honda now and then flew out of the trajectory. What helped her in a check hustle and bustle, where the best rule to wait, while the corpse of the enemy sails past, became fatal on a high -speed track.
Charade.
The confusion of the buttons on the central tide is very slowly fixed in the human mind
Large. Perfect devices. This is a rarity today ...
Off rhouse arsenal. Central lock
Format. Normal, but somehow flat
The third row.
Once Pilot was a leader in this discipline, but now no longer
With difficulty weaving among the dunes
When we moved to the sand quarry, Ford was sad. Partly because he immediately rested his bumper skirt on a frivolous hollow and, in addition, began to steal helplessly with the wheels with the wheels with the wheels with the diagonal. Honda rode without hesitation, but after a while such a movement tired me. More and more pulled to transfer to an American car with a bunch of settings. For crossovers on off -road, not so much cross -country ability is important as comfort. Explorer rode along the cave -like solid sandy sandy sandy sand: neither serious shaking, nor small trembling. And when we finished traveling in walking mode and arranged a race, Ford overtook his opponent and proved that he was far from always grazing before the intersection and unsteady soils. Pilot hardly tracked in his tail ...
Excursion to the area
Amazing painting was drawn. Honda Pilot was good everywhere where instead of drive was required bodily calm and a relaxed state of mind, whether in a dense city stream or on the lazy promenade of off-road. Ford Explorer flashed in situations when the spirit of competition and ecstasy ruled, in a sandy race, drag racing and a 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 for Explorer too!
Style.
Beautiful ... but with the elusive shirpotreb shower
Fantasy. Similarity with a wristwatch is obvious
Off -road on. Glory Land Rover does not give rest to anyone
Passengers. Effective and spacious
The third row. It’s great
Finally, we left a comparison of interiors, multimedia systems and controls of climate control, as well as a tour of the third row of seats, because many consumers, especially in the USA, prefer these cars due to large passenger capacity. Ford multimedia system was made by losers from Sony (professionals in this area work for completely different brands). Honda reacted to an electronic filling easier. Judging by the quality of the graphics, they took the navigation screen somewhere in old warehouses, and the control algorithms of the main systems located on the front panel borrowed either from the Catholics, or the Mongols in general, from people who understand people who understand In ergonomics.
The intersection. In Honda, like in a tin can. Shakes, staggers, beats
Comfort. Here's what you mostly feel off -road, sitting in Explorer
In the convenience of the third row of Pilot seats, no recently no one doubted. It was generally recognized that Honda was the leader here. All other options, excluding perhaps all-wheel drive, but the passenger Mercedes R-class, were not considered. The new Explorer has destroyed the Japanese advantage. His third row is much more spacious. Thus, the victory deservedly won a large American SUV, still a generation backward, a former universal SUV ...
Honda. The dream of a wholesaler
Ford. The trunk is even more
CAREFULLY! Technical details
Technically, Ford Explorer is the closest relative of the Taurus sedan and the FLEX crossover, it was created on the same Passenger platform D, leading the beginning of the first -generation Volvo S80. But from the nose to the motor shield in Explorer, the original structure with hydroformed spaces and more compact suspension racks, which shortened the front overhang. The rear suspension is multi -link. Instead of an interaxine differential, a package of friction clutch with electromagnetic controls. And no demultipliers, no levers in the cabin. Now the driver only needs to turn the Terran Management controller to the appropriate Normal position (for ordinary roads), MUD/RUTS (dirt and track), SAND (bulk coatings) or Snow (snow and ice).
Pilot is built on the basis of the Acura MDX crossover, the eighth generation for the American market is also based on the same platform (Accord and Pilot are collected at the same factory in Alabama). McPherson racks in front, multi -link suspension behind. For the sake of improved noise and vibration isolation, engineers finalized the mounting of the rear suspension subframe to the body. The car is equipped with an electronically controlled multi-disc booth in the rear wheels drive. Under normal conditions, the Pilot remains front -wheel drive, and at the start or slip of the front axle of the coupling, it is clamped until completely blocking. The forced blocking mode operates up to 29 km/h.
Author: Dmitry Leontyev, photo of Alexander Ortnova-Baranov
Source: Magazine 4x4 [January/2013]
