I've had to do something of a double-take when looking at the Everest's odometer of late – since the big SUV arrived at our offices in February, myself and the team have managed to clock up a shade over 14 000 km!
Much of this has comprised my daily commute of roughly 60-odd kilometres and the odd jaunt to the winelands and Hermanus at the behest of my other half. These may not sound like the sorts of exercises that would cause the figures on the Everest's odometer to climb so steeply, but by virtue of the car's comfy ride and strong engine such trips are effortless enough to become a regular occurrence.
On the open road the Everest acquits itself very well as a relaxed cruiser. The big four-pot turbodiesel does sound rather agricultural at lower speeds, but that settles to a more bearable thrum at the national speed limit. Swift changes of direction are obviously not the Everest's forte and the ride does have a certain soft/floaty feel to it, but it's not disconcerting and makes short work of covering long distances. I've managed to keep the fuel consumption figure at around the 9,8 litres/100 km mark, which is quite respectable for a less-than aerodynamically-shaped SUV with a 3,0-litre turbodiesel engine, this means I can squeeze around 700 km from a full tank further adding to the Everest's roaming credentials.
Although there are many satisfying things about the Everest, including its ability to tackle rough terrain such as the farmland pictured above, there are a couple of little omissions that frustrate me no end. The most obvious of these is the lack of cruise control – I know that it's one of those nice-to-have items, but given the car's aforementioned cruising talent it's a feature that would have been greatly welcomed. It also would have been nice to have some audio controls on the steering wheel, but at least the facia-mounted audio controls are large and logical.
On the more practical front, there's also the feeling that the Everest would have benefitted from tinted glass for the passenger and luggage bay areas. Not only would such a feature look good on the rugged Everest, but it would go some way towards safeguarding your belongings which are currently on display thanks to a lack of tonneau cover for this model – when you have such a cavernous boot at your disposal, it is rather frustrating to take the risk of it being broken into because it resembles a car thief's buffet.
At least the third row of seats are easy to remove – and the hip-high loading lip meant that the vertebra-popping task of loading and unloading 20-odd boxes of tiles for the girlfriend's renovations was not a relationship-endangering exercise. It would also have been prudent for Ford to fit locking wheel nuts to the door-mounted spare wheel, which sits proudly beneath a silver cover that begs inspection from less scrupulous folk.
I know it sounds like I'm whinging here, but the only reason these omissions get to me so much is that they're minor things that could have made the already-impressive Everest that much better.
I've seen quite a few of Everests plying our roads and even garnered a thumbs-up from a fellow driver on the motorway. As such, it would be great to hear from those of you who own, or have sampled an Everest, to get your thoughts on this car.
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