The Real Deal!

Ford has been selling plenty of its latest Everest SUV. With style, sophistication, luxury, power, practicality and a competitive sticker price, this Everest is a vast improvement over the first generation model. However, even though the current Everest is better in every way than its predecessor, one talent that doesn’t seem to rank very highly is rough and tough off-roading.

On paper, the Ford Everest 3.2TDCi 4×4 XLT seems to have it all in the 4×4-ing department.

A transfer case coupled to the slick six-speed automatic gearbox. A rear differential lock. Hill descent control. A Terrain Management system with settings for normal, grass/ gravel/snow, sand and rock. A claimed 225mm ground clearance. And, finally, a powerful 3.2-litre turbodiesel engine that delivers 147kW and 470Nm of torque, peaking at 1 750r/min.

The Everest has all the 4×4 tricks you’d need and then some. In standard nick, it certainly can go the off-road mile, too. We’ve driven 4×4 Everests extensively, with no issues. We’ve even had the rare opportunity of driving the Everest in a patch of snow recently and it did a grand job.

But here’s the thing: if you’ve forked out R700 000 for a really awesome seven-seat SUV, would you drive it in stock-standard trim over rocks and through dongas? We wouldn’t, the risk of expensive damage is just too great.

With the stock 18-inch highway terrain tyres, the standard side steps and okay-ish approach and departure angles, the standard Everest is more than enough for mud, sand and some ruts. But if you want to go really, really wild... well, then you have to give it the right stuff to handle those conditions without incurring damage.

This is exactly the rationale behind our Ford Everest project vehicle: to see how far we could turn a stock 3.2TDCi 4WD XLT into an extremely capable 4×4 without wild modifications that could possibly result in a disagreeable ride on tar.

THE PARTS

First things first: we started by upgrading the Ford’s suspension (solid axle in front and coil springs at the back) with an Old Man Emu (OME) set-up from 4×4 Mega World.