Re: New Fortuner / Pajero versus Used '08 Montero. Which would you pick? Hallelujah! a fortuner test drive! Galaxy Toyota came through! with a promise of a 6-8 week delivery time.
impressions:
The pajero is better than the fortuner for not 2 in 10,000 people. but I and my dad may be 1 or 2 of the ones for whom it is. Possibly. Maybe. Not decided yet.
first off I got in the middle row. This could have been a make or break thing. my dad is 6'3" and when not driving himself, he lounges in the back seat. So a rear seat suitable for a tall large body is a huge bonus. The Pajero had disappointed in that its middle row seats are not in line with the front causing the occupant to sit skewed. The Fortuner thankfully doesn't have this problem. but otherwise, its not a comfy seat for a 6'2" man. its merely ok. it has neither the thigh support, nor an adequately large back squab, nor is it adequately high off the ground (given how much room there is for legs), nor is the recline of the back squab satisfactory. On the whole, its a wash between the Pajero and the Fortuner as far as the middle row is concerned. If the Fortuner had scored here, it would have certainly have knocked the Pajero out of contention. but it didn't.
Then I got in the driver's seat. This is where the Fortuner scores the first of its two huge wins over the Pajero. Its like sitting in a car, and a decent modern car at that. the seating position, the reach to the pedals, wheel, shift lever, the relationship of the driver to the vehicle, its all extremely car like. very comfortable, very "normal". Compared to this, sitting in the Pajero is like sitting at the wheel of a freight truck. And there are no ergonomic nightmares (apart from a wheel that doesn't telescope but needs to), the audio system and the HVAC are not only integrated and coherent and with modern convenience, they're also so well located.
so right off the bat, the Fortuner has scored a bulls eye.
then we get moving and thats when the fortuner scores its second bulls eye. its engine is better than the one in the montero (atleast the old 165hp one, if not the new 199hp one), never mind the one in the pajero. Its quiet as a whisper, smooth as glass, and pulls like a freight train. and its responses to the throttle are both creamy and brutal. Again and again the impression is of muscle and cream. So very smooth, so very meaty, so very slick. PRobably the best engine of any car in India that I have driven, making allowance for the fact that its a diesel. That combined with the superb feel of the shifter and the entirely lash free smoothness of the transmission, make this one slick smooth polished ride.
on the move, the fortuner is breathtakingly swift. unless a petrol engine that revs hard to produce speed, in the fortuner, you just find yourself propelled along with a great effortless force with rapidly increasing velocity, while the interior and the car's control exhibit not the slightest preturbance by the increasing speed. Truly astonishing. I would not be surprised if this truck outdragged my wife's honda accord without breaking a sweat.
Driving a fortuner feels like driving a fast car from the second story, and not an off road SUV.
thats to its positive attributes. So far so good. these traits make it the better vehicle for virtually everyone. but its not a compelling package for me.
why not?
Firstly, like I mentioned in the beginning, its not a good car for a tall person to ride in the back seat in comfort while the driver drivers.
Secondly, while it has a very good ride over smooth surfaces, it not good at all on bad surfaces. It causes a lot of head toss and stomach churn on bad surfaces. The bucking and jolting is very near the point of very quick discomfort. By comparison the pajero is never as settled as the Fortuner can be as its always fidgeting and jiggling, but its never as rough as the fortuner easily gets on uneven surfaces.
Thirdly, while it can obviously go anywhere a pajero would, its nowhere near as effortless or as graceful or as masterly. it will get places by having high ground clearance and stiff suspension, not because it has masterly suspension articulation and steering architecture to match. I took it into the same rough that I took the Pajero, but it just didn't have the magic masterful feel of the pajero. It bucked and hobbled over the bad stuff unlike the pajero which glided. It did not climb up and over and down stuff with the consumate ease and grace of the pajero. It jolted and bucked and kicked the steering in the hands of the driver. No doubt it will go where ever the pajero will, but it will absolutely not do so with anything approaching the level of ease, stress, lack of effort, comfort, reward and fun that the Pajero will. There is just no contest here. THe nail in its coffin was that backing out of the trail test I put the Pajero. The fortuner did not make out without input. It needed both steering and throttle input and a hawks eye on the mirrors. with close attention and inputs from the driver, the fortuner made it, but it certainly did not just glide over the bad stuff effortlessly. By comparison, the Pajero was like sitting in chauffeur driver lexus LS430, getting driven on sunset boulevard.
So.
In my view, the fortuner wins only if you really must have the looks, the image, the high driving position, and the road presence of this vehicle. If you can forgo those, then the fortuner fails because it is neither an exceptionally good on road car, nor a brilliant off roader. If you must have those (which most SUV drivers must) and you can put up with the rough ride and less than exception off roading, then the fortuner is your choice. If you want a vehicle because you will be going off roading and you want a vehicle thats great to be driven around in, the Fortuner fails.
What the fortuner does best is to be good for the driver on the road. but thats hardly the winning trait as far as I am concerned.
and the fortuner is no match at all for the Montero manual transmission. what it tries to do better than the pajero, it can't dream of matching a Montero on. but its got a great engine though.
lastly, there is one other thing. THe fortuner, for all its comfort and speed, is a very vanilla vehicle. you might as well be driving a diesel Corolla with a lift kit. It has no personality at all. there is nothing special about it, no sense of occasion.
The pajero on the other hand for all its awful ergonomics, feels like a event, like you're driving a purpose built vehicle with an ethos that has gone out of style but which had a purpose and which fulfilled its purpose. Its like you're driving a vehicle meant to explore the world to look for survivors after the apocalypse has wiped out most of civiliztion. like a vehicle meant to get across enemy lines in a war zone.
the fortuner by comparison feels like fast tall minivan.
but dear god, does the fortuner have an engine and does the pajero suck on the engine front!
except for one thing. the pajero makes a ton more torque right at idle than the fortuner. the pajero feels like it would idle up mount everest with low range engaged, while the fortuner's engine feels like a high strung petrol motor. powerful and fast, but not likely to pull tree stumps out of the ground at idle.
The fortuner is like brad pitt. The pajero is like John Wayne.
I think the fortuner is out. though my dad might have different priorities.
right now its looking like its going to be a pajero. I'll give it another 2 weeks to find a good montero and if nothings come up, it will be a pajero. the fortuner remains in contention till I've had a chance to talk to my dad, but its a very distant third right now. |