We started with 200 kms of on-road driving in the 2WD & 4WD versions (on the first day), followed by off-road driving in the 4WD on the beach & a hill (on the 2nd day).
An intro for the uninitiated : The Endeavour AT has a 3.0 liter common rail (TDCi) diesel mated to a 5 speed auto. The engine is rated at 154 BHP (@ 3,200 rpm) and max torque of 380 Nm (@ 2,500 rpm). The AT comes in two (4WD or 2WD) variants. The 4WD variant comes with a limited slip differential at the rear.
First time I neared the Ford Endeavour AT, I was asked to hop in and start driving. Even the ignition was on. I just slipped into D and was flagged off. Since I have driven powerful AT cars for a lot longer than MT cars, and own a competing SUV as well (Grand Vitara), I thought I should be able to figure this beast out pretty quickly. But, not quite! This is a diesel SUV with an automatic transmission, a combination I have never driven before. Powerful petrol AT cars generally respond instantaneously once you floor the accelerator pedal. The diesel AT will not forget its diesel heritage, it will ask you the inevitable question made famous by Microsoft, “Are you sure…?” before responding slowly. In other words, you won’t win any drag races with the Endeavour.
One of the things that can be very irritating on an AT car is the tendency to "hunt for gears". When the car is moving on a level road with a constant pedal, the gears should not keep changing. However, I did experience gear-hunting on the Endeavour 2WD variant at speeds below 50 kph, as a result of which it felt sluggish. Two other media drivers reported the same. You could see the tachometer hover between 750 - 1,500 rpms frequently, without any external input. On the other hand, this was not experienced in the 4WD variant at all. The 4WD & 2WD variants have the exact same transmission and engine, therefore this experience is strange. I did report it to Ford, they too were puzzled. For the record, the 2WD cars had around 500 kms on them, while the 4WD cars had 5,000 - 20,000 kms on the odometer.
Over the first half of the day, we drove through busy and narrow Goa roads, and then onto the pristine Chorla ghats. The pilot car was being incredibly cautious and we didn’t get to cross 50 - 60 kph in the entire stretch. While it was tolerable on busy roads, it was almost torturous to travel so slowly on the empty ghat roads. The gear-hunting at low speeds wasn’t helping matters either. Somewhere in the middle of the ghat section, another swap was suggested, and I got back into the driver's seat. During the time it took to swap, the cars in front had moved well ahead. That gave me a rare chance to speed up and catch up with them. It was the first time I was able to do some fast driving with the Endeavour, I threw it around the corners to check for body roll and handling. The body roll was there, but nothing more than expected for an SUV of this size. And it handled pretty well without any unwanted drama.
Over lunch, I discussed with the Ford officials about the need to give us a longer rope to get the real feel of this SUV. Granted, none of the roads around Goa are of GQ quality. But one cannot appreciate the potential of the Endeavour AT driving at 50 kph the whole day. As a result, one of the officials decided to drive the pilot car himself.
The return trip on the ghat was pure bliss, and I was driving the 4x4 version this time. I felt the 4WD was a lot more responsive and did not suffer from gear-hunting. As the pilot car started flying away at 90 - 100 kph, I could really stretch her legs. And it rained gloriously in the usual coastal style all the way back. The road was clean and full of twists to give us the full measure of this vehicle's handling characteristics. The MRF tyres did a satisfactory job, good resistance against hydroplaning and delivered decent traction in both wet & dry conditions. This stretch was the most enjoyable drive of the entire event. Endeavour AT really delivered the goods here.
I also drove over every pothole I could see at different speeds to test the ride comfort. These were all like golf holes compared to the gigantic craters commonly seen on the Karnataka highways. Still, we could feel every blemish on the road. It is smoothened only to an extent, but the rear leaf spring layout is always obvious. I have seen better ride comfort in the Grand Vitara, Safari and Gurkha. And this was from the driver’s seat. I wonder how it would feel from the 3rd row (where I never got a chance to sit).
On the second day, due to heavy rains, the beach driving session was in danger of getting cancelled. Since I was the only one there with actual offroading experience, I was asked to assess the situation at the beach. As I reached the beach along with the advanced party, I quickly realized that the sand was quite firm. And the rain had reduced to a light trickle. So I recce'd an entry point between the coconut trees, and asked them to drive through the path quickly to avoid getting stuck. The heavy morning showers had packed the sand to be much harder. This was going to be like driving on mud, without the dust or slush. So the beach drive was on.
The Endeavour went for a face lift, and came out mellowed down. The new Endeavour's personality is not as intimidating as its predecessor:
It's still a handsome SUV no doubt:
Huge spare tyre almost covers the rear profile, not to my liking. Yet, I prefer the spare tyre on the tail gate than down under (like in the Fortuner):
And tough as nails:
Ok, it can’t swim. One media driver did attempt to, but the water got into the engine bay with full force. The fender on one side got pushed out, some water got into the starter armature and started smoking. No major damage otherwise.
I was the first driver to perform all these stunts since I had done so, several times in my Grand Vitara. There were some proper aerial shots, but none in my camera since I was busy driving.
What we did on the beach is hardly offroading, for the sand was well packed and didn't pose any challenge. But the beach is one place where SUVs can have fun without picking up expensive damage. You won’t and probably can’t do this in a sedan.
However, this should not be tried on any beach, at least not without somebody to drag you out. There are beaches where even a 4x4 SUV can sink like a stone. One should learn to assess the sand before getting in. Still there is a chance of misjudging the sand, which has happened to me on prior occasion. But the joy of driving an SUV on an open beach can only be experienced and not explained.
We then headed to the hills for some offroad trail driving. The trail identified by the Ford team was a dirt track with some water thanks to morning rain. It was a hard packed laterite stone / gravel hill, thus not much chance of slippage or slush. I soon got out and started walking and jogging while shooting away:
As I expected, the Endeavours ran all over the trail easily, even though most drivers had no prior 4x4 experience. In fact, people got bored with all the slow driving in 1L, and started doing fast donuts on a flat patch. I approached one of the drivers and found that he was still in 1L. Now that was interesting. If the mode is set to 4L and AT lever set to 1, one would expect the car to remain in 1L even while flooring the engine. But the transmission was obviously shifting up to preserve the engine.
Although I got some nice photos at this place, I had not yet bothered to drive the Endeavour here. The official trail was too tame. How about doing some real offroading? With that thought in mind, I looked around and started recce'ing outside of the designated path, through some rocky uncharted route. It didn’t take much time to find such a path amongst the bushes. So I rode up the rocky terrain and soon vanished from view of the others. For a few minutes, I was lost as I could not make out where I was in reference to the others. But I had two more media members in the car eager to drive. I handed over the wheel to one of them and set out by foot to find a return path.
Right then, something strange happened. The Endeavour starting jerking violently over the rocky ground. It was like ABS getting activated over snow. I feared the worse, thinking that somehow I have managed to damage the vehicle by taking it offroad. But I had driven up pretty carefully all the way up, I couldn’t understand how it can go bad all of a sudden. I asked the driver what is he doing, but he too was equally clueless about the cause of violent jerks. That driver was so psyched, he made way for the other driver. Once the other driver took over, the jerks stopped. It was time to test the engine braking of this AT 4x4. I asked the driver to keep away from the all pedals and let the idle speed take care of the movement. The car slowly crawled down the hill without fuss.
Houston, we have descent control:
Yes, despite being an AT, if the car is in low ratio low gear, it does crawl down in full engine braking like a manual 4WD vehicle.
After seeing the smooth climb down with the second driver, the first driver wanted to drive it again. So he got back in, asking me to stay in co-passenger seat. As we started driving back in the official trail, the jerks started again. I looked down and noticed that his left leg was on the brake pedal. He was running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. That was the cause of all the jerks. While encountering alien terrain, he forgot all about the auto-transmission and tried to ride the clutch, except it was the brake pedal!! I guess such confusion can happen to people who are new to ATs. Once he let go the brakes, the jerks stopped.
However, this Endeavour was fully loaded with 5-6 people and since he was not taking the right line to avoid the numerous undulations, the Endeavour started scraping the ground. At this point the driver relinquished the wheel back to me. I drove back mostly using engine braking in 1, 2 and 3 gears in 4L. It holds itself in gear pretty well as long as you don’t press the accelerator. By this time I had fallen in love with the AT box. As we got back on tarmac, I turned the knob back to 2H. But the display continued to show 4L. Backing up a little in reverse too didn’t work. Finally the support guys asked me to turn the knob forward and back with the AT lever set to N. Only then the mode switched back to 2H.