2007 Ford Explorer IronMan
Like other auto writers I'm forever qualifying my descriptions of an SUV's true off-road capabilities. This usually takes form in statements like "Although it's a great street vehicle, the Blunderbuss 480XL has only part-time four-wheel drive, no locking differentials or skid plates to protect the vitals and it's shod with wimpy all-season tires. Only a complete moron would want to take this vehicle very far off-road, not that 99.9 percent of all owners will ever be even remotely tempted to do so." Or words to that effect.
But I've always been curious to see how far a soccer-mom SUV can be taken down a serious off-road trail without punching a hole through the oil pan, shearing off suspension components or burying itself up to the door handles. When Ford unwittingly obliged by delivering a seven-passenger 4WD Explorer XLT with practically zero miles on the clock, it seemed a perfect opportunity to address this nagging question. Admittedly it's one that no one in memory has asked, perhaps for good reason.
My candidate for this potential extreme survival experience was an Explorer XLT equipped with all the truly essential off-road kit: moonroof, 10-way powered leather front seats, rear climate control and DVD entertainment center; power-folding third seat, power-adjustable pedals, leather-covered steering wheel, Sirius satellite radio and a satnav system that does quite well at navigating paved roadways—but it's clueless to your whereabouts once you've ventured a few feet off-road.
The test vehicle also had the IronMan Package ($1,495) that adds specific 18 x 7.5-inch alloys, bodyside cladding, faux hex-bolted-on fender flares and black paint covering the flares and front fascia. The rest of the vehicle was swathed in what Ford calls Orange Frost Clearcoat, a hue others might call Exploding Pumpkin Metallic. Aside from adding a bit of character, the flared, blacked-out Ironman Package at least hinted that this Explorer might be a capable off-roader. And I got several compliments on the vehicle, mostly from the over-40 demographic segment.
But the running gear suggested an entirely different mission in life. There was no locking rear diff, nary a skidplate to be found and it rode on 235/65 Michelin all-season rubber designed for a cushy ride and long tread life. The only feature—a standard one no less—with even the faintest possibility of lending some off-roading assistance was AdvanceTrac with Roll Stability Control. Ford mercifully calls it RSC.
But that system monitors yaw and pitch to sense an impending crash, then it manipulates the brakes and engine torque to get things straightened out. It's intended solely to keep the vehicle right-side up when the driver does something truly stupid. The word stupid here is most frequently demonstrated by a distracted driver who negligently drives off the pavement, then grabs a handful of opposite steering lock and overcorrects while simultaneously lifting off the gas. Presto: a snap-spin, usually followed by a rollover, particularly if the off-side wheels trip over something.
When they designed AdvanceTrac with RSC surely the engineers couldn't have envisioned it as being of any assistance in clawing my way over rugged trails in southern Arizona in this mid-size SUV. But that's pretty much what I had in mind. I wasn't expecting miracles, witnessed by the fact that I asked a friend with extensive off-road experience to accompany me in his Jeep—which is a lousy street ride but definitely the vehicle of choice for our return trip, should we be forced to abandon the Explorer.
We took sensible precautions, loading the vehicles with winches, jacks, snatch straps, chains, shovels, UHF walkie-talkies, cellphones and enough tools to remove and repair every major component, transmission included. For peace of mind we also took along enough essential foodstuffs for an extended wilderness trek. This consisted primarily of half a case of crunchy granola bars in assorted flavors and several large bags of Nacho Cheese-flavored Doritos. We also bought sufficient quantities of bottled water and Cherry Flavored Coke to survive up to, oh, maybe three days' worth of digging out the remains of the Explorer, prior to towing it back to town. That's assuming it could be towed at all, a leap of faith since it was anticipated that any need for assistance would be precipitated by a multiple-rollover incident on a remote mountainside. We considered retaining the services of a flatbed wrecker, placing him on standby duty, but decided it might bring bad karma. Also we couldn't afford it.
My off-road-savvy friend was fairly certain it would prove unwise to get the vehicle stuck. It had no tow hooks in front but did have a plentiful number of plastic body panels. Winching it headfirst up a mountain trail would undoubtedly inflict enough damage to make a body shop parts manager's eyes light up in anticipation.
Finding an appropriate road wasn't difficult. Head north from Phoenix on I-17 and you'll find an exit to a dirt road leading to Crown King, an outpost high in the Bradshaw Mountains. This bucolic mountainside hamlet is known chiefly for its Memorial Day Parade which extends the full length of Main Street, about 100 yards long. Even allowing for pauses to attend to the occasional drunk falling from his pack mule, the event doesn't take very long. Arrive four minutes late and you'll just have to wait until next year's parade.
From the dirt road that climbs steadily up to Crown King there's an endless number of unmarked trails that lead to copper and gold mines abandoned even before Calvin Coolidge sat in the White House. (Known as Silent Cal, a matron once sidled up to the President at a social event and said beguilingly, "My friends bet me $20 I can't get you to say more than two words."
To which Coolidge replied: "You lose." Fun guy, old Cal.
In the Arizona high desert the exact location of many a trail's end is often open to speculation. It is, however, usually easy to spot once you've reached it. The trail stops abruptly at the edge of a precipice or simply dead-ends at the face of a sheer rock wall. Sometimes the track just disappears, as if nobody has yet figured a pressing reason for going any farther.
En route, the Explorer fulfilled its street duties competently. Handling is good, the interior is quiet on smooth pavement and it tracks obediently. Suspension tuning is optimized for paved roads where it proved capable of cruising rapidly while controlling unwanted body motion quite well. I didn't sample the multi-speaker DVD rear entertainment center, being occupied with driving chores at the time. Also, I was trying to recall how much liquid two people require daily to survive in 105-degree desert heat.
The 24-valve 4.6-liter V-8, tuned for 292 hp and 300 lb-ft, is mated to a 6-speed automatic with the top two gears both overdrives, giving respectable acceleration and decent overall fuel economy of 18.1 mpg. It can be slow in reaction to full-throttle downshifts but the V-8 has enough midrange torque to mask the brief pauses for gear-shuffling as it selects the proper ratio. The V-8 power is something the Explorer could have used from day one and it delivers the muscle this 4777-pound sport-ute really needs. If you insist on spending your life in the slow lane, the base 4.0-liter V-6 is available but gives up 82 hp and 46 lb-ft to the V-8. And all this for a one-mpg improvement in city fuel economy.
The seats are comfortable and power-adjustable in just about every direction. Multiple cupholders, storage cubby holes everywhere and that power-folding third-row seat offer room enough to transport four in comfort with space for our inventory of survival gear and granola bars.
I was encouraged after noting on the options list something called the Safety Canopy ($560). Although I had absolutely no idea what it was, the name somehow suggested that should the occasion arise, a sort of safety halo would be hovering overhead, ready to step in and look after my personal protection. I was disappointed to learn later that it's merely Ford's term for side-curtain airbags.
Exiting the interstate and running some miles north along the dirt road toward Crown King, we spied what looked to be a promising trail. The main dirt road went right, this vestigial pair of narrow tracks went left—down what appeared to be a ski slope. The ruts were deep enough to high-center a Humvee. And the trail's ruts had been scored deeply by rainwater channeled down them for decades. The track was flanked by stout palo verde trees and cactus of several species, none of which you'd want to brush up against in a new vehicle—or even an old one, for that matter. The rutted trail was coated by a mix of loose shale, powder-thin sand and soccer-ball-size rocks that made it imperative to use 4WD low range for hill descent. Traction wasn't an issue but keeping the speed down certainly was. This Explorer's part-time 4WD system had three settings: Auto (engages the front axle when rear slippage is detected); 4 High (engages high-range 4WD) and 4 Low. I chose the last, using the extra gear multiplication to coast downhill at idle with the speedometer barely registering.
Other than the occasional clink of a rock glancing off its underside, careful path selection kept the Explorer away from the biggest rocks and running precariously atop the sinuous track. The down-mountain trip was uneventful if slow. But even off-road, going downhill isn't a big deal in any vehicle with decent ground clearance. With gravity on your side, so long as you don't get it high-centered, descents are rarely the toughest test of 4WD. Any experienced off-roader knows the trick is to get back up the mountain.
Eventually the track ended in a dry wash, recently the beneficiary of enough water flow to leave behind a shallow pool. Parking the Explorer, I slammed the door and a pair of mallard ducks launched themselves skyward from the riverbed.
After an hour spent exploring the area, it was time for the real test. Rock-crawling calls for precise control of torque delivery. Once a wheel is spinning, aside from the fact that you're going nowhere, a sharp rock can quickly slice through the rubber and grind right into the steel cords. At that point you'll hear the hiss of air escaping.
To see just how good the on-demand 4WD system worked, I selected 4 Auto, letting the powertrain computer decide when to route power to the front axle. The first occasion was a few thousand feet up the mountain when negotiating a particularly nasty section. The right front wheel was tottering nearly 18 inches into space. Yellow dash lights flashed to indicate that AdvanceTrack RSC was at work and that the front wheels were now lending assistance. But the occasion wasn't marked by the unexpected uncontrollable wheelspin from an open-differential axle with one wheel off the ground. The skyward wheel started rotating, then seemed to reconsider. Feathering the brakes to keep from crashing down onto the unprotected vitals, I added a whiff of throttle—and the Explorer continued onward. First one wheel then another broke traction momentarily, the computer hunting for grip at each corner. The highway-tread, all-season Michelins couldn't have been less suited to rock crawling but the computer so efficiently apportioned torque that the vehicle kept moving relentlessly.
I bottomed-out hard just once, snagging the transmission crossmember on a substantial rock. But the entire ascent was accomplished in 4 Auto, the setting where most soccer moms—and dads—would most likely choose. Engaging 4WD Low was unnecessary even on the most cratered sections.
I'll admit that I was choosing my path with great care, knowing that a single misstep could lead to a fatal puncture wound to the engine oil pan or transmission. Other than that, I just let the Explorer do the work. And it did the job.
Was I disappointed that the Explorer IronMan, a sheep in wolf's clothing, couldn't be flummoxed by a tough mountain trail? Hardly, although the interstate ride home was a bit anticlimactic. Ten years ago I could easily have demonstrated the helplessness of the typical SUV on a rugged trail. But there clearly have been major advances in traction-control systems, even if they weren't designed for off-road work. I'd call that a clear case of better living through electronics. Besides, I've got enough leftover Doritos and granola bars to see me through Christmas.
