Graeme takes a look at the most recent love child of a commercial bus and Minivan.
Now the question is is it a commercial bus or is it a viable alternative to a minivan on this edition of test drive the ford transit connect on test drive we look at anything and everything that has four wheels sometimes it’s an exotic to lust after other times it’s something well a little more down-to-earth while the transit nameplate has been around in the uk
Since the mid 60s it’s only been offered in its current form for about a decade in canada it does represent one of the most utilitarian rides ever but it does strike a good balance between commercial van and passenger van now the cabin is a bit of a mismatch the seats are comfortable the sight lines are great and the instrumentation works very effectively because
It’s clean and uncluttered the downsides the plastics are very industrial in nature but there is one glaring omission and it has to do with using apple carplay now when you plug your phone in an apple carplay comes up you cannot use the built-in navigation system every time you hit maps it goes to your phone now you’re using data if you don’t want to use data
You have to unplug the phone to go back to the native navigation system why can’t i have native navigation and apple carplay at the same time beats me the transit connect is motivated by a two-litre for that twists out a hundred and sixty two horsepower and a hundred and forty four pound-feet of torque the numbers do not sound like much but they do get the job
Done even with for adults aboard the stopwatch says it takes about ten point four seconds to run to a hundred k but it feels more urgent than that part of the reason is down to the 8-speed automatic transmission the extra gears bring better low-end punch and an unflustered highway drive the bonus is found in the fuel economy we average nine point four liters per
Hundred kilometers which is better than many traditional minivans now there are two distinctly different sides to this transit story the first one has to do with people now this thing has got six seats and the middle row doesn’t look comfortable but it certainly is that includes a third row while it doesn’t look very comfortable it’ll accommodate an adult for
At least well a short trip now the other side of the story has to do with cargo space 700 litres with all the seats up it grows to 1700 litres when you fold the third row down and then you get to the middle row you simply pull a couple of levers fold the lock down now you’ve got access to 3,000 litres come to think of it that’s about the size of today’s studio
Apartment while the suspension is pretty basic with mack struts up front and the twist beam in the back it actually does a pretty good job of delivering ride comfort while keeping things flat when it was pushed through the pylons a big plus is the car base platform it adds a degree of civility likewise the steering response is crisp and it’s helped by the brake
Base torque vectoring one of the issues with any tall sided vehicle is what happens when it gets hit with a side wind it normally blows the van out of its lane not so with this transit connect it has side wind stabilization it uses sensors to pick up the wind and then the stability control system to keep it in the lane it is simple but it’s also very effective a
Further extension of the side wind system is called curve control it looks at a number of senses a hundred times a second and kicks in when the driver goes into a corner carrying way too much speed when this happens the system applies an exact amount of brake pressure to each of the wheels and it’s capable of scrubbing 16 kilometres an hour off the speed every
Second it sounds complicated but when it’s needed it’s a vacant saver it would be very easy to write this transit connect off as an industrial bus but that would be a mistake it’s got room for six it’s very flexible it handles nicely and so it is a viable alternative to a minivan it’ll also get better fuel economy
Transcribed from video
2020 Ford Transit Van – Test Drive By Motoring TV
