Escort duty: pleasant year
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Steve Gray summarises our drivers' impressions: minor service faults but a very professionally designed vehicle
WITH NEARLY 12,000 miles on the clock, we waved goodbye last month to TAR 93W, our long-term test 1.3-litre Ford Escort 55L van. Having run the van for a year and grown quite attached to it, we were in many ways sorry to see it go.
While it had its faults, everyone who drove it became quickly impressed by its rapid acceleration (in spite of being half laden), its sure-footed road holding, excellent braking and effortless performance.
In our business, the term "carlike" to describe a commercial vehicle has become a much overused one. When talking about the Escort, though, it is one that scarcely does it justice. Few small saloon cars can boast the standards of comfort and driver satisfaction which are to be found in this little Ford.
Fabric covered seats, carpeting throughout the cab, a three-speed heater blower, a top speed of nearly 100mph — these attractive features and more are offered in a vehicle which nonetheless gives the operator a payload capability of 735kg (14.5cwt). And from an aesthetic point of view, the Escort looks as if it was designed to be a van, rather than a saloon car sawn off behind the doors with a load carrying area tacked on.
The front end is pure Escort saloon, but the Ford designers have done an excellent job of blending it in with a van back.
A distinguishing feature of the Ford is the small, slim side windows which — after some disagreement with the taxman as to their positioning — were added as a safety feature. This they certainly are. At oblique junctions they are invaluable to spot vehicles approaching fast from the side.
A slim pillar onto which the seat belt anchorages are attached separates the door windows from the side ones. The door windows, though, were the subject of complaints from our testers. Not that there was anything wrong with the glass itself, but it was very easy to catch one's hand on the door glove pocket when winding them down. In fact, door pockets are only fitted to L models.
Our other complaint concerning the internal fittings was the absence of coat hooks, although it is difficult to see where Ford could have fitted them to allow a coat or jacket to hang free.
In our six-month report, after the Escort had covered about 8,000 miles, we also felt the headlining looked vulnerable. It certainly is if the optional load restraint grille — easily removed when necessary, using a Phillips screwdriver — is not fitted. Our van was fitted with this option.
With this in, there was no risk unless a long section of wood or pipe were to be pushed through the mesh and into the lining. Otherwise the interior of the cab remained a nice place to be during the duration of the test. It was easy enough to clean out, although to get behind the seats — pushed up against the bulkhead — is a bit of a performance.
The light coloured seat trim showed no signs of wear and tear or of grime. Nor did the seat appear to sag, unlike those on my Capri which did and became uncomfortable after about 5,000 miles!
Apart from the offside doo pocket coming loose because i was used to close the doo rather than the armrest/door pu provided, the other trim sur vived intact. A feeble lookim glove-box lid and catch assem bly has done surprisingly wel despite the box being frequent', overfilled.
When reporting on the vai after six months we said that i had been a good starter ani quick to warm up. Regrettably we had spoken too soon. A soon as the bad weather camE so did poor cold starting. OF some mornings the automatic choke seemed not to work at all. More than once the battery was run flat before the engine caught, while on other occasions the van would pick up on two cylinders and have to be nursed Into running on all four.
The once quiet CVH engine got more rattly as the miles rose, and the smooth take up of drive, even when cold, was replaced py a stuttering and jerking. All :his started well before the Ford Nas due to be serviced, so it could not be attributed to that.
Presumably this poor running caused the worsening fuel figures. At six months we reached an average of 7.5 lit/100km (37.6mpg) for the period, which during the second six months had dropped to 7.7 lit/100km (36.8mpg). And the results round our light vans route, where the vehicle was fully laden, varied from 8.1 lit/100km (34.7mpg) when we first tested it to 7.45/100km (33.4mpg) just before it was returned.
There was no appreciable difference in oil consumption over the year it did not seem to use any between services!
Many operators are wary of buying a front-wheel-drive vehicle, especially a van. They remember the early days of minivans when, because of the relatively high performance and superb road holding, drivers were getting through drive joints like there was no tomorrow. Their reservations are unfounded now at least if the Escort is anything to go by.
We had no problems at all in this area. Indeed it was difficult to believe the Escort had a frontwheel-drive arrangement. There was none of the "wind-up" usually associated with these layouts and the gearchange normally a hit-or-miss affair on
front-wheel drive was one of the best of any van, let alone car.
We were certainly glad of the transverse front-wheel-drive set up when the snow came. Never once did the Escort get stuck even in relatively deep drifts. True, on dry roads, if the load had shifted rearwards, it was possible to induce a wheelspin without any problem at all. This might worry some operators who can envisage hefty tyre bills resulting from Le Mans starts by would-be Jackie lckxs.
Having said earlier that the Escort design is pleasing to look at, and judging by the fuel consumption figures aerodynamically efficient, it nevertheless does have some drawbacks.
For a start, water deluges the seat and driver from the gutter when he opens the door after a heavy rainfall. This seems to be a Ford problem, confirmed again by my Capri!
Potentially more annoying is the way the back door windows get covered in muck during even light showers. After a very few miles they are almost impossible to see through. While I appreciate that it is bound to happen on such a vertical pair of doors, I do think something could be done, such as a deflector or lip over the rear doors. It could be argued, of course, that when the vehicle's fully loaded there's no rearward vision internally anyway.
The external mirrors on the Ford are first class as far as rearward vision and being easy to adjust goes, but both sides were broken mysteriously while the van was with us. As only the glasses were fractured the plastic surrounds seemed unmarked in each case we can only assume that they are very vulnerable. When the first one was broken (we presume by some careless motorist in a car park), we had some difficulty obtaining a replacement. I am happy to say this was not the case for the second one.
One particularly annoying and continual difficulty was the windscreen washers. A small valve in the pipework was the culprit, but after a couple of months delay waiting for a replacement, the new one was even shorter lived. No doubt this is a niggling point, but it is an exasperating one when the screen is filthy and it is late at night.
The only other problem was the fuel gauge, which showed half full on a couple of occasions then proceeded to take between eight and nine gallons of fuel! To be fair, this only happened infrequently and was never a real problem.
Summing up, the faults we found with the Escort were very minor indeed. When a product is so obviously well designed, practical and a joy to drive, nitpicking faults must be kept in perspective. Few drivers would swop the Escort for any of its rivals, and by now the CVH engine/front-wheel-drive arrangement has proven itself in service.
After a year's use, during which the van stood out all the time, there were no signs of rust or even stone chips. The good shape, apart from the two small problems mentioned earlier, is both pleasing and yet practical. There's plenty of room to signwrite the side panels and front and rear doors, while the sloping bonnet can and has been used for this purpose too.
A high standard of trim certainly on L models is both pleasant yet practical. Neat touches like the easy-clean wheels and tidy yet clear dashboard, all add to the impression that the Escort is a very professionally designed vehicle indeed.