2015 Ford Edge Titanium (CNET On Cars, Episode 70)

[SOUND] Ford Edge, renewed for the first time, but with one old thing we don't like. The future of the turbo charger is electric, and why you care. And how to spot a car that's been for a swim. It's time to check the tech. [SOUND] We see cars differently. Nice. We love them on the road and under the hood. But also check the tech. And they are known for telling it like it is. Ugly is included at no extra cost. The good, the bad, the bottom line. This is c/net on cars. [MUSIC] Welcome to c/net on Cars, the show all about high tech cars and modern driving. I'm Bryant Cooley. One of the biggest auto sales stories of the year, 2015 in the US has been the resurgence of the cross over. Americans are past the recession, we're past hundred dollar barrel oil, and we're past our guilt about driving SUVs. So Ford figures hm, pretty good time to do the Edge completely for the first time since introduction. Let's drive the all new 2015 and check the tech. [MUSIC] Now you'd be forgiven for thinking we brought the wrong Edge. It looks a lot like the outgoing 14, certainly in its general shape and volumes and proportion. But the dead giveaway is right here. The 15 has this deeply sculpted side, where the past Edge had this It kind of lacks [UNKNOWN]. The grill's a little different, the tail lights are very much like a Fusion, which is no coincidence. Because the Edge is largely based on the platform shared with the Fusion. Overall, it's about an inch longer in 15, that's not dramatic Dramatic by any stretch. Now inside the new Edge, Ford's done a lot of work to bring it upscale and not be so utilitarian. Now there's the real problem, it's the my Ford touch with some sync technology that Ford took a drubbing for years It's been replaced by Sync 3. Unfortunately, this 15 Edge only offers this outgoing MyFord Touch. The 16 will bring you the much more desirable Sync 3. You know what to do. Of course, the good part of Ford LCD interface is over there, in front of the driver, where you've got those two helpers screens alongside the speedo. And those are configurable in almost any variety on the left. Or change to whatever Focus you care about of four choices on the right and they've each got a dedicated wing controller on the wheel. That's some of Ford's best UI and HMI even if this is kind of the opposite. Anyway, let's take a look at some of the controls down here. Everything here is now a physical button. [MUSIC] And they're large and pretty well spaced. So this is well done human machine interface. Here's something new. This camera button is going to turn on a front looking cam. This is I think a first for Ford overall. It gives you that sort of going out forward look when you're sort of nudging out of a blind space. You can even go to a really extreme fisheye here. Our drive controls are pretty straightforward. A conventional automatic transmission, P R N D S in this case. But as it isn't a complete cohesive sport mode, it's a sport profile. And accompanying the shifter are of course, the almost common now, paddles on the wheel. Only one choice though and that is this automatic. [MUSIC] In the back of our Edge, we've got interesting number story going on. There's another inch of leg room which is nice to have in a compact-ish crossover. And about another inch of shoulder room, roughly per Two passengers back here. Here's the proof in the pudding I set up this passenger seat for me up there and now I'm able to sit behind me back here. And that doesn't happen in a lot of cars. While we've got inflatable seat belts in the back on this vehicle. I've also got a nice big A panoramic roof up here that extends all the way back to the rear headrest. Now some things have changed in the engine bay on the new Edge and some things haven't. First of all, this is now the standard engine, the two liter, the little guy, inline four sitting side saddle with EcoBoost technology. That means a turbo charger and direct injection. It used to be kind of a pricey option. Now it's the base engine. It's also now got a twin scroll turbo, so a turbo that has two modes of operation to be more responsive. Additional engines include the three and a half liter V6 and the 2.7 liter four cylinder eco boost but here's your new base. The numbers are up a little bit. It's now 245 horsepower, up five, and 275 pound feet of torque, also up five. What didn't change is the MPG, it still comes in at 24 average. Which is 20 city, 30 highway. The last Edge was 21 city, 30 highway, but the average comes out the same. All of this goes out to a six-speed automatic transmission. We have front-wheel drive. You can also get these guys in all-wheel drive. And by the way, all it wants is regular gas. First thing that struck me about the new Edge Is the ride quality. This is smooth and nice and liquid, very compliant. I like that and I think it's a home run for the market they're going after. Now the next thing you notice is the powertrain. You say, okay, how is this little 2.0-liter EcoBoost Turbo doing. Well, it actually does fine as long as you don't let it get buried on the car. In other words, they'll find it loping along in 6 when you need it to stab at the power. So, drop it in Sport Mode, for example. Get on those paddles and keep things cooking. Some interesting driver assists on this car. One that is not terribly cutting edge is lane departure warning. And, lane departure prevention because it has an electric power steering rack that can address that digitally and tell it to nose you back in. That's how they do it. Perhaps the most interesting though is this new layer of self parking technology. Now this vehicle adds perpendicular on top of that and also exit mode. So if you're too damn dumb to get out of a parking spot you parked in. Don't know how that works. This will get you out of it. The front camera is, you know, it's useful if your coming out of blind spot. You've got to hit that of course. You've got think about it manually, but its got a good clear image. And there are also quite an elaborate array of surround sensors that are available on this vehicle to augment the front and rear cameras. You have no surround cameras. However you get a lot of segment there on the screen as you can see. Along with various beeps and color coding to let you know what you're about About this screen. And coming later, not available now as I understand it, but a mid-model year production will be adaptive cruise and the forward collision automatic brake. Okay, let's do the 15 Ford Edge CNET style. Starts off at $36,500, because that's the price of admission for this type titanium trim with front wheel drive. And this is a pre-loaded vehicle but the we checked the box for package 302A, Ford's just got a way with names, don't they? That brings you a lot of toys. The power lift gate you can wag your foot to open. The panoramic roof overhead. That new active parking assist. The front camera. HID headlights, blind spot warning. The ;ane departure and prevention I showed you on the road. Voice based navigation and those rear seat belts with air bags built in. Now 1,300 more brings you the driver assist package which goes further with adaptive cruise control as well as forward collision mitigation braking that's automatic. And for some reason they lump in a tilt telescope wheel with that. And my favorite option is dealer installed. 330 bucks For a safe in the console. What are you going to put in there? You're driving an Edge. You're not James Bond. I'd get one too. Anyway, we're looking about $43,800 all in for this guy. Here's your bottom line on the Edge. Looks a lot better, I think, but still very familiar. More room in the backseat, always a good thing. That technology in the dash That's said, you gotta wait til 2016 I'm afraid. And the two liter EcoBoost turbo engine. It used to be a rather pricy option. [SOUND] Find the full review of the 15 Ford Edge, a Titanium trim in our case, over at cars.cnet.com. Well a flooded car, whether it was a long time ago or it's still drying out. Is basically a nightmare. You want to run the other way. The smarter driver knows that, but not everyone knows how to spot one. We'll show you how, when CNet OnCars returns. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]. [THUNDER]. Well here near the On Cars headquarters in northern California, we don't even know what rain looks like anymore. But many of you have been getting plenty of it. And torrential floods [SOUND] So the idea of being wary about a flooded car is still very relevant. Except for us. [MUSIC] The problem with a flooded car is you never really dry it out. At least not in terms of the effect that water getting into orifices and Systems that were never supposed to see water. And that water is often salty. That raises hell with metal corrosion and damage to electronics and wiring. A reputable car dealer should not be selling a flooded car without clearly disclosing that. A private party seller has Shall we say more leeway to forget or claim they didn't know. So here are some tips and tricks you can use to find out if the car you are looking at ever took the big dip. [MUSIC] Now when you get into a car that you're considering buying and wondering about flood damage, just give it a sniff. You can't mistake that mildew smell and it's almost impossible to get out of a vehicle when it's been flooded. Now it's possible to get a little mildew odor because you had clogged rain tubes up in the sunroof or in the well of a convertible, but assume the worst and go hunting. Second look and I don't mean just at the floor mat or under the floor mat. If you can, try and get a peak under the carpet. That's the harder part to conceal when there was once flood damage. It can be tough. A lot of modern cars really seal these carpets down, but it give it a look. You might find someplace to get under there. And third, feel. Feel around up above the glovebox, inside that little well. Down in the seat tracks and the rails as well, what you're looking for is little traces of mud that might get on your hands. I mean how else would it get up there, certainly at this height. Now there are two sites you can check to get a car's flood history. The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System is a federal database that includes flood information. Now only about 35 states fully report into it, the rest either don't or don't fully. That opens loop holes for title washing. That's when a car passes through the DMV at a state that doesn't fully report the nature of a flooded car. Flags like water damage, total loss, or salvaged title then drop off the car's history. Also, check the National Insurance Crime Bureau's site. It's run by the insurance industry. They report in all cases where claims Have been attached to a car that was flooded or some other way totaled. But are free to check, and both as you can see will have some wholes in their data. It pays to double check the databases that are out there as well as your own senses and your gut to make sure you're not plunking down good money for a car that got irrecoverably wet. [MUSIC] Welcome back to CNET on cars. Coming to you from our home at the [UNKNOWN] motor club just north of the golden gate bridge. Whenever you see a review or a video about a car with a turbocharger you're going to hear the phrase turbo lag. How little or how how much the car had. It's not a good thing, it's the Achilles heel of an otherwise great technology. But what if that Achilles heel got erased? Electric turbo chargers seem to do exactly that and they make for an historic and imminently Happening car tech 101. First of all if you're unclear on Turbos check out our Car Tech 101 on Lumback from episode 2. And our turbos versus superchargers episodes 2 and 15 segment. But I can save you some trouble, we can do a quick refresher on turbos right here with this Ford ecoboost 4 cylinder. Now this is the turbo apparatus. This part picks up the exhaust gas coming out of the engine. And it starts to spin a shaft. [MUSIC] On the other end of that is a compressor that takes air and rams more of it into the cylinder [UNKNOWN] the environment would do naturally. [MUSIC] And that's how you get more power out of the engine because more fuel more power. [MUSIC] But there are three hangups to this kind of design. First of all since its run by exhaust. Which is a gas, a compressible gas, there's a whole lot of lag when you step on the gas pedal before you get the full effect of it. Secondly you've got an issue of size and placement. I mean you've got one spool here and another spool here and a lot of plumbing. That means this thing's fairly big. Because it lives and runs off the exhaust, it has to live at the exhaust manifold, more or less. That takes away some flexibility for engine designers who would like to put it somewhere else. And thirdly, since the turbo sits in the middle of the exhaust stream, it gets in the way of scavenging exhaust gases. And that means the engine breathes less well. That's not good for power or efficiency. The electric turbo seeks to answer all three of those limitations. Major Supplier Valea has an electric turbo, which they happen to call an Electric Supercharger. It's powered by 48 volts DC, four times what your car has now. This is a new thing but we've covered it recently in our episode 63 Car Tech 101 if you want to brush up. Now once you have 48 volts, this turbo can be mounted almost anywhere, typically close to the intake of the engine for the shortest run to push the boosted air and of course not sitting in the exhaust path. Or it can be used to pre-boost a traditional turbo so it works better. That's part of why Valeo claims this can increase MPG on a car by at least 10% and maybe over 15. To conquer turbo lag, their electric booster always idles at around 10,000 rpm. Spooling up to a max of 70,000 to deliver full boost at almost the moment you demand it via the pedal Audi's been testing it and Valeo says that company will put it into a production car in 2016. Honeywell and Continental are two other big industry suppliers who plan to have electric turbos on the market and in production cars perhaps a year or two after Valeo Taking a slightly different tact is major turbo maker Borg Warner with what they call an e-booster. It's a small electric air pump that additionally boosts what a conventional turbo is shoving into the engine, either by being mounted before or after the turbo itself. The e-booster is always a helper, not a primary turbo. The fuel economy and emissions targets that are coming in the EU and U.S. alone, cover enough new cars each year to demand new ways of managing engine efficiency, opening the door for electric turbos. Especially in smaller engines that demand more nuanced flexible boosting technology. [MUSIC] In a moment how much wheel is too much wheel? And the top five cars you'll be glad you bought down the road. When Cnet on cars returns. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO] [MUSIC] The new Ford GP is gonna be powered by a 3.5-liter EcoBoost engine [SOUND] That engine's gonna produce over 600 horsepower. But it means a lot to Ford going back to LeMon. I mean, 50 years of heritage is gonna be celebrated next year. A lot of people wanna know who we're gunning for and what we're doing. We're gonna show up with one hell of a racecar. My home Ferrari's ready as well. Buy more from the XCAR team of CNET UK at cnet.com/xcar. Welcome back to CNET on cars. I'm Brian Cooley. Here's the part of the show where I take one of your emails Emails. This time it's coming in from Keith B. writing in from the Philippines. And he says, I've got a Honda City, a car you might not recognize but very popular here in Southeast Asia. I know the car. It's a little smaller than a Civic, a little bigger than a Honda Fit. I was thinking of changing my rims, he writes. From 15 inch to 19 inch. His question is, what are the pros and cons of larger rims Rims on a car. Well Keith first of all, you're not just getting larger, you're really going to town. 15 to 19 is like night and day. Your car is going to look really different but more importantly it may feel different in a handful of ways. Here's what I want you to think about. First of all is ride quality. There could be an additional harshness. In fact almost certainly. When you go from a 15 to the very thick high profile tire to a 19 with a very thin low profile tire. A lot more road input is going to work it's way into your cabin. Then you want to make sure you're going to have good clearance on your new tires and wheels. They' won't just be bigger in diameter they're also necessarily going to get wider. There's a lot more mass moving in that wheel. Well make sure it's not scraping or rubbing Either one of the cars empty, fully laden, going straight or making a U-turn. Next up make sure the overall circumference of your new tire wheel package is basically the same as your old tire wheel package. That's the overall diameter. This is important to make sure your speedometer still reads correctly. But more importantly that your ABS technology knows what it's dealing with out there with the wheel that it's trying to control slip and spin on. Now think about your power steering as well, when you get a bigger wheel you also get a wider wheel Wheel and that means a bigger contact patch of rubber on the road that has more resistance to being turned. So your power steering rack, the apparatus in the car is going to have to work harder, you may not feel it at the wheel because it takes care of the extra. The sweat. But just know you might be wearing things out faster. And finally know that your acceleration and fuel economy could suffer a little bit because you're adding a lot more rotating metal weight, that the car has to spin up and brake all the time. It's not going to be a big deal, I don't think, but you may feel it. Overall the jump you're trying to make from basically 15 inch doughnut to 19 that could make your car look like a donk is kind of drastic. I might measure that back a little and just go with 17 [UNKNOWN]. You know I get a lot of questions from you via email about buying a new car, the cars you're looking at, what's a good value, what's a good car. But I almost never get questions about those cars resale value. And I should. It's a huge factor as to whether or not you're getting a good deal when you buy a car. But it's typically our of mind because it often doesn't affect you til the end of life cycle. When you go to sell the car, or when you go to trade it in. But think about it up front, it's a big part of whether you did a good deal or not. Meanwhile, to inspire you, here's a top five list of new 2015 vehicles in the U.S. market that hang on to their resale value really well. [MUSIC] Now I'm taking out pickup trucks here because their just a different market in many ways and often company trucks. And frankly, if I didn't, they would dominate the top five. These are 2015 cars and SUVs ranked by the definitive projection. That of Kelly Blue Book, KBB. It's the residual value they compute five years after first sale. Let's go. Number five, the Subaru WRX. 49.4% left after five years. WRX has a cult following. I mean, could you imagine one being sold on the used market to someone who's ambivalent about it? You buy WRX because you love WRXs. And, that does wonders for your residuals. You're selling a religion, not just the car. Number four, the Chevy Corvette. 49.5% residual. The new Vette is an amazing bargain to begin with, for its degree of performance. And, that does wonders for its long-term value. Being a two-seat car does limit its market options. The only other one in 58 cars surveyed is the Porsche Camen and it came in 7 points lower. Number 3, the 2015 Honda CR-V. 50.8%. Here we have now crossed that 50% margin, a nice psychological place to be after a handful of years. [MUSIC] The CRB is the best selling compact crossover in the U.S.. And some part of that would certainly be buyers knowing that they're going to have such a nice residual down the road. Number two, the Toyota 4Runner, 54.3% residual value. What do you have to say about this guy. It's a classic and a rugged way that you feel is gonna last forever. [NOISE] Before I get to number one, the five worst cars for resale value after five years, along with their miserable numbers. The Audi A5 and Audi A7, virtually the same. Audi comes in back to back on the list. It's. Just the wrong list. Then you've got the Toyota Avalon at 36.2, Chevy Impala, and then, the king of the stinkers, the Mercedes S-Class. A mere 33.5% residual value after five years. If you have one of these and didn't either lease it with company money or have us, US tax payers subsidizing it, you're an idiot. By the way, the best overall brand for value retention is Subaru. Think about it. They're built tough. They're capable. They've got very clear attributes, few gimmicks, and also have a cult following like the WRX within the brand. That's marketing 101 on wheels. [SOUND] The number one vehicles for residual after five years are the Jeep Wrangler and Wrangler Unlimited. These are the real Jeeps to many people. They're SUVs that combine a low price with serious off road cred. And in the case of the Unlimited there's plenty of room to bring a couple of city slickers along on your rock crawling exploits. And being an American icon doesn't hurt either. Thanks for watching. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Wherever you watch us keep an eye out for either a channel or a subscription link so it's easier than ever to get our shows every two weeks. And keep those emails coming. It's oncars@cnet.com. I'll see you next time we check the deck. [MUSIC] [SOUND]