For domestic users, jiangling ford is not as well-known as Changan Ford. After all, the main sales models of Jiangling Ford before were commercially inclined vans such as Quanshun and Toureo. It was not until October 2015, after the introduction of hardcore off-road vehicle shakers into domestic production, many domestic consumers learned that Ford still had a joint venture relationship with Jiangling.
Today, in addition to the hardcore off-road vehicle road-shakers, Jiangling Ford also has two urban SUVs, the compact SUV Collar and the medium and large SUV Lingyu. Among them, with the price advantage of early 100,000 yuan, The Industry quickly opened up sales channels, and last year sold 34,000 new cars in China, which is the second highest-selling SUV of the Ford brand in China, second only to Changan Ford's Sharp Edge. In addition, the medium and large SUV Lingyu did not succeed as in the collar, because the starting price was close to 170,000, and there were too many models at this price point, so the average monthly sales were only more than 1,000 units.
In order to fill the gap between small SUVs and medium and large SUVs, while boosting the sales of the entire brand, Jiangling Ford launched the protagonist of today's article, this pre-price is only 14.88-18.88 million, which is 40,000 or 50,000 cheaper than the mainstream joint venture compact SUV! However, considering that Lingrui is only sold in China, many people will certainly question whether its "special car" status can be worthy of its 150,000 price. To find out, we test-drove the unlisted Lingrui and had in-depth communication with the engineers about the development process of the car...
Like its own medium and large SUV Lingyu, this new medium-sized SUV Lingrui is also the result of Ford Australia Design Center, so the shape of the two is very similar. Remember when Lingyu declared in September 2020, many people were complaining that The new front face and tail design language of Jiangling Ford were very unford, but with Changan Ford EVOS and the new Mondeo adopting this design, we realized that we were wrong to blame Lingyu, because it was the pioneer of Ford's new era design language.
The difference between the side design of Lingrui and the eldest brother Lingyu is mainly reflected in the window line and waist line. Among them, the eldest brother Lingyu is designed with three rows of seats and the tail is longer, so he uses a more straight window line and a waist line to connect backwards. As a large five-seat SUV that removes the third row on the basis of the big brother Lingyu, Lingrui uses a more flexible design on the window line and waist line. As for the rear of the car, Lingyu's taillights have one more narrow strip of running lights than Lingrui, and the other aspects are not much different. In fact, from the English name of the model, you can also see the hints of the positioning of the two, of which the big brother Lingyu is called "EQUATOR", and the lingrui is "EQUATOR SPORT", which feels like the relationship between Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.
Although this Lingrui is positioned as a mid-size SUV, its length and wheelbase are actually not much larger than the compact SUVs such as the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. However, with the shortening of the length of the medium and large SUV Lingyu, the advantages of Lingrui in body width are very obvious, not only 80mm wider than CR-V and RAV4, but even 5mm wider than their big brother Lingyu and Toyota Highlander. The width advantage will also make the Lingrui appear more spacious when parked with other compact SUVs.
There is a small story about the appearance can be shared with you, when I was chatting with Jiangling Ford engineers, the other party pointed to lingrui's front and rear ultrasonic radar and said to me, just such a simple thing, we did 30 sets of programs before and after, just because the Ford Australia team in accordance with Ford's global design standards, requiring the height difference between the front and rear radar must be controlled within the level of 10cm, the reason is that it will be more beautiful. Although radar is insignificant to the design of a car, it can also be seen from this small detail that Jiangling must also participate in the framework of Ford's global standards when it is equipped with this Ford Australian team-led development model, and it is not like some friends say that the Ford car produced by Jiangling only uses The Ford logo.
The interior of the car adopts a blue/beige two-tone design, which will look more warm and luxurious than the pure dark interior. In addition to the color matching, lingrui's interior design also emphasizes the sense of spaciousness, and the visual penetration of the central control air conditioner outlet and the air conditioning outlet on both sides can effectively reduce the visual pressure and make the interior look more comfortable.
The dual screen composed of a 12.3-inch instrument + a 12.3-inch central control touch screen is a relatively rare configuration in the joint venture SUV. This time, Lingrui did not use Ford's SYNC car machine system, but chose Tencent's TAI 4.0 car machine system, the highlight of this system is that when using the built-in Tencent map, it can switch to AR real-life navigation mode, and the navigation route is integrated with the real-life road, and the information is more readable. Some friends may think that AR real-life navigation is not difficult to achieve, but in fact, this requires a high level of positioning accuracy of the vehicle, otherwise there will be a problem of navigation arrows pointing to the lane. On ford Lingrui, AR real-life navigation is achieved through the joint positioning of on-board high-precision equipment and external base stations, and the positioning and navigation instructions are very accurate in use.
Lingrui only offers a 5-seat layout, the seat padding is soft and hard, and the backrest and cushions support the body very well. In addition, the addition of two-color splicing, punching and stitching processes also makes the seat look very high-grade.
In terms of seating space, I am 180cm tall, I have raised the height of the front seats to the lowest, and I have a fist and four fingers on my head. At this time, when I came to the back row, the head space was one punch and two fingers, and the leg space was a little richer than two punches. This kind of space performance is already very spacious for an SUV with a car length of more than 4.6 meters. It's just that the seat cushions in the back row are slightly shorter, and if your legs are as long as mine, you may have a small complaint about the support of the cushions.
The rear of the lingrui excludes a larger space, and the almost flat floor can also provide a better riding experience for the passengers in the middle of the rear row. At this point, considering that it is far beyond the width of the competitor's body, the rear seat is more comfortable even if it carries 3 passengers. For the average family of five, Lingrui's space is already very easy to use.
Lingrui is equipped with a Ford EcoBoost 170 1.5T four-cylinder engine, the maximum power of 170 horsepower, peak torque of 260N·m, in the current 1.5T engine, Ford EcoBoost 170 power level in the first echelon. This engine has a characteristic, that is, the low torque is very good, can output a maximum torque of 260 N·m between 1500-3000 rpm, and the torque can be maintained above 250 N·m in the range of 1200-3800 rpm. That is to say, in the daily use of the speed range of most users, the torque of lingrui's 1.5T engine is very abundant.
Matched to the engine is a 7-speed wet dual-clutch transmission, which is produced by Magna and is also mounted on the BMW X1 and Mercedes-Benz GLA. Wet dual-clutch clutch modules inherently dissipate heat better than dry dual-clutch. In addition, Magna has also upgraded the shift and cooling system of this 7DCT, replacing the cooling oil pump and gear shift mechanism with a motor, because the motor does not need to consume engine power in real time, so it will be more fuel-efficient than hydraulic control after switching to electronic control.
The power combination of small displacement supercharging + dual clutch has become the standard for most car manufacturers, but the matching style of similar powertrains in different cars is not the same. For example, Volkswagen's 1.4T+ 7-speed DSG pays more attention to the instantaneous explosive force when the full throttle accelerates, while the matching style of the Lingrui 1.5T+7DCT will be more like a self-priming car, not only the power response at the beginning is very fast, but the power output is also very linear, which will be more in line with the daily driving habits of most users.
When starting at rest, thanks to the engine's excellent low torque, you can get a decent power delivery just by tapping on the throttle. Compared with other small-displacement supercharged engines, it is much calmer to press the throttle deeply to urge power. This also proves that the power response of lingrui 1.5T is better than that of the general supercharged engine.
When it comes to double clutch, the first thing that many people think of must be a setback. But from my actual experience, Lingrui's 7DCT smoothness is very outstanding. Whether it's slow acceleration or rapid acceleration of floor oil, the gearbox's gearing speed and ride-to-speed when shifting gears are excellent.
There was nothing wrong with the upshift, so I switched to braking and slowing down, and taxiing to see if there was a feeling of bumping or dragging in the deceleration and downshifting. But actual experience tells me that this 7-speed wet dual clutch still has no sense of existence and temper. It can be said that the power matching style of Lingrui is the type that most people like. In fact, the good smooth performance of this gearbox is what I expected, after all, if its own quality is not good, how can it be applied by Mercedes-Benz BMW to its own compact SUV?
Thanks to the excellent matching of the gearbox and the excellent low torque of the 1.5T engine, Lingrui is actually both light and smooth to drive in the city, and it is very easy to drive daily, and everyone does not need to worry about a small horse-drawn cart. However, this is only a small displacement supercharger with 170 horsepower, so the power of the middle and rear sections will naturally not be very surging and you want to accelerate quickly from 80km/h to 120km/h, and it is indispensable to step on the throttle to pull the speed up. Fortunately, the noise control of the engine is not bad, and the sound transmitted to the car during rapid acceleration is not noisy, which will not have any negative impact on the driving quality of the whole vehicle.
In terms of chassis structure, Lingrui uses the 150,000 price point mainstream front McPherson, rear multi-link independent suspension. Compared with the power matching with a high degree of completion, the performance of Lingrui's chassis can only be said to be decent. Driving in the urban area, the vehicle suspension does not handle the vibration stiffly, and when the tire runs over the manhole cover and speed reduction belt, the suspension can also dissolve the impact force to a very low degree, and the chassis is not "scattered" at all. When cornering quickly, the chassis is also good for the support of the body, and it will not cause too much roll on the body, so the chassis quality of Lingrui is very suitable for daily use. The fly in the ointment is that the Lingrui suspension has no sense of damping during the movement, so it is slightly lacking in the "sense of premium" of suspension.
Compared to the excellent power and the useless chassis, Lingrui's calibration in the steering is a bit less "Ford". You know, in terms of the steering feel directly related to the driving experience, Ford has always had a deep knowledge, but the steering of Lingrui exposed the following two problems in my test drive.
In the two scenes of making a U-turn in the city and turning at a low speed, the damping of the steering wheel is very light, and the positive force is relatively linear, which is easy to establish a good feeling. However, when the lingrui was driven to a high speed, the steering feel exposed some deficiencies. First of all, in the set of coherent actions of high-speed lane change and overtaking, the front of the car cannot react quickly to the change in steering wheel angle, which will bring the driver a feeling that the steering is not sensitive enough. Secondly, the resertation of the steering wheel does not change with the change of steering angle, but is always in a relatively light state. This also directly leads to the driver's loss of the ability to perceive the steering angle of the front wheel through the steering wheel back to the positive force change, unlike other Ford cars with excellent sense of human-vehicle communication.
When the test drive of the high-speed section was just in time for the 6-level wind, when the air flow laterally hit the body, the steering wheel of Lingrui would be like being suddenly "dragged" by an external force, and there would be a small angle shift. Although as an SUV, a higher body will bring a larger lateral wind area, and the ability to resist crosswinds is inherently worse than that of a car, Lingrui's steering is still somewhat unstable when encountering crosswinds, and there is still room for improvement in driving stability.
Overall, Lingrui's chassis performance is good in the 160,000-priced joint venture SUV, and the brake nod, acceleration head, and turning roll attitude control in terms of dynamic performance are also good, but the chassis is not opened with a sense of communication, and the stability of high-speed driving also needs to be improved.
Generally speaking, the configuration of the joint venture car is slightly inferior to the domestic car at the same price, but Lingyu is as good as the domestic brand in terms of configuration. For example, 6 airbags, reversing images, panoramic sunroof, keyless entry, remote start, 12.3-inch central control screen, Connected Vehicle OTA, leather seats, LED headlights, automatic air conditioning, rear exhaust air outlet and other configurations are standard.
In addition, the top and sub-top mates are also equipped with a Set of Ford Co-Pilot360 Assisted Driving Safety System, which can achieve L2-level driving assistance. Whether urban or high-speed, by pressing the button on the left side of the steering wheel, activating lane keeping and full-speed domain adaptive cruise functions, the vehicle can automatically follow, turn and stop without the driver's hand. And it is also very convenient to change lanes during the period, just dial the turn signal lever, the system can automatically complete the lane change operation.
In addition, this system also comes with APA 5.0 automatic parking (yellow circle above), drive the car to the parking space, press the automatic parking button, regardless of whether the parking space has a line, whether it is a side position, vertical or inclined parking space, the system can automatically identify, and the driver does not need to operate the steering wheel, throttle and gear during the parking process, the system will automatically complete the entire parking work, which can greatly reduce the parking burden of some car owners.
Because the automatic parking function needs to be recognized by the camera, some models with general camera specifications cannot use the automatic parking function at night. The lingrui set of automatic parking basically does not have this worry, because its camera only needs 10 lux of illumination to make the automatic parking function work normally, that is, the brightness of the environment only needs to reach the brightness of the candle 1 meter away, so the "night battle" ability of this car is very strong.
Through this test drive, it can be found that the Lingrui produced by Jiangling Ford is very similar to the domestic car in terms of product ideas, and it can provide more space and richer configuration under the premise of price advantage of 148,880-188,800 pre-price. And under the premise of cost performance, it also has the aura of the Ford brand and the atmospheric shape design, which can better capture the "face" consumer psychology of consumers. In terms of driving experience, although the overall driving experience is not as fun as the Ford SUV, you can't fault it, so this SUV is obviously worth its price. If Jiangling Ford can let more people know the existence of this car through publicity in the later stage, it will surely be able to grab a lot of orders from domestic SUVs and joint venture compact SUVs