Some progress has evidently been made in bringing the Ecosport’s chassis, suspension and steering up to snuff here. The car had much improving to do when we last tested one in 2014, of course, having quite a tenuous hold on the road, an intrusive and unsophisticated stability control system and a thumping, coarse ride.
Now, we might characterise it as just about adequate. Even on those raised springs, the car certainly isn’t the soft, unresponsive, high-sided prospect you might it to be, and now grips the road competently enough.
Vertical body control is respectable as a result of a Ford-typical medium-firm ride, and so the car doesn’t start to wallow or heave at speed, although it does fidget and sproing its way along certain kinds of surface. It also has a tendency to teeter slightly as it turns. Perhaps it’s the long-travel suspension, but there’s a slight sense of a mismatch between the car’s medium-fast steering response and the angle to which the body initially wants to lean before settling into a cornering stance. That, plus the woolly, elastic and over-assisted feel of the steering, will keep driver enthusiasm levels pretty low.
The car’s stability control system is markedly better than it was, too, aided greatly no doubt by the improvement to mechanical grip level delivered by those Pirelli tyres. Though always active to some extent, it can be dialled back into ‘sport’ mode if you must (although, trust us, you won’t) and generally saves its interventions until boorish mid-corner throttle applications would otherwise set-up serious understeer, or bold speed-carrying ambitions might cause the car to roll to extremes.
