The heavyweight problem with Ford Everest Basecamp

In a market where off-road adventuring accessories need to carry serious weight, Ford’s Everest Basecamp has a problem, upstairs… That Rhino roof rack.

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Carmakers continue to perfect their marketing routines for your delight and their self-amuse. This time, it’s Ford Australia, from whom I do not expect to be wished ‘many happy returns’ this Christmas.

They’ve compiled a small package of exciting, adventure-focused marketing material which will make you itch to buy a tough new Everest BaseCamp 4WD wagon, based on the Ranger ute.

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PLEASE NOTE: Since publishing this report on August 12, 2021, Ford Australia has apparently edited the images on its website in line with the true nature of what’s capable with the Everest BaseCamp and its Rhino Rack package.

The rest of this report will continue to explain the problem, as it happened and was revealed to me, based on the facts. The Everest BaseCamp is still available for purchase with this same deficiency in roof rack load carrying capacity. The details for which, remain difficult to find easily on the Ford Australia website, as I can see and understand.

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Thanks to Jordan Daesh for this heads-up, after his own dealings with Ford Australia in relation to loading up his Everest in order to set off into the bush.

Turns out, my very good friends at Ford Australia, continue to misrepresent their company’s own vehicles, hilariously.

I took it as read, Mustang Mach 1 fiasco, was the summit, the Everest of misrepresentations. But clearly that was just the Hilary step on the way to the actual peak of bullshit Everest.

Here is one of Ford’s many advertising images, and let’s see if you can spot the critical mistake:

How much does a canoe weigh? And it’s being stowed where?

This was the original image used on ford.com.au/everest for the Everest BaseCamp. Very masculine.

Unfortunately, it seems you might’ve been misled if you actually bought one. Can you see the problem? It’s staring you right in the face.

While you look for the error, let’s remind ourselves that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says:

“...and in promotions or advertising.” How limiting to marketing departments everywhere and specifically in this case, seeing as these images are both promotional and advertising.

This awesome shot is from the Ford Australia Everest brochure:

Nothing to see here, hopes Ford Australia’s marketing team, I presume. Except it’s an empty roof rack.

As you can see, it’s Rhino Rack’s so-called pioneer platform, winner of a coveted Red Dot design award, and Good Design Gold as well, despite being one of the most deficient rack designs I’ve ever seen. As if roof rack carrying capacity ever mattered. I did a whole report on Rhino Rack’s failure here >>

Frankly, these racks seem to me, at least, little more than expensive aesthetic additions. Like a lightbar with vestigial blue singlet sex appeal.

Rhino Rack buries this information by the way, but it is on their website if you dig endlessly. They really should put the weight carrying capacity for each rack in the specs, to inform the consumer. Like every other retail product on sale.

Instead, they make you input your vehicle’s roof load limit into their ‘calculator’, which ten tells you how much you can carry. Rather than just stipulating their rack’s limitations. Wouldn’t want that made too obviously, now, would we?

In my view, not doing so for a product designed ostensibly for carrying a load, is disgraceful. People need to be actively informed about what limits their adventuring equipment has.

The disclaimer is pretty bad too, especially when it comes to reassuring the consumer they are doing the right or wrong thing with their vehicle-mounted load carrying system (AKA roof rack). The disclaimer says:

This calculator is to be used as an aid only for estimating the System weight and Cargo capacity. It is not a substitute for instructions and specifications in relation to the requirements and use of the roof system on your vehicle.

-RhinoRack.com.au

The problem here is that Rhino’s ‘load rating calculator’ is not a calculator if it isn’t precise. That’s the point of this feature, tpo help ordinary consumers make an informed choice. Anyway, persevering, in the ‘fitting instructions’ and the ‘fitting chart’ the Everest Rhino Rack is rated to carry… well, you try and figure it out here:

Good luck deciphering Rhino’s complex web of part numbers and associated load ratings.

I suspect this leads to a great deal of unwitting and potentially dangerous and unreported overloading, out there in the public, on the road.

USEFUL LINKS FOR TOWING…

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& FITTING ACCESSORIES

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FORD, DETAILS MATTER WHEN LOADING VEHICLES

If you can ever find it, Rhino Rack says you must reduce the maximum payload on the Pioneer Platform by one third whenever you go off-road. I presume this is because they couldn’t actually design one strong enough to carry a proper load off the sealed tarmac. That pinnacle aftermarket accessory brand.

Rhino Rack even goes as far as to define the term, ‘off-road’:

Therefore, in that Ford BaseCamp brochure >>, and on the website, it’s unequivocal the Everest is ‘off-road’, based on Rhino Rack’s definition.

Ford Australia does not actually specify the roof rack’s limits, but based on research I’ve previously done, Everest is limited to 100kg maximum roof load, including the mass of the rack itself.

Mr Daesh, who wrote to me having looked in his own Everest’s user manual, says Ford Australia, who he wrote to, have not repudiated this.

The owner’s manual says 100kg, but the Rhino specifications says the off-road payload is 47kg, buried. Rhino claims the rack weighs 29kg, so 47kg + 29kg is 76kg in total. That’s up top on your BaseCamp. The manual says 100, reality says 76. That’s a 24 per cent discount.

Also, where are those kayaks going to sit? I certainly don’t see a trailer behind, and there’s five people to occupy five out of seven seats, so there’s no folding of row 2. Are they going on the roof rack too?

Great work, Rhino, reducing the amount you can carry on a dirt road by so much, and congratulations Ford for not disclosing this problem. And then trying to hide it by photoshopping the photos.

As a sidenote, well done on the awning’s name, too. ‘Sunseeker’ for a roof awning, designed to be used in order to seek refuge from the sun. Whoops. But exactly how much does the SunSeeker awning weigh, I hear you ask? 10kg. That leaves you with 37 kg of total roof payload capacity, before you are overloaded.

So, let’s look back at our promotional and advertising material mentioned at the start. Let’s think about this for a moment.

There’s an eski up there on the roof rack. Let’s say 24 cans of beer, plus 5 kg of ice is 18kg. We’re already down to 19kg remaining to stow that big green bag, that black Pelican case (about 15kg empty), and so on, totalling 7 items, excluding the eski, on this promotional advertising image.

The Everest BaseCamp as depicted by Ford on its website, as I understand, is, by any reasonable estimation, substantially overloaded in these promotional images. And the owner’s manual states it can carry 100kg, which it cannot if you believe Rhino’s own ‘capability’ of its own racks.

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A warning to off-roading, adventuring brands

Loads don’t fuck around. Physics doesn’t care if you live or die. Neither in industry, or on a platform that’s designed to carry loads on light duty vehicles moving at 100km/h. 

It’s all fun and games until something goes wrong. It’s really important in these situations to get the details right. A 29kg roof rack hurtling through the air at 100km/h is not some idle mishap - it could kill someone.

BaseCamp: Before.

BaseCamp: After.

Getting on the wrong train, costs you some time and some of your dignity when you walk in late to a meeting.

But putting people into tightly coupled systems, with weight and acquired, stored energy requires diligence and strict attention to detail. Loads are not to be trifled with. Loads can kill.

The typical human skull cannot sustain the impact of a jerry can of fuel at 100km/h from behind. Not without serious traumatic injury.

This is a cavalier presentation Ford (and Rhino Rack) are taking here, frankly. They’re depicting a vehicle doing something it pretty clearly cannot and should not be. And for shame, instilling, perhaps in your head, that this kind of conduct is possible, when it is not.

And great work sorting out those pesky, complex consumer law compliance issues to your usual Ford Australia standards. Consistency is key, I guess. Obviously I’m not referring to individuals - just Ford Australia the company.

As for modifying the images in response to my report, you cannot just delete the offending elements from your marketing material, either. The numbers don’t lie and you are potentially deceiving the public by not fixing the conflict in your product.

A poor Photoshop re-rendering of your published images does not remove the danger of someone overloading their Everest BaseCamp’s Rhino roof rack and causing a serious crash or worse - getting somebody killed.

Fix the real problem, Ford and Rhino.

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