Festival Of Mud – Off-Road With 5 SUVs
The reversing challenge tested the visibility of these large SUVs
Reversing Challenge – While off-roading, you do need to reverse a lot and that is why we included this challenge in the test. The main idea of this challenge is to test every SUV’s outward visibility, ORVMs, ease of reversing on paths, etc. The started off the challenge with the Endeavour which really impressed me with its light steering, huge mirrors and the crisp rear camera. Sure, the pillars are thick and limit the visibility to a slight extent but otherwise, the Endy is easy to reverse, despite being the biggest SUV here.
This test showed us the importance of a high quality reverse camera
The Discovery Sport had a really dirty camera due to all the muck and it doesn’t get a camera washer, unlike its more expensive siblings. Nonetheless, the Discovery has good visibility but the steering is a tad heavy. In comparison, the Harrier offers slightly lesser visibility due to the D-pillars but it boasts of very large ORVMs. However, the quality of the Harrier’s reverse camera does feel below-par. Renault updated the Duster recently and now the AWD is offered on the RxS trim which means it misses out on a rear camera, rear wiper and front fog lamps! Due to this, reversing the Duster was tricky even though it is the smallest in size over here. The Scorpio has a high driving position and that coupled with the thin pillars means it offers excellent visibility but slotting into reverse itself is a bit difficult!