Ford EcoSport Ground Clearance: What to Know
2018 Ford Ecosport by Vauxford — CC BY-SA 4.0
After about 15 years of production in Brazil and 4 years across Europe and Asia, America finally got Ford’s EcoSport in 2017. Its size is closer to Ford’s next smallest offering, the Escape, but it is built on the same platform as the old Fiesta.
As the name implies, it offers good fuel efficiency for the class, though many other cars have caught up with it, so it is a pretty standard car for its segment. But one important feature where the EcoSport is above average among its peers is its ground clearance.
Even as a subcompact SUV, the EcoSport’s ground clearance is 7.8 inches off the ground, more in line with the larger compact class, and significantly higher than most hatchbacks or sedans. To understand what that means, we’ll discuss what can and can’t be done with an EcoSport and how that compares to similar cars.
What You Can Do with a Ford EcoSport
With the EcoSport’s ground clearance of 7.8 inches, you’re getting a pretty versatile machine that can handle any road life takes you down. Even if that road is bumpy and full of potholes, you shouldn’t have to worry about the car bottoming out just because the road isn’t perfectly flat.
Obviously, you shouldn’t be out looking for rough roads and driving into potholes, but the transmission, differential, fuel tank, and chassis on the bottom of the car should be safe if you do end up on roads in poor condition.
It should also be fine on dirt roads and grass. If you’ve ever been to a concert or fair with overflow parking on an unpaved patch of ground and had to park there in a small, low car, you know how annoying that can get.
With the EcoSport’s ground clearance, you don’t have to be stressed while you’re leaving the concrete. If you’re driving off the beaten path, you just have to look out for big rocks and shrubs, but that’s more than someone driving a small car could say.
With a car like an Alfa Romeo Giulia, which has about half the ground clearance of the EcoSport, you might just have to look for other parking since normal bumps in the dirt put your car at risk, let alone any small rocks.
Importantly, the EcoSport has a strong breakover angle. This is the maximum angle of a ramp that you can drive over before the peak of the ramp scrapes the bottom of the car. With a short wheelbase and a fairly high ground clearance, you can drive up a pretty steep ramp without bottoming out in the EcoSport.
It should even be able to handle a ramp of up to 32% slope. This is steeper than most any ramp you’ll encounter, but it is better to be on the safe side. Meanwhile, the Giulia mentioned earlier could only handle a 16% slope without scraping the undercarriage. While not common, this kind of slope is not unheard of in a covered parking garage.
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What Can’t You Do in a Ford EcoSport
The EcoSport is great on the road with solid performance and fuel efficiency, but that sportiness doesn’t translate to off-roading very well. While the 7.8 inches of ground clearance offer it the versatility to take on grass fields and dirt roads, the EcoSport does not have a high enough ride for climbing over boulders and up steep hills like a true off-road SUV.
It also doesn’t have the most powerful engine, with only 123 horsepower on the base model. The 3-cylinder engine and front-wheel drive on the base model EcoSport provide you with plenty of zip on the road, but they aren’t conducive to driving on rough terrain. Even with the available all-wheel drive and 166-horsepower 4-cylinder engine, the EcoSport is not the most powerful car.
On top of that, the suspension is designed for smooth, sporty performance on the road; its not ideal for driving on rougher paths, especially ones with large rocks (even if they can fit underneath the car). So, if you do want to take your EcoSport off the road, you should stick to the smoothest ones possible with the least incline. You also shouldn’t go anywhere off the road before making sure your tires have plenty of tread to grip the unpaved surface.
You also can’t do off-road activities like mudding in an EcoSport, as that requires a very high ride and big wheels to keep the car from sinking into the mud, plus a powerful engine with plenty of torque to get out of any sticky situations.
The stock 16-inch wheels on the EcoSport won’t have enough surface area from keeping your car from sinking down into the mud where you’ll have to get towed out or just say goodbye to your new car. The EcoSport also doesn’t come with a rating for fording height, so you can assume that crossing any creeks or streams is a no-go in this subcompact, even with 7.8 inches of ground clearance.
Even if it is high enough to keep the engine components out of the water, it is very unsafe to drive through moving water that could wash your car away with surprising ease. So while this is a versatile car, it should stay on the road as much as possible.
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How Does it Compare to the Competition?
The EcoSport’s ground clearance is above average for the subcompact SUV class. Cars like the Honda HR-V, Kia Soul, Chevy Trailblazer, Chevy Trax, Buick Encore, Toyota CHR, MINI Countryman, and Mazda CX-30 all have under 7 inches of ground clearance.
This might be good for handling, but it does limit their versatility. Meanwhile, there are similar cars with higher ground clearance like the Jeep Renegade and Subaru Crosstrek (8.7 inches), Mitsubishi Outlander Sport (8.5 inches), Nissan Kicks (8 inches), and Fiat 500X (7.9 inches). And while they are made on different platforms, the EcoSport has the same ground clearance as its fellow Ford crossover SUVs, the Escape and the Edge.
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