Gadgetory

Lincoln has the following task in front of it identifying an audience and letting them know the company exists let's see what their latest effort doing exactly those things is life as we drive the 2015 all-new Lincoln MKC and check the deck before you even see a Lincoln MKC you may smell one select Lincoln dealers that have a lot of these are going to have the Lincoln Cent sprayed around their showroom they worked with master perfumer Renee Morgan faller to develop this smell that is I'm told a combination of jasmine for a sense of well-being and green tea to relax you the look is very different the Lincoln faces come along I think to a very nice look it's not so deep and exaggerated as it was they also point to the tailgate being a very different look and style it's kind of like the Big Brother MKT and it's got this wraparound clamshell design that the escape does not have now inside rmk see a lot of familiar lincoln cues with some modifications you've got video animated needles on the tack and spin ometer even though the actual bezel with the markings is physical my Lincoln touch is familiar we've seen this system before it's the four zones that are communications navigation climate and media they've had a lot of knocks on this so let's see how the response is that was always the big gripe now as you can see this is a pretty responsive screen at this point it used to be real laggy they've moved things along to the screen and the response to your touches of it are much more crisp however if you want to drop back to voice of course you've got a good system there too please say a command find an address in California state a street address including the city 2:35 2nd Street San Francisco when ready press the voice button and then say set his destination or say changed something very good one phrase got it right off the bat didn't have to do a double-take whatsoever you've also got a lot of knobs and switches this is cutting back the other way from the last two model years you still have detent knobs here these went away for a while volume used to be this finger strip that hated here our little rocker switches for temperature and fan this is a car company learning lessons and applying them the map quality remains really good on this system it has been for some time and you've got a whole variety of options and abilities to tweak this this is one of the most configurable systems out there which is part of why they've had some problems with customer acceptance there is just almost too many settings screens like this don't do anything to instill confidence in people who are not tech forward I mean how many people know what dial-up network settings are for or query on connect status should be set to this should be buried like a body out in the desert outside Vegas the media choices are familiar AM and FM with HD radio sirius satellite radio optical disk is still here you have two USB ports not just one there is still no native app support in my Lincoln touch media streaming like Pandora or tune in will just have to hitch a ride on the more Universal bluetooth streaming selection our vehicle is hotted up with the THX audio as you can see with these speakers that are kind of carved up on top of the dash and the badges everywhere and I always applaud thx sound this remains perhaps my favorite sound system on the road some of the options you've got around there I'm pleased to say are pretty simple sound settings can be very complex this car cuts against the grain and has a pretty straightforward surround or not real simple how much speed compensation do you want and beyond that standard tone controls bass mid treble balance and fader I applaud the relative simplicity of that because no matter how far you crank it it never gets out of shape it keeps the ratio of bass mid-range and treble nicely measured together it just will not distort parking tech galore in this vehicle rear view camera is standard more than I can say for some of their imported competitors and it has trajectory and distance it does not have different views however but you are able to zoom in and get a really grainy look I just leave it where it is but more interestingly they have the self parking assist where you operate the pedals it operates the wheel but this is new it'll also get you out of a spot using the same technology which they say is useful if you get into a spot and then someone comes later and really boxes you in this car they say well know how to get out of that better than you do without scraping anyone's paint now of course Lincoln is struggling to find its place amidst a sea of Japanese American and German luxury car this one really goes for a lot of soft trim really comfortable seats I noticed that as soon as I got in this guy and this would tramp I'm still trying to figure out if it's fake or not it looks like the real deal as opposed to some plaster wood so they're taking a lot of pains to make this car look a cut above second row knee room is tight if you're sitting behind a 6-footer butt head and shoulder room seem pretty generous no third-row on this car up under the snout of our MKC is an interesting story it's not just its engine which is new but this is also a sneak peek of the new Mustang engine the 2.3 liter four-cylinder EcoBoost this is actually the bigger of the two engines the base engine on MKC would be a 2-liter EcoBoost for this of course has 300 cc's more and makes a lot of it 285 horsepower 305 pound-feet of torque front wheel drive on the lower engine or all-wheel drive if you get the 2.3 they're all all-wheel drive like the one we have here the power always goes out through a 6-speed automatic in all MKC configurations now this all-wheel drive guys all those 4,000 pounds gets to 60 in 7 seconds or so and the mileage is 1826 mpg not bad but it would've been nice to crack that thirty mark but of course the bigger engine and the heavier all-wheel drive vehicle doesn't help ahead of this engine by the way there are active grille shutters up here that will close up at freeway speeds to improve the aerodynamics when the car doesn't need that excessive amount of cooling air also interesting the 2.3 motor has 1,000 pound lower towing capacity than the 2 liter that's kind of counterintuitive a bear that in mind if you're gonna lug something around first thing you notice on the MKC is this a nice little engine I'm looking forward to it in the Mustang where it will almost certainly have a different tune but they're off to a good start this is a nice healthy feeling four cylinder then it's brought down I think a lot by its transmission I am NOT a fan of the transmission programming on this vehicle to me it's hit the paddle now get a shift tomorrow it's an incredibly sleepy gearbox maybe they did that on purpose to make the car come and not jarring but for the market they're aiming at people who are being cross shopped across outtie and some Acuras and infinities that's not the right thing the sport mode selector on the transmission can be configured by you to be sport power sport handling either or neither it does hold ships much longer but doesn't seem to make them any quicker all-wheel-drive MKC is get a continuously adaptive suspension impressive stuff in sport though the handling never gets aggressive if you want lincoln comfort the MKC is your huckleberry if you want an american x3 it ain't buy this car because you want to arrive refreshed not so much stimulated the lane departure tech is calibrated kind of late to my mind you're already in the other lane before it does anything and then it does guide you back in your lane kind of moderately and it also gives you a stick shaker it vibrates the wheel the blind spot techs not so interesting tiny little indicators on the mirror that I never even seen the forward collision technology will give you a bright LED bar in the windshield there it'll beep like it's gone nuts and it will pre charge the brakes so they really clamp on hard when you jump on them but it doesn't self brake to a stop the base price on a 2.3 liter MKC which is always all-wheel drive and includes adaptive suspension is a little under 41 I'm going for the reserved group at a little under 7000 primarily for the Vista roof navigation with good voice command blind spot Tech and the hands-free tailgate and more tech package is about 2200 for adaptive cruise forward collision with brake boost and that in and out parking assist along with the lane keeping tech I love thx audio thousand dollars a no-brainer so we're at just over 51 for the top-of-the-line MKC done our way what we end up with here is a vehicle that slots in between the very popular Cadillac SRX and of course outies q5 is a very strong inspiration for this vehicle too good benchmarks but Lincoln still has to figure out who they appeal to that everyone else hasn't already stayed down you