The Abu Dhabi Edge!
Discussion
So I think it's fair to start with a bit of background. In October 2020 I upped-sticks with my wife, 2 kids and s
t-zu and moved 4700 miles away to Abu Dhabi. It happened a bit quick we pretty much had 2 weeks to pack up, move things to storage, arrange the dog flying over, sell the wifes 3 year old sportage and get our house ready to rent. I've retained my 'banger' as I have somewhere to store it and it makes a good car for when we eventually make it home.
After 2 weeks quarantine in the UAE we where kindly lent a car but one of the wife's colleagues (who we had never met!)
Car no1 was a Mitsubishi Lancer, around a 2007 model it was good and got us around but we quickly got our own rental. Nothing major happened with the lancer but I did suffer a blowout right by the emirates palace, had to cross 4 lanes of traffic with no tyre left, with the location the security quickly arrived, they saw the issue and let us park up and wait for the tow truck!
Car no2 - We rented a Nissan Sunny, the cheapest saloon car Abu Dhabi has to offer, but when we collected it they gave us a Nissan Sentra, I didnt think too much of it but it was a great car, we stuck 20k on that bad boy over the next 4 months, it ticked all the box's but the auto gearbox was crap.
Car no3 - We got a call from the rental company, the car we where paying for (Nissan Sunny) Was back in stock, can they come and swap it. Now they told us it was the brand new model which I was happy with, but then they dropped off a brand new old model. Oh well you can't always win right?
So what had we actually been paying for all this time, The Nissan Sunny, I would call it the ford fiesta of the UAE, you can see them everywhere, normally in poverty spec white, wheel trims and designed to look awful as standard. I have actually saw one with a sort of sports trim. In terms of quality and performance, I will put it on par with my 2003 fiesta, it's sluggish and has really bad turbo lag, the gearbox identifies as a confused teapot, you're either doing 5000rpm or are sittng at 1200 waiting for the turbo to do nothing.
Now the Sunny was ok, but had some major flaws for us, windy windows in the back, no air-con in the back (in Abu Dhabi) so we started looking at options.
The Sunny was costing us around £300 per month all in, we could upgrade to the Sentra or a Renualt Duster for around £80 more a month, but we opted to buy.
So the requirements, We initially said one fun car and one family car, the family car was to come first. The requirements list
- Big & safe
- Aircon in the rear
- Electric windows all round
- Gearbox understands it's a gearbox
- No leather seats
Now I had already accepted I would get the family car, the wife works like 2km from home so when we get something fun, she would have it for the smaller commute. I'm around a 20 minute drive away for work.
With this in mind I had already taken a liking to the ford edge, 2014-2016 model in spot trim. She is pretty easy on cars aslong as it fits the budget.
We first went to a large used car supermarket, they had 3 edge's there, the red sport on a 2014, and two 2017's but pricing was a little high. So we took a friends advice and went to motor-world. Now motorworld is a designated used car village, i'd say it has around 50 used car lots there, and online photos look great...
Now to give you an idea of the scale of motorworld, here's google maps finest.
So we arrived, and the best way to describe it is 'the driving dead', loads of brand new cars, either low budget (Sunny's) OR big ass jeeps. All covered in sand and no identifiable dealerships or salesmen. We drove down each road and the higher we went the more we agreed it wasnt where we wanted to purchase a car.
We went back to the first dalership, happy to pay the premium to see a nice clean car, speak to a salesman and have some warranty we trusted. We ruled out the red sport as it was expensive for a 2014, but we test drove the 3.5 v6 2017 and the wife loved it. After looking through their inventory we found a nice grey one, 2017 with around 40k on the clock for less than the dealership had their two. We paid a deposit and waited for them to bring it from Sharjah.
And we waited... The buying process took just over 2 weeks in total, after the first few days we went to view the car, it was perfect, original paint, one small door ding, lower bumper dented but they would fix that. We ordered the tints and had to go back and do more paperwork, then we chased for 4-5 days with no date given, I said we would take the car as is, fix bumper myself and get it tinted ourselves, it was ready for 6:30pm that day funnily enough,
So what did we end up with?
It's a 2017 3.5 V6 Ford Edge, around 45k miles, USA Spec with cloth seats, reverse camera / bluetooth etc.
Initial thoughts, it's great to be back in a half decent car, really nice and smooth, for a large car it shifts, not great on fuel but we're in the right place for that!
t-zu and moved 4700 miles away to Abu Dhabi. It happened a bit quick we pretty much had 2 weeks to pack up, move things to storage, arrange the dog flying over, sell the wifes 3 year old sportage and get our house ready to rent. I've retained my 'banger' as I have somewhere to store it and it makes a good car for when we eventually make it home.After 2 weeks quarantine in the UAE we where kindly lent a car but one of the wife's colleagues (who we had never met!)
Car no1 was a Mitsubishi Lancer, around a 2007 model it was good and got us around but we quickly got our own rental. Nothing major happened with the lancer but I did suffer a blowout right by the emirates palace, had to cross 4 lanes of traffic with no tyre left, with the location the security quickly arrived, they saw the issue and let us park up and wait for the tow truck!
Car no2 - We rented a Nissan Sunny, the cheapest saloon car Abu Dhabi has to offer, but when we collected it they gave us a Nissan Sentra, I didnt think too much of it but it was a great car, we stuck 20k on that bad boy over the next 4 months, it ticked all the box's but the auto gearbox was crap.
Car no3 - We got a call from the rental company, the car we where paying for (Nissan Sunny) Was back in stock, can they come and swap it. Now they told us it was the brand new model which I was happy with, but then they dropped off a brand new old model. Oh well you can't always win right?
So what had we actually been paying for all this time, The Nissan Sunny, I would call it the ford fiesta of the UAE, you can see them everywhere, normally in poverty spec white, wheel trims and designed to look awful as standard. I have actually saw one with a sort of sports trim. In terms of quality and performance, I will put it on par with my 2003 fiesta, it's sluggish and has really bad turbo lag, the gearbox identifies as a confused teapot, you're either doing 5000rpm or are sittng at 1200 waiting for the turbo to do nothing.
Now the Sunny was ok, but had some major flaws for us, windy windows in the back, no air-con in the back (in Abu Dhabi) so we started looking at options.
The Sunny was costing us around £300 per month all in, we could upgrade to the Sentra or a Renualt Duster for around £80 more a month, but we opted to buy.
So the requirements, We initially said one fun car and one family car, the family car was to come first. The requirements list
- Big & safe
- Aircon in the rear
- Electric windows all round
- Gearbox understands it's a gearbox
- No leather seats
Now I had already accepted I would get the family car, the wife works like 2km from home so when we get something fun, she would have it for the smaller commute. I'm around a 20 minute drive away for work.
With this in mind I had already taken a liking to the ford edge, 2014-2016 model in spot trim. She is pretty easy on cars aslong as it fits the budget.
We first went to a large used car supermarket, they had 3 edge's there, the red sport on a 2014, and two 2017's but pricing was a little high. So we took a friends advice and went to motor-world. Now motorworld is a designated used car village, i'd say it has around 50 used car lots there, and online photos look great...
Now to give you an idea of the scale of motorworld, here's google maps finest.
So we arrived, and the best way to describe it is 'the driving dead', loads of brand new cars, either low budget (Sunny's) OR big ass jeeps. All covered in sand and no identifiable dealerships or salesmen. We drove down each road and the higher we went the more we agreed it wasnt where we wanted to purchase a car.
We went back to the first dalership, happy to pay the premium to see a nice clean car, speak to a salesman and have some warranty we trusted. We ruled out the red sport as it was expensive for a 2014, but we test drove the 3.5 v6 2017 and the wife loved it. After looking through their inventory we found a nice grey one, 2017 with around 40k on the clock for less than the dealership had their two. We paid a deposit and waited for them to bring it from Sharjah.
And we waited... The buying process took just over 2 weeks in total, after the first few days we went to view the car, it was perfect, original paint, one small door ding, lower bumper dented but they would fix that. We ordered the tints and had to go back and do more paperwork, then we chased for 4-5 days with no date given, I said we would take the car as is, fix bumper myself and get it tinted ourselves, it was ready for 6:30pm that day funnily enough,
So what did we end up with?
It's a 2017 3.5 V6 Ford Edge, around 45k miles, USA Spec with cloth seats, reverse camera / bluetooth etc.
Initial thoughts, it's great to be back in a half decent car, really nice and smooth, for a large car it shifts, not great on fuel but we're in the right place for that!
Definitely the sort of place you don't want a small car! Having worked in Saudi and spent time in the UAE and surrounding nations I wouldn't drive anything smaller than what you have got, I was provided with a 2015 Suburban fortunately.
I do like the look of the EDGE, it's very "American" when you see one on UK roads.
I remember renting a car to do a 3 hour trip to the airport when in Saudi, I rented an automatic Hyundai i10 and have never been so scared in all my life!
Been looking at trying to get a job back in the UAE but no such luck yet!
I do like the look of the EDGE, it's very "American" when you see one on UK roads.
I remember renting a car to do a 3 hour trip to the airport when in Saudi, I rented an automatic Hyundai i10 and have never been so scared in all my life!
Been looking at trying to get a job back in the UAE but no such luck yet!
We had a Ford Edge for 2 years when I lived in Florida, and it was great, did everything we needed it to do for the time were there, was really handy when people came to visit, managed to get 4 full size suitcases in the boot, plus 4 carry on bags and then the 5 passengers. I really enjoyed my time in that car, made the long trips we did a pleasure, considering getting one here in the UK next year.
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