Ford Everest vs GWM Tank 300

The Everest for the family brief. Its 3,500kg tow rating, 855kg payload, seven-seat option and 898-litre boot make it the more capable family instrument, and the V6 option gives it an answer the Tank never offers. The Tank 300 for the budget brief: $47,990 driveaway against $60,000 on August 2026 pricing, a seven-year warranty against five, and an equipment list at Lux level the Everest Active cannot match. Both carry five-star ANCAP ratings and near-identical off-road geometry, which is what makes this a real decision. If a caravan or a third row is anywhere in the plan, the Ford settles it; if neither is, the GWM's sums are hard to argue with.

The Everest, on every line. It is rated to 3,500kg braked against the Tank 300's 3,000kg, publishes a 350kg tow-ball limit the GWM doesn't in our data, carries an 855kg payload to the Tank's 600kg, and holds a 6,250kg gross combination mass against 5,580kg. That last pair is the one van owners should read twice: hitched to a full-weight trailer, the Everest keeps 255kg more people-and-gear margin before the combined ceiling bites. The Tank's 3,000kg rating is honest for the class and covers most camper trailers and boats. But this theme is the Everest's core business, and it wins it comfortably.

Both wear tested five-star ANCAP ratings, which makes this one of the fairer safety match-ups in the class. The pillars split in interesting ways: the Everest leads on child occupant protection at 93 per cent to 89 and edges safety assist 86 to 85, while the Tank 300 leads on adult occupant protection at 88 per cent to 86 and on vulnerable road user protection at 81 to 74. The Ford carries nine airbags to the GWM's seven; the Tank counters with a standard driver attention monitor and automatic high beam the entry Everest lacks. Families weighting the child-seat rows lean Ford; buyers weighting pedestrian outcomes lean GWM. Neither answer is wrong.

Base against base, the Tank leads. Its 2.4-litre turbo-diesel makes 135kW and 480Nm against the Everest's new 125kW, 405Nm single-turbo, which replaced the more powerful bi-turbo for MY26.5. The ladders diverge from there. The Everest offers its 184kW, 600Nm 3.0-litre V6 on every grade for roughly $7,000 over the four-cylinder, the tow-and-tour engine this segment loves. The Tank's escalation is electric: the Hi4-T plug-in hybrid makes a combined 300kW and 750Nm from $56,990 driveaway, claiming 1.9L/100km on the plug-in test cycle. Diesel pragmatists pick the Ford's V6; early adopters wanting the most muscle per dollar look hard at the plug-in GWM.

This is closer than the badges suggest. Both wade 800mm, both fit a locking rear differential, and the geometry is nearly interchangeable: the Everest approaches at 30.4 degrees to the Tank's 29, departs at 25.3 to 25, and clears 229mm to 224. The Tank adds standard crawl control; the Everest answers with terrain modes and hill descent control, plus the Tremor grade with Bilstein position-sensitive dampers, all-terrains and a rock-crawl mode for buyers who want the factory-built version of serious. The Tank's PHEV carries its torque instantly off idle, which off-road drivers rate. Call the standard cars a tie and let the special versions break it.

The structural terms favour the GWM: a seven-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty with seven years of roadside assistance, against five years of cover on the Ford. Tank 300 servicing runs 12-month, 15,000km intervals at a capped $500 a visit, about $2,500 over five years. Ford had not published MY26.5 Everest service pricing at the time of our last check, so we won't quote its servicing costs until it does. On fuel, the Everest's base 2.0-litre claims 7.1L/100km to the Tank diesel's 7.8, both from 80-litre tanks, and the Tank PHEV's 1.9L/100km claim rewrites the equation for short-commute owners who plug in. The seven-year promise is the line to remember.

Only in the Ford. The Everest Active carries five seats standard with a $1,350 seven-seat option on August 2026 pricing, and the Sport, Tremor and Platinum grades carry the third row as standard, with the Tremor able to delete it at no cost for gear space. Every Tank 300 seats five, full stop, with no third-row option at any grade or price. The Everest also publishes the bigger cargo story: 898 litres behind the second row and 1,823 with everything folded, measured to the roof. A family that needs even occasional third-row seating has one candidate here, and it wears the blue oval.

The ladders barely overlap on August 2026 driveaway pricing. The Tank 300 runs $47,990 for the Lux diesel, $49,990 for the Ultra petrol, $51,990 for the Ultra diesel, and $56,990 to $60,990 for the two plug-in hybrids. The Everest opens at $60,000 for the Active 2.0-litre on Ford's advertised driveaway pricing and climbs through Sport, Tremor and Wildtrak to $92,114 for the Platinum V6. In other words, the dearest Tank costs about the same as the cheapest Everest. Sweet spots: the Tank Lux diesel already carries the full equipment case, while the Everest Sport V6 at $84,394 is the towing family's proper answer.

On the published terms, yes. GWM covers the Tank 300 for seven years with unlimited kilometres and matches it with seven years of roadside assistance, among the longest standard packages in the class. Ford's Everest warranty runs five years and unlimited kilometres, with roadside assistance structured around servicing activation rather than a long standard term. Two years of extra factory cover is real money on a purchase this size, and it is central to how GWM sells against the establishment. Ford's counterargument is its dealer network's size and the Everest's resale record, neither of which fits in a warranty table but both of which count over seven years.