Need to bump this up as there has been a lot of progress lately.
First off a HATE note for the Expedition.
2023 Expedition
Limited
26k miles
Honestly this thing felt like it had 126k miles. I know that's the whole "rental" thing but IMO there is also a lack of quality here.
Here is the wear and tear that I think is unacceptable:
The paint was starting to FADE in all plastic painted pieces
The front seat was torn from wear
Center console chrome was bubbling off
The steering wheel was shiny and looked worse than on my 80k golf. (maybe rental dirt?) but my IX with the same miles is completely fine.
The cars suspension + the way bumps resonated through the cabin sounded like shit. There were many rattles in each one of the seat rows etc.
lets start with the positives since there aren't many:
+Engine was good matter of fact it was great. It was smooth AF. All the power is at 2000-2500rpm and the turbo whistles like a school bus. Kind of fun.
+The brakes for a car this big are surprisingly decent as well
+The car had 3 usable rows, as a resident line backer I could fit in all 3 rows... yes ALL 3, comfortably. Although I had limited headroom in the 3rd.
+The center screen was pretty high res
+The car still had physical controls for HVAC.
+Turning radius was better in than in my IX which was shocking
+Ergonomics were good, everything was pretty much where you'd expect it.
-Mpg was fucking abysmal. 16.5 miles in my driving, and the 23 gallon tank doesn't really have a long range here. What's the point of going TT when it does absolutely JACK SHIT to fuel economy. I got just about the same in the 6.2 Doomed caddy
-The 10 speed is not good, it's not a complete pile of shit but it just isn't GOOD. On the freeway on light throttle you go from 10th to 8th to keep up with traffic, to accelerate and pass it shifts down to 6th. And we're not talking like 4k rpm overtake... we're talking like 2500-3000rpm. 4 Gear downshift for a simple maneuver is just STUPID. There are TOO MANY GEARS.
-The steering was shit, yes that's a big SUV thing but it was just bad... it felt like 6 turns lock to lock.. no idea what the actual number is... but you're scissoring around the parking lots like crazy
-The TECH.. Jesus I could write a book here. Compared to Idrive this is HOT SMOKING GARBAGE. You can't use the screen while driving when it comes to entering addresses and it's absolutely impossible to get the voice command to work. CARPLAY is ok, but something about it doesn't work right either and the intra drive prompt were not great. The native system IS NOT USABLE. Unlike in my BMW where I prefer it to the CarPlay.
-The car only came with a backup camera at 70k... it was maybe comprised of 100 pixels. An absolute joke how is that acceptable on a family SUV in 2023... It needs cameras to park etc without parking feel.
-The blind spot behind the driver is really bad... and the passenger handle further hampers visibility. And the blind spot monitoring lags and works very poorly.
-The AC system is not fit for a state like Arizona... it works but it doesn't work great IMO. It needs to be superior to cool down this house.
-The "bang Olufsen" stereo is just that in name only. It sounded worse than the stock non HK stereo in my BMW I4. An absolute joke to put this name on this stereo. It clearly has nothing to do with a high end danish brand. And no one from that country touched it.
Honestly before this, I would recommend ford to some... and I even considered some fords... But after the experience I cannot possibly recommend this car to anyone... let alone this brand...
It is a solid 2/7. The only reason a point was added was for the engine which IMO is still a peach. The rest of this car is garbage.
, CUVs, and minivans.
