2016 Sport review after 1300 miles | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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2016 Sport review after 1300 miles

FordShelby

Member
Joined
September 4, 2015
Messages
40
Reaction score
3
City, State
Blue Ridge mtns VA
Year, Model & Trim Level
2016 Sport
I'll give my version of a short review after owning this vehicle long enough to drive it around town and also a 600 mile trip.
To preface the summary, this thing is an absolute pleasure to drive. I cant believe how smooth and responsive it is considering its size.
This thing is NOT under powered anywhere or in any of the many circumstances you find yourself in while driving on the highway.
The ride is incredible and the road noise is extremely low. I was very impressed while passing 18 wheelers at 75mph how quiet the cabin was.
For the recent trip which included mostly highway miles but did have a fair amount of city driving we ended up with 20.48 mpg calculated by hand and not the onboard economy meter. Keep in mind this is in SW VA and NC so we are all over the blue ridge mountains.
Even at 55-60 mph, the transmission doesnt shift itself to death since the engine has enough power as you're in and out of curves and hills.
While driving at night, the front of this thing has more than enough lighting to be extremely comfortable when it's dark.
The adaptive cruise works really well but definitely takes a bit of acclimation. It senses how rapidly you're approaching the vehicle in front of you and will actually slow you down pretty darn quickly. If you're slowly approaching traffic in front of you that is traveling at a speed slightly slower than you are then you can hardly feel it at work and the distance is perfect.
If I had to point out a small negative, I would say the tunnels in the floorboard seem to restrict my feet positioning slightly.
And by far the most epic fail of all is the fact that we cant get text messaging b/c we have iPhones. To me, this is the most foolish miss of all. How many iPhones are out there?? And Ford wont support SMS messaging for them?
Anyway, my two cents on the Explorer Sport and while we paid a lot of money for this thing, we are NOT disappointed.
 



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Both my wife's 13' sport and my 11' f150 gets text messages with iPhones.
 






I'll give my version of a short review after owning this vehicle long enough to drive it around town and also a 600 mile trip.
To preface the summary, this thing is an absolute pleasure to drive. I cant believe how smooth and responsive it is considering its size.
This thing is NOT under powered anywhere or in any of the many circumstances you find yourself in while driving on the highway.
The ride is incredible and the road noise is extremely low. I was very impressed while passing 18 wheelers at 75mph how quiet the cabin was.
For the recent trip which included mostly highway miles but did have a fair amount of city driving we ended up with 20.48 mpg calculated by hand and not the onboard economy meter. Keep in mind this is in SW VA and NC so we are all over the blue ridge mountains.
Even at 55-60 mph, the transmission doesnt shift itself to death since the engine has enough power as you're in and out of curves and hills.
While driving at night, the front of this thing has more than enough lighting to be extremely comfortable when it's dark.
The adaptive cruise works really well but definitely takes a bit of acclimation. It senses how rapidly you're approaching the vehicle in front of you and will actually slow you down pretty darn quickly. If you're slowly approaching traffic in front of you that is traveling at a speed slightly slower than you are then you can hardly feel it at work and the distance is perfect.
If I had to point out a small negative, I would say the tunnels in the floorboard seem to restrict my feet positioning slightly.
And by far the most epic fail of all is the fact that we cant get text messaging b/c we have iPhones. To me, this is the most foolish miss of all. How many iPhones are out there?? And Ford wont support SMS messaging for them?
Anyway, my two cents on the Explorer Sport and while we paid a lot of money for this thing, we are NOT disappointed.

My iPhone 6 is getting text messages through MyFordTouch.

Have you turned on "Show Notifications" in the phones bluetooth setup?
 






I'm also able to have my messages read to me with MFT. I'm using an iPhone 6 with IOS9 and MFT version 3.8 on my 2016 Sport.
 






I'm glad I complained! I'll definitely give this a try and report back.
We gave up b/c when you check to see the compatible phones it only list the iPhone 5 or 5s, I cant remember which one, so we just gave up trying.
 






My brothers new Tahoe couldn't get iPhone 6 Plus text until you turned on notifications on the phone.
 






As long as you turn on notifications as others have said it should work just fine. I get texts on both of our fords from my 6.
 






There are some Android phones MFT 3.6.2 is not compatible with.

On my old HTC Sensation I could stream and do calls, but it didn't show the song title or read texts.

However, I installed an app on the phone that read the texts.

Now I have a new Android that is compatible with MFT 3.6.2 and displays the song and reads the texst, but I disabled the MFT text read and still use the app. The MFT reads the text awful fast and only once. The app always you to set how many times you want the text read and it speaks more slowly. I have it read out loud twice.
 












Android Phone

When we first got our Explorer, I had a Windows 8 phone (yes, one of the few, but I actually really liked it) and Sync would read an incoming text, but then it would let me verbally dictate a response text and even read it back to me before sending. I no longer have this feature with my HTC One Android Phone and have been going crazy checking all my settings.

Maybe this was a feature with the compatibility of the Windows 8 Phone and Sync since they are both Microsoft products, but was wondering if anyone knew if this was a settings issue with my Android phone. It was real nice feature especially on long trips.
 






When we first got our Explorer, I had a Windows 8 phone (yes, one of the few, but I actually really liked it) and Sync would read an incoming text, but then it would let me verbally dictate a response text and even read it back to me before sending. I no longer have this feature with my HTC One Android Phone and have been going crazy checking all my settings.

Maybe this was a feature with the compatibility of the Windows 8 Phone and Sync since they are both Microsoft products, but was wondering if anyone knew if this was a settings issue with my Android phone. It was real nice feature especially on long trips.

You're correct

There were a bunch of features that were released in the original version of MFT that got dropped when all hell broke loose and stability was the only feature anyone wanted.

You used to get emails on MFT too.
 






You're correct

There were a bunch of features that were released in the original version of MFT that got dropped when all hell broke loose and stability was the only feature anyone wanted.

You used to get emails on MFT too.

Thanks Sgt.

Too bad, it was nice to have.
 






You're correct

There were a bunch of features that were released in the original version of MFT that got dropped when all hell broke loose and stability was the only feature anyone wanted.

You used to get emails on MFT too.

I assume you can do this with iOS, but all these features are available with Android lollipop as long as Bluetooth is connected where the Ex Bluetooth mic then goes to your phone for voice commands.

I have my phone in a Panavise cradle next to the MFT.

I just say "Ok Google, email to so and so". Or "call so and so". Or "text so and so". Or "navigate to so and so location".

Google Now does it all for you.

eCID app allows received texts, emails and calendar events to be read over your speakers on Bluetooth.
 






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