Well, it finally arrived! We are now the proud owners of our 2015 Explorer Sport! We picked it up from the dealer on friday evening. Before I get started let me just say that these opinions are my own, and I know that opinions vary, but I feel that I should share my experience so far. First I would like to thank Crystal, the Ford Rep on this forum, for all of her help giving us tracking information from the day we ordered it to the time it arrived at the dealer. She responded to EVERY PM we sent her in a very timely manner and was a great help to us during the wait. Second, I would like to thank Tarver Ford in Sulphur, Louisiana for their part in this. Their motto is: "Give Us a Chance to Earn your Business". I walked in expecting to have to fight tooth and nail for the price that I wanted. It was the exact opposite. I sat down with the Sales Manager and we discussed exactly how we wanted our Explorer built, pricing, available rebates, and what Tarver Ford offered after the sale. We had done tons of research, not only on the Explorer itself, but on fair pricing for the packages we wanted. Its very rare when you close a deal on a vehicle and you don't feel like you've been beat over the head with a bag of nickels. Yes, they made money, but I saved money too. The Sales Manager even gave us credit for a rebate that I had recieved in the mail that had the wrong address on it, which he didn't have to do. In short, I got a great deal without a fight, and Tarver Ford offers FREE oil changes and inspection stickers for the LIFE OF THE VEHICLE to the original owner. And finally third, our explorer arrived in flawless condition. So far, we have about 500 miles on it, both highway and city driving, and I have never been more impressed with the performance and capability of a vehicle. We have experienced zero problems with any of the systems, and zero problems with any of the issues that have been reported on this forum. I had a chance to put the adaptive cruise control through the paces last night in interstate traffic, and I have to say I LOVE it. It allows you to turn your full attention to the traffic around you without the hassle of braking and resetting your cruise control every time you encounter slower traffic. We even got to experience the collision warning system the day before when a vehicle backed onto the road just ahead of us. Lots of posts on here talk about the headlights on this vehicle not being up to par, but, in my opinion, they are just fine. We also own a 2004 Mustang that has HORRIBLE headlights, so I know what bad headlights are.
We installed two small blind spot mirrors to aid in seeing vehicles in the blind spots, which helps. The Blind Spot warning system however, does a good job of letting you know whats there. I noticed that the warning light comes on just as you loose visual in the mirror of the vehicle that is along side of you. The nav system performed flawlessly getting us to a location that was hard to find, and the MFT screen didn't miss a beat switching back and forth while my wife "Played" with everything along the way. Again, in short, our Ford Explorer is exactly the vehicle we were hoping for, and exactly the vehicle that fits our needs. We are looking forward to seeing how it performs in the heavy rains we have in Louisiana, because our Mustang is HORRIBLE in the rain. More updates to follow.
