Ridetherock
Active Member
- Joined
- September 23, 2013
- Messages
- 56
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Edmonton, Alberta
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2014 Explorer Sport.
After picking up my new '14 exp sport Thursday, I set off on a 1300km road trip over the weekend. Here are a few thoughts. (Note this is with winter tires on).
First off, Over all I am quite happy with the vehicle. I traded in an 09 Toyota rav4 v6 limited, which was a quick scoot for an SUV. I had tested an exp limited before ordering the sport and knew right away I would need the sport to be happy with the performance. The limited was just to relaxed.
Mine is ruby red and loaded except for the rear seat DVD which I have no use for. It took about 9 weeks from order to taking delivery in northern Alberta, longer than the 4-6 weeks my dealer told me. Admittedly I fell for that as I had not ordered a vehicle before and had no idea how long it really took to get one built.
Power - love it. Still taking it easy on her, but a few stabs at the accelerator put a grin on my face. This thing is quicker than it should be, esp in an roll on from 80 kph or so. Roll on the throttle and it just surges forward on a wave of torque, and under the right conditions you can hear the turbos spool up. Love it.
Comfort/ride - no complaints. Seats feel good, lots of adjustment in everything for my liking. The ride is sporty comfortable and not nearly as harsh as I was expecting. Tons of room compared to my rav.
Handling - even with winter tires the handling is great. Much less body roll than I was expecting, esp considering the ride comfort. It turns "right now". Can't wait till the spring when I get to put the 20's back on and give it a good test on better road conditions. The police must love their boosted interceptors.
Gas mileage - window sticker says 9.1 L/100km (31 mpg cdn) and I'm seeing 10.2-10.4 L/100km (27 ish mpg cdn) with the cruise set at 100. Considering its winter conditions, with winter tires and that she still needs to loosen up, I think the sticker rating will be achievable in the warmer seasons with the 20's back on her. This is also only a few mpg worst than the v6 rav, which is great considering the size/weight/power increase over that vehicle.
MFT/stereo/nav. Sound wise no real complaints. At first I did not really like it, but I've discovered the sony system is much more sensitive to the quality of your mp3's (and sat radio compression) than the jbl setup was in the rav. Good source = good music. At some point over the weekend the MFT forgot some of its settings. I was driving along and realized the ambient lighting had returned to stock, as has a few other settings. Audio settings were not affected. NAV, have to admit the nav is not impressing me. It's my first vehicle with built in nav, so many none of them compare to a stand alone unit (I have a garmin), but this thing made to many errors this weekend for my liking, ie it would shift my location a street or two, to the right of where I really was, or I would be driving along side a park and the nav would show me driving through the park it's self, off route, which would confuse it further. I also find the voice sounds like a man trying to sound like a woman lol. I thing I will keep my garmin in the car as a backup for now.
Finally, lighting. Only the penny punchers at ford will know why this thing does not have hid's. I had the lighting upgraded in the rav and I am not liking the dull halogens in this rig. Shame really as I feel the headlights are letting this vehicle down, esp after driving the limited with its hid's at night. I have two morimoto hid kits ready to install in her as soon as I can get the daytime running lights reprogrammed. My dealer seems unwilling to do it, however over the weekend I visited several larger dealers in another city where I am moving to after Xmas, and in a conversation with a parts guy there, it looks like I have found a dealer that will do it (pending a convo with the shop Forman when I move down and have time to confirm they will), or if that falls through, a lead on a few non dealer shops who have the ford vcm ids setup and should be only to happy to do it for a small fee of course. In the meantime I'm going to find the brightest set of halogens I can get my hands on and throw in her.
That's about it. My Toyota friends have been razzing me pretty hard for buying a ford. Let's hope the thing holds together.
First off, Over all I am quite happy with the vehicle. I traded in an 09 Toyota rav4 v6 limited, which was a quick scoot for an SUV. I had tested an exp limited before ordering the sport and knew right away I would need the sport to be happy with the performance. The limited was just to relaxed.
Mine is ruby red and loaded except for the rear seat DVD which I have no use for. It took about 9 weeks from order to taking delivery in northern Alberta, longer than the 4-6 weeks my dealer told me. Admittedly I fell for that as I had not ordered a vehicle before and had no idea how long it really took to get one built.
Power - love it. Still taking it easy on her, but a few stabs at the accelerator put a grin on my face. This thing is quicker than it should be, esp in an roll on from 80 kph or so. Roll on the throttle and it just surges forward on a wave of torque, and under the right conditions you can hear the turbos spool up. Love it.
Comfort/ride - no complaints. Seats feel good, lots of adjustment in everything for my liking. The ride is sporty comfortable and not nearly as harsh as I was expecting. Tons of room compared to my rav.
Handling - even with winter tires the handling is great. Much less body roll than I was expecting, esp considering the ride comfort. It turns "right now". Can't wait till the spring when I get to put the 20's back on and give it a good test on better road conditions. The police must love their boosted interceptors.
Gas mileage - window sticker says 9.1 L/100km (31 mpg cdn) and I'm seeing 10.2-10.4 L/100km (27 ish mpg cdn) with the cruise set at 100. Considering its winter conditions, with winter tires and that she still needs to loosen up, I think the sticker rating will be achievable in the warmer seasons with the 20's back on her. This is also only a few mpg worst than the v6 rav, which is great considering the size/weight/power increase over that vehicle.
MFT/stereo/nav. Sound wise no real complaints. At first I did not really like it, but I've discovered the sony system is much more sensitive to the quality of your mp3's (and sat radio compression) than the jbl setup was in the rav. Good source = good music. At some point over the weekend the MFT forgot some of its settings. I was driving along and realized the ambient lighting had returned to stock, as has a few other settings. Audio settings were not affected. NAV, have to admit the nav is not impressing me. It's my first vehicle with built in nav, so many none of them compare to a stand alone unit (I have a garmin), but this thing made to many errors this weekend for my liking, ie it would shift my location a street or two, to the right of where I really was, or I would be driving along side a park and the nav would show me driving through the park it's self, off route, which would confuse it further. I also find the voice sounds like a man trying to sound like a woman lol. I thing I will keep my garmin in the car as a backup for now.
Finally, lighting. Only the penny punchers at ford will know why this thing does not have hid's. I had the lighting upgraded in the rav and I am not liking the dull halogens in this rig. Shame really as I feel the headlights are letting this vehicle down, esp after driving the limited with its hid's at night. I have two morimoto hid kits ready to install in her as soon as I can get the daytime running lights reprogrammed. My dealer seems unwilling to do it, however over the weekend I visited several larger dealers in another city where I am moving to after Xmas, and in a conversation with a parts guy there, it looks like I have found a dealer that will do it (pending a convo with the shop Forman when I move down and have time to confirm they will), or if that falls through, a lead on a few non dealer shops who have the ford vcm ids setup and should be only to happy to do it for a small fee of course. In the meantime I'm going to find the brightest set of halogens I can get my hands on and throw in her.
That's about it. My Toyota friends have been razzing me pretty hard for buying a ford. Let's hope the thing holds together.
On that note, if your ambient lighting continues to reset, let your dealer know before you go in for your first oil change so they can fix it (unless you want to do it before that). In regards to your navigation, please give it about 200 miles/323 kilometers for it to break in. You can also take your SD card out and put it back in to have the navigation reset. 
