I’ve long been skeptical of the Ford Expedition. Since its launch thirty years ago as a thinly-veiled F-150 wagon, it struck me as a crass way for image-conscious North Americans to spend a whole lot of money pretending they aren’t driving a minivan, and ruining the planet in the process. That’s a bit unfair to the vehicle given its ability to do genuine work like towing the family RV or boat, but my rude impression of the Expedition and the entire Nimitz-class battle wagon fleet remained. It’s hard to deny that they are expensive and inefficient tools for moving kids around suburbia.
I recently rented one, for the same reason as I rented a Malibu: Kyler. We had a long weekend trip booked and it required a box on wheels. Robbed of our 4Runner for the time being, I went looking for a box to rent. We needed volume for four people, their ski gear, and a space for the dog. This is a mission profile for a minivan. The problem was that skiing means snow, most minivans are FWD, and no rental vehicles come with snow tires. I wasn’t going to roll the dice on the weather, and I wasn’t going to risk running out of room renting a midsize SUV (some of those are poorly packaged), so I went whole hog. It’s time to be excessive. It’s time to rent an Expedition.
It’s classy enough for a ski town, if that’s what you need from it.
And I’m glad I did. This thing rocked that trip. It swallowed everything. The passenger space is enormous. The second row captain’s chairs and fold-flat third row resulted in a perfect cargo hold for running 4 pairs of skis longitudinally and easily fitting the luggage with room to spare. The dog could even bed down in the large floor space between the captain’s chairs. This is an annual trip for us, and we use our 4Runner for it and so we’re familiar with how that vehicle handles it. The Toyota has a very large cargo hold for its size and a 40:20:40 rear seat back through which to run the skis. It holds all of this road trip gear, but it doesn’t provide the excess. The excess space. The excess power. The ability to pack sloppily. The Expedition made the trip incredibly easy.
How the gear load for this trip looked in the 4Runner. Didn’t get a pic of the Expedition but suffice it to say there was plenty of room left over
It’s a bit of a low bar to clear. A giant box with a big engine effectively moves some people and stuff? Any brute would’ve done it, and there are a number to choose from. Tahoe/Suburban. Armada. Sequoia. Wagoneer. I don’t have any experience with those. I came to the Expedition as a blank slate. What did I think of it as a cohesive whole?
SPACE
Let’s start with what this is. Our rental was a 2022 Limited with 61,000 miles on it. It’s a body-on-frame SUV based on the F-150, and it is powered by the 3.5-liter Ecoboost twin turbo V6 and 10-speed automatic transmission. Differences include an independent rear suspension and a part-time push-button AWD system that defaults to RWD but can be locked into AWD or placed in an automatic mode where the computers decide when more grip is needed. There is no low range gearing. It weighs about 5900 pounds. The Limited is a mid-upper trim and seems loaded to me. Leather, heated seats front and aft, memory driver seat position, heated & powered steering wheel, power-adjustable gas and brake pedals, Bang & Olufsen stereo, panoramic sunroof, power tailgate that only intermittently worked properly, and a dedicated second row climate control. The MSRP was roughly $68,000 when new three years ago, $77,000 in today’s money. Buying a similarly-equipped 2025 model would require almost precisely that.
MORE space
First impressions are lovely. It’s a handsome SUV, particularly from the front, where it avoids the absurd machismo that most of its competitors attempt to inflict on society. The interior appears rich at first glance, particularly in the contrasting color combination of the saddle brown against black. Silver plastic, a small amount of chrome, and some striated faux-wood on the console and dash face add some tasteful variety across the large interior without overdoing it. Nasty scratchable piano black? No sir, not here.
It’s an interesting and inviting blend of colors. The fake tan wood doesn’t quite match, though.
That good impression soon fades a bit when you realize how much hard plastic of unambitious character is being used in high visibility locations on the dashtop and center console. It’s not very nice looking or feeling. The saddle brown leather that is used so effectively on the seats and door panels is emulated on parts of the dashboard, but your eye immediately notices that it is not the same material and not the same quality. The graining doesn’t match, the sheen doesn’t match. It looks a little cheap. This is a pickup truck cabin playing dress-up by tacking a few softer touch panels in strategic locations. Someone will have to let me know if its competitors are any better in that regard since they are the same formula.
Reminds me of the so-bad-it-hurts fake wood in the early-80s F-150s. You’re not fooling anyone!
Ford nailed other critical interior fundamentals, though. The steering wheel is really nice to hold–the padding is thick, the leather fairly soft and showing no wear after 61,000 rental miles, and the heating elements run 360 degrees around the rim. I found a perfect driving position, which is something I am unable to do in F150s without power adjustable pedals, and the upper seatback of the Expedition doesn’t feel as if it is pushing my shoulders forward into a hunch the way the F-150’s do. The seat is comfortable for a 5-hour drive. Road noise was nearly absent. Wind noise starts becoming noticeable above 75, but not too bad. The gauge cluster is a nice blend of analog tach and speedometer separated by a modern screen. The center screen is large and intuitive, and there is a full array of climate and audio buttons beneath it. Well done. The B&O system audio seems merely decent.
Plush armrest and upper door sill. However, that upper sill and the panel below squawk against each other loudly if you put any pressure on the panel.
It drives fine for its size but that isn’t saying much. The steering wheel doesn’t feel like it is connected to the front end. The ratio is slow, the assist levels are so high you could twirl the wheel with one finger, it has no real sense of straight-ahead or on-center feel on the freeway and required a bit of attention to keep it from wandering. The 4Runner is not too dissimilar, truthfully, but its hydraulic system at least provides some feel and natural levels of resistance.
Quite a bit too much fake stitching going on here
The powertrain is another matter. I’ve had a chance to drive F150s with the 2.7 and 3.5 Ecoboosts and the 5.0 Coyote V8. I’ve preferred the driving character of the boosted sixes. They are smooth, loaded with torque, respond quickly to throttle input, and exhibit minimal turbo lag even from a dead stop. There’s power nearly everywhere on the tach, and they’re quiet and refined. The V8, in contrast, requires deep and deliberate nudges of the gas pedal to get much response. It feels lazy to me unless caned. The first time I drove it I thought it had the base 3.3-liter V6 until I noticed the engine note.
I like the steering wheel, I like the gauge cluster
The 3.5 Ecoboost in this Expedition only built on my affection for this engine. Here, it is tuned to 400 hp and 480 lb-ft of torque. It steps off cleanly like a normally aspirated engine for the first half second and then the tsunami of torque rolls in. The power is effortless and easily accessible. You can drive it gently and it behaves well because it’s not jumpy. But you can make it outright fly by loading in the throttle. Instrumented tests say this will run neck and neck with my GS350 all the way down the quarter mile, but in everyday driving the slug of torque makes the Expedition feel quicker. It’s a $77,000 vehicle, you say? It feels like it when you’re focusing on the powertrain.
The abundant engine bay space left by the 3.5-liter engine is half consumed by the honking air intake tube which demonstrates how much power this engine can produce.
That is the only place where the Expedition feels like $77,000, however. Uh oh, here it comes again: another Petrichor hit job on the domestics! But let me explain. Eighty grand is a lot of money. It’s always been a lot of money and even after the post-COVID inflation bonanza it remains a lot of money. It’s aspirational money. It can nearly get you into an LS500. Or a loaded Audi S6. Or an entry BMW X7. It gets you into a class of automobile where I personally expect certain fundamental attributes beyond horsepower and a long gizmo list.
One of those attributes is for the structure and interior to not sound like an empty box truck whenever I hit a bump or pothole. I already noted the not-quite-premium feel of the interior materials, but that isn’t the big problem. The interior is filled with rattles. The driver’s door panel had a loud internal tapping, while its twin set up shop somewhere near the passenger door. Surround sound! The front panel of the panoramic sunroof was just loose enough to emit a horrible glass-on-metal clackata clack clack! on rougher segments of highway, ruining the otherwise quiet cabin and necessitating a closure of the sunroof shade to partly muffle it. Any number of little shimmies and squeaks and rattles broadcast from all over the rear cabin. I don’t know if it was trim panels, doors jittering in the frame, or the seats, but it was never truly quiet. It never truly felt solid. Independent or not, the rear suspension is stiff and jolts the cabin over bumps, setting all this off even on reasonably well maintained pavement. The Expedition is marketed and used primarily as a premium family hauler but the ride quality and refinement does not match the price.
The chrome coating of these trim strips is already bubbling up and beginning to peel all over the center console.
Some may point to the mileage and rental life, but what of it? Our 4Runner has over 90,000 miles including hundreds of them on dirt road and jeep track, some with bone-rattling washboard for an hour at a time. I’m not exaggerating when I say there isn’t a single persistent or common rattle in that cabin. There may be a lot of hard plastic, but Toyota assembled it with uncommon precision.
The platform and basic hardware are there to make the Expedition capable off road and there’s a Timberline trim to capitalize on that for those interested. But this Limited is a tow/haul rig. Clearances and angles are modest. The running boards and independent rear suspension hang low, and a bizarre carpeted panel mounted below the transmission comes to within inches of the road surface. Aero, I’d guess, as it is far too flimsy to stop anything from hitting the mechanicals above it should the Expedition belly flop onto a rock. It will get ripped right off on your first foray that puts a six-inch high rock or bush in your path. So don’t do it. This is a pavement princess, albeit a muscular one.
The bizarre fiberboard carpeted aero piece mounted behind the front axles. A few screws hold it on, but you can also let a dirt road remove it for you.
Packaging is a crucial metric in a vehicle like this and the Expedition has that part nailed. The second row is an executive suite and even the third row provides enough head room, leg room, and thigh support for a 6-footer. I don’t imagine it gets any better in the segment. The GM and Nissan look similar (and nicer inside) but neither one has that beast of a 3.5-liter twin turbo. The Sequoia’s packaging behind the second row is abysmal, just skip right over that one.
The fuel economy was interesting. I recorded 13 mpg around town. “Boost” is certain. “Eco” is debatable. Nothing makes a 6,000 pound SUV “eco”nomical or “eco”logically responsible.
The EPA highway rating is 22 mpg. You can probably achieve that at 50 or 55 mph, but this is a Western interstate and traffic moves at 80+ (even the Idaho spud trucks) so it’s 18 mpg if you’re lucky enough to not have a headwind. That’s only 1 mpg less than what our 4Runner achieves in the same conditions, which is impressive given the Ford’s extra size and power. Furthermore, that engine appears to be working not at all to maintain speed up moderate grades, without a downshift, in 10th gear. Those turbos just spool faster to quietly feed more air and fuel into a lazily spinning engine and the torque pours forth. No replacement for displacement? Yeah right.
Independent rear suspension or not, it’s built like a pickup under here and that affects every move it makes.
I’m conflicted about this vehicle. I felt a bit of loss when I turned the rental keys in. The absurd quantities of power and volume make this a very easy vehicle to appreciate under the conditions we used it, and it was generally comfortable and quiet. But it’s in a space where it’s priced like a luxury vehicle without really feeling like one. You’re paying for a lot of towing capability and a lot of steel (it costs by the pound, you know), and perhaps as a result you are not getting the solid cohesive build quality and refinement the price suggests you should. That rickety-sounding interior would be unacceptable in an SUV half this price.
This looks pretty nice for twenty five grand less. How much is that towing capacity worth to you?
I don’t have $77k to spend on a family vehicle so I’m not sure what $77k should look like in this space. Maybe all the competition would get the same reaction from me. But I do know that this price point should elicit a solid twinge of envy and desire, and beyond the engine this really doesn’t. If I wanted to repeat the relaxed and roomy experience of this road trip, I’d save twenty-five thousand dollars and buy a loaded-to-the-gills Honda Odyssey and put snow tires on it. It has all the gravitas of a middle-aged community college economics professor, but it also has the passenger and cargo space of the Expedition with far better road manners, far better fuel economy, a full feature set, and none of the unused body-on-frame truck chassis that drags everything else down. Sometimes it’s hip to be square.
Ha!! 🙂 Indeed. My first thought upon seeing your photo was “Geeze, I could get all of that in my car at half the vehicular footprint.” At which point I should go back to my part time job working at a Japanese cookie factory, since ridiculously arduous jigsaw packaging is my bag.
Great review Petrichor. Your impressions of this whole segment seem very much inline with what I’ve felt the few times I’ve been behind the wheel of something like this. Ridiculous wasteful excess…that can come in handy every so often. But at what cost?
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” Not a popular sentiment in our culture right now, but one that I’d dearly love to see on the Monroney sticker for every one of these things.
Your wrap up re. the Odyssey is also right on target with my sentiments. Of course, the Millennials who this Expedition is targeted at all grew up riding around for hours every day in such Odysseys…and therefore those are about the last vehicles they’d want to buy now. Not too unlike the station wagon segment that died in previous years.
Ahh, but station wagons are cool now! I for one would luv a ’72 Vista Cruiser, dark blue with white hood striping and 4 on the floor.
I recall renting one of these Expeditions in the late ’90s on a trip from North Jersey to Boston. Navigating traffic in the northeast corridor, finding a place to park it and climbing in and out, I was exhausted and happy to turn in the beast at the trips end. So wasteful too.
The Odyssey, perhaps remarkably, seems to have held on to semi-cool status among my age group. I see a lot of them in my area and it seems like the default choice in what’s left of the segment. They’ve never been “lookers” and certainly aren’t in this generation (unlike the Pacifica), but they aren’t as stodgy as prior Siennas or outright ugly like the current one.
At my age (43), I view the Expedition as a product of my parent’s generation. They became popular at the time when my parents were the age I am now, and so I view them as nearly as dated as the minivan although I may be a minority with that view in my generation
A very good review.
I have contemplated one of these in the those various mental “what if?” scenarios when wondering about a replacement for our 2000 Ford E-150. These are quite similar, yet different. Built on a half-ton Ford chassis, loads of interior space, with better door distribution, a longer hood, and, with four-wheel drive, better in snow.
It would also allow us to continue with our sloppy packing…in fact, it was an issue when we drove the Passat to Florida in November as we are used to the van and are simply out of practice with strategic packing.
But then my mind goes to acquisition price. We paid $5500 for that van in June 2010 (comparable to $8k today); one cannot currently touch a 10 year old Expedition with 90,000 miles for that price. Plus, during our recent car shopping expedition, we found a new Expedition on the Ford lot – for a mere $96k. That’s 50% more than I paid for my first house.
These serve a purpose and do a great job. Yet I have concluded I really don’t have the purpose for one of these to fill. At least at this time.
Interesting article, seeing that back in June when my wife, sister-in-law (of my late wife) and I had to go to Orono, ME to bury mom and clean out her estate, it meant renting something big. My Kia minivan is old, beaten, and sister-in-law wouldn’t put up with it’s condition and dynamics (the middle seats haven’t been in it since the day I bought it), so of course I looked to renting a van. Preferably a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid.
Dream on. The choice came down to a Chevy Tahoe or a Ford Expedition. I took the Tahoe, totally because it was smaller (and slightly cheaper). I’ve always disliked those oversized, over-compensation, machines in the past. Having lived with one over two weeks, I now completely loathe them.
Bottom line: No matter how big, how well equipped, any one of these is completely outclassed by the most basic Chrysler Voyager in both comfort and load capacity. Had I had that minivan, mom’s gorgeous floor clock that I’d always admired would have come home with us. Given what the Tahoe could carry, the clock went on consignment sale.
And the final ‘last nerve’ from the experience. You know how it feels like most people that own those oversized monsters are complete belligerent jerks in traffic? Because they can get away with it due to sheer size and weight? Well, at the end of two weeks of ‘ownership’ I found myself slipping into the same habits that I despise when I’m on the receiving end in my Bolt. All because I was getting used to, “I can get away with it.”
Those two weeks most likely killed off any thoughts of an F-150 Lightning as my next EV.