Wow, what an odd car to drive.
We rented an Explorer for the day to take a trip through the hill country. Wife, son, his girlfriend and myself. Explorer was hard loaded with leather, heated everything, cooled seats, rear buckets, infotainment, satellite radio, etc.
Good:
- Quick. 2.3l ecoboost had plenty of grunt for such a large car. As long as the transmission could figure out what gear to be in (see below)
- Comfortable. Just riding along the freeway, it was quiet and rode incredibly smooth. Kinda felt detached from the car, as if I was just a passenger, but maybe people like that?
- Lots of options. The heated/cooled seats were nice, as was the heated steering wheel.
- First car I've had with power everything. Kinda cool to adjust the steering wheel, seats, rear hatch, rear seat fold down, etc with just a push of a button.
- Driving through the hills, still managed 24ish MPG. Kinda surprised by that for such a big car in those conditions. Lots of accelerating, nothing really steady
Not so good:
- Buttons, buttons and more buttons. While waiting for a pit stop, I started counting buttons from the drivers door and through the steering wheel. Didn't count the buttons on the stalks and was at 47. Didn't get to the infotainment part. I would guess over 100 buttons within reach of the driver. Trying to figure out simple things took a while. I'm sure that having the car for more than I day, I'd figure it out, but it was overwhelming at the start.
- Buttons and screens. Goofy stuff like to change the HVAC fan direction, I had to click a button on the dash to bring up a button on the infotainment screen. Why can't I just change it with the button? Maybe I was doing it wrong.
- Ride quality was nauseating. We were in the hill country, so lots of twists and turns and up and down. The car would wallow constantly. Anyone who rode in the back had to swap with up front every 30 minutes or so because they were getting sick. At one point, I was going uphill and turning. I kept the wheel steady and felt the back end wiggle the whole time. Almost as if once the suspension hit a little bump, it would just continue to move. It was a rental with 40k miles. Maybe the shocks were shot.
- Transmission couldn't seem to figure out what gear to be in. At one point, I had the throttle steady on a flat road and it upshifted twice, downshifted once and then upshifted. It was almost as if with 10 gears, it was trying too hard to find the right gear so any angle change, speed change, etc it would try to find another gear. I'm sure the constant downshifting/upshifting helped contribute to making the back passengers feel sick.
One thing not related specifically to this car. I feel like start/stop can be dangerous. I had to jump into traffic and didn't realize the car had turned off. The 1/2 second or so it took the car to start freaked me out. Luckily, the engine had good grunt, so I was able to get into traffic, but it was a butt pucker moment. Had to pull over and figure out how to turn that feature off.
Overall, if I took it on a straight trip on freeway, it would be a great car. Quiet, good mpg, lots of comfort. But as a daily driver or on any curved roads, it's not the car for me. The wallowing suspension combined with a disconnected feel from the car just felt like I was along for the ride and wasn't really driving the car as much as making suggestions on where to go. It was odd that on the way home from the rental car agency, my wife and I both noticed how much nicer our '08 Mazda5 rode on the way home. Granted, not nearly the comfort or options, but a nicer general driving experience.
Wife and I are talking about a new(ish) SUV/CUV at the end of the year and the Fomoco brands are totally off our list.
-Rob
