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Sharing some thoughts on our Maverick after our road trip if anyone cares to read them...
First off -THANK YOU to our professional truck driver's out on the road delivering everything imaginable across the country, especially right now. You can't appreciate their work until you're on the road with them for days at a time. The open road, as rewarding as it can be, is also cruel, rough, dangerous, exhausting and lonely. I don't know how you men & women do it every single day but it's appreciated. The lack of healthy food and safe, clean places to stop, refuel and rest really should be addressed more.
My wife and daughter (plus our dog) took a road trip from Colorado to Southern California to escape the snow and hit the beach. Total miles driven: 2,628. Our route was mostly Interstates 80, 15, & 5. We covered north CO, WY, UT, top corner of AZ, NV, and CA.
We left our Tesla Model Y behind and opted for our hot pepper red Maverick - an XLT w/ lux package, FX4, sunroof, rear window. We added the soft rolling tonneau cover, mud flaps, and did one size up with BFGoodrich Trail-Terrain tires. I also appreciated the nicer instrument cluster display that is on the Lariat and my FX4 trimās. It makes the truck look so much nicer in my opinion.
The entire bed was full of our luggage- suitcases, portable play yard, dog crate, cooler, stroller, etc. we were loaded up. It was invaluable to have the tonneau cover traveling with luggage; I canāt express that enough.
The truck did fantastic. It has more than enough power to cruise along those never-ending stretches of vast emptiness and the wonderful 80 MPH speed limits. And even at 80MPH you still have just enough power to pass a truck or slower driver. Depending on traffic, I set the cruise on 75-85MPH majority of the time. I canāt say I missed auto-pilot of Tesla. I DID miss adaptive cruise control although some of you Lariat owners will have that feature.
The luxury package features are 500% worth the added cost. The upgraded leather steering wheel alone was super comfortable to use. The heated wheel, wipers, mirrors, seats etc. weāre awesome on the cold mornings until we got out west (this truck warms up VERY fast though). Remote start was great and I did lock myself out at the gas station but the keypad on the door (program your own code now!) was a life saver.
Ride quality was great. I didnāt think road noise was bad at all - it greatly depends on the type of road material youāre on. The seats are very comfortable and supportive keeping in mind this is an entry level vehicle and a truck. They did show their smaller size, especially the shorter thigh support and firmness. I know what Iām driving so I wonāt complain like I was expecting an S-Class comfort level. The sunroof is awesome to have - especially when we hit that Cali. sunshine and opening the sliding rear with roof open creates the most amazing flow of fresh air. The climate control is great. Iād put it on auto and set my temp and it would keep it there w/o constantly needing to tinker with it. The LED headlights at night are actually very good and I might say on-par with the Teslaās amazing LED headlights. The auto-bright on/off feature was working good too when we departed early morning while it was still dark.
MPG Results: The entire trip, door-to-door we got 23MPG average on the dot. I never could get that 30MPG mark. Keep in mind that was in a fully loaded truck with bigger tires and said speeds so while I was expecting better, that seems realistic and still respectable for a little truck. My slight disappointment with range. At that MPG we were getting maybe 360 miles a tank, roughly. Thatās slightly better than the electric car's 318. This truck replaced our F150 with a 30 gal tank. So although much worse MPG with its 5.4 V8, we could easily go 430 miles on a tank of gas on the highway. There were times when I missed the F150ās size and comfort and more refined driving experience on the open highway.
Coming back through Las Vegas on Friday night, traffic was pretty congested. Even though we werenāt going more than 45MPH I had to emergency brake. The kind where you see people in your review mirror swerving into the side lane to avoid running into the car in front of them because they were following too closely. The truck stopped within a few inches of the bumper in front of me, with tires screeching a bit. I didnāt get the feeling there was any type of braking assist from the Maverick to avoid a collision. In our shortly owned 2020 Escape Hybrid, there would be a red warning flash on the display if the car engaged in emergency braking assist.
Iām overall super happy with the Maverick. I do think Ford missed an opportunity to launch with an AWD Hybrid instead of the two options. We all know that "below $20K" is not real anyway. My AWD EcoBoost is excellent in the snow and feels very stable but it feels so unnecessary to miss out on that amazing MPG during the 95% of time I don't really need AWDā¦ Just standardize it because weāre not going to be towing a lot realistically with the Mav - and if thatās what you need a truck for then Ford conveniently has Ranger and F-Series for that. We wonāt be doing severe off-roading in this little truck either.
First off -THANK YOU to our professional truck driver's out on the road delivering everything imaginable across the country, especially right now. You can't appreciate their work until you're on the road with them for days at a time. The open road, as rewarding as it can be, is also cruel, rough, dangerous, exhausting and lonely. I don't know how you men & women do it every single day but it's appreciated. The lack of healthy food and safe, clean places to stop, refuel and rest really should be addressed more.
My wife and daughter (plus our dog) took a road trip from Colorado to Southern California to escape the snow and hit the beach. Total miles driven: 2,628. Our route was mostly Interstates 80, 15, & 5. We covered north CO, WY, UT, top corner of AZ, NV, and CA.
We left our Tesla Model Y behind and opted for our hot pepper red Maverick - an XLT w/ lux package, FX4, sunroof, rear window. We added the soft rolling tonneau cover, mud flaps, and did one size up with BFGoodrich Trail-Terrain tires. I also appreciated the nicer instrument cluster display that is on the Lariat and my FX4 trimās. It makes the truck look so much nicer in my opinion.
The entire bed was full of our luggage- suitcases, portable play yard, dog crate, cooler, stroller, etc. we were loaded up. It was invaluable to have the tonneau cover traveling with luggage; I canāt express that enough.
The truck did fantastic. It has more than enough power to cruise along those never-ending stretches of vast emptiness and the wonderful 80 MPH speed limits. And even at 80MPH you still have just enough power to pass a truck or slower driver. Depending on traffic, I set the cruise on 75-85MPH majority of the time. I canāt say I missed auto-pilot of Tesla. I DID miss adaptive cruise control although some of you Lariat owners will have that feature.
The luxury package features are 500% worth the added cost. The upgraded leather steering wheel alone was super comfortable to use. The heated wheel, wipers, mirrors, seats etc. weāre awesome on the cold mornings until we got out west (this truck warms up VERY fast though). Remote start was great and I did lock myself out at the gas station but the keypad on the door (program your own code now!) was a life saver.
Ride quality was great. I didnāt think road noise was bad at all - it greatly depends on the type of road material youāre on. The seats are very comfortable and supportive keeping in mind this is an entry level vehicle and a truck. They did show their smaller size, especially the shorter thigh support and firmness. I know what Iām driving so I wonāt complain like I was expecting an S-Class comfort level. The sunroof is awesome to have - especially when we hit that Cali. sunshine and opening the sliding rear with roof open creates the most amazing flow of fresh air. The climate control is great. Iād put it on auto and set my temp and it would keep it there w/o constantly needing to tinker with it. The LED headlights at night are actually very good and I might say on-par with the Teslaās amazing LED headlights. The auto-bright on/off feature was working good too when we departed early morning while it was still dark.
MPG Results: The entire trip, door-to-door we got 23MPG average on the dot. I never could get that 30MPG mark. Keep in mind that was in a fully loaded truck with bigger tires and said speeds so while I was expecting better, that seems realistic and still respectable for a little truck. My slight disappointment with range. At that MPG we were getting maybe 360 miles a tank, roughly. Thatās slightly better than the electric car's 318. This truck replaced our F150 with a 30 gal tank. So although much worse MPG with its 5.4 V8, we could easily go 430 miles on a tank of gas on the highway. There were times when I missed the F150ās size and comfort and more refined driving experience on the open highway.
Coming back through Las Vegas on Friday night, traffic was pretty congested. Even though we werenāt going more than 45MPH I had to emergency brake. The kind where you see people in your review mirror swerving into the side lane to avoid running into the car in front of them because they were following too closely. The truck stopped within a few inches of the bumper in front of me, with tires screeching a bit. I didnāt get the feeling there was any type of braking assist from the Maverick to avoid a collision. In our shortly owned 2020 Escape Hybrid, there would be a red warning flash on the display if the car engaged in emergency braking assist.
Iām overall super happy with the Maverick. I do think Ford missed an opportunity to launch with an AWD Hybrid instead of the two options. We all know that "below $20K" is not real anyway. My AWD EcoBoost is excellent in the snow and feels very stable but it feels so unnecessary to miss out on that amazing MPG during the 95% of time I don't really need AWDā¦ Just standardize it because weāre not going to be towing a lot realistically with the Mav - and if thatās what you need a truck for then Ford conveniently has Ranger and F-Series for that. We wonāt be doing severe off-roading in this little truck either.
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