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Recent short trip, some good, some bad on my FX4

14mustangNJ

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2022 Ford Maverick XLT FX4, 2014 Ford Mustang
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Just got back this weekend from a 160 mile round trip, last trip (250 miles) was right after I bought it for New Year’s Day but I was so focused on just getting used to the truck to really observe anything about it that time.

This was a trip to Cape May NJ down the NJ 55 and Rt 47, temps were ranging from high 40 to low 50s and it was slightly windy. Truck only had 600 miles on it at the start of the trip as I haven’t driven it much this past winter and am just starting to use it more.

Pro’s -
  • Power is great. Effortless to get up to speed, keep up with traffic, pass, etc. It was funny watching all the Pennsylvanian drivers have to drive so aggressively to go 1mph faster only for me to pass them without even giving the 2.0 a workout a few miles later.
  • Gas mileage was great for a XLT AWD FX4 with passengers and gear in the bed. I averaged 31.8 mpg at least according to the dash and it still was climbing when I stopped paying attention to it for in town driving. I suspect the average could have dropped in stop and go in town as expected.
  • Steering is smooth and precise making lane changes and control at 65-75mph a breeze. Still good up to 80mph at well but I only stayed there briefly for passing only.
  • Handling is very good for a truck with only slight pushing from the front end at high speeds on curves, which most people probably wouldn’t notice. Just a characteristic of a FWD bias in my opinion that only likely someone that had been driving RWD vehicles for a long time would notice.
  • Very comfortable seating once you have the seating position right.
  • Comfortable for passengers, my family was happy even the wife lol and you could have a comfortable conversation at highway speeds.
  • Ride quality was outstanding on smooth roads, reminds me a lot of the old mid-size Ford sedans from the 90s. There was some bumpiness from rough road surfaces that was noticeable but it wasn’t too bad.
  • The ecoboost was surprisingly quiet, even more so than I remember. I did install the Ford Escape engine cover and it was so quiet that it was barely noticeable it was running at highway speeds.
  • GFB DV - I loved this! It made the trip a bit more entertaining because the radio wasn’t used and hearing the turbo whistle and spool a bit more due to the DV change was cool, even with the windows up. Plus it definitely feels more torquey and responsive at lower rpms as well.
  • Saw 1 other Maverick, a white FX4 I think which was cool and we gave each other a wave.
  • Sunroof. When we got into Rio Grande NJ, we opened it up and I love it! Definitely glad I got it since I’ll be at the shore a lot and the extra sun is great even on cooler days.
  • No issues with the truck bed, worked great for all of our stuff. The rough country soft trifold cover despite being tight does flap slightly in the wind but creates no noise when it does which is good. I checked it multiple times and it seemed fine. On the plus side, no one tailgated the truck I think because of it as a result so that was a nice bonus.
Con’s:
  • Wind noise. It was noticeable as soon as you hit 75mph and felt like it was slightly worse on the way back. Granted it was slightly windy this day but I think possibly it was better without the Ford front inner fender foam Insulators installed (OEM on hybrid, go next the the firewall and fenders behind the door hinge area). I may try the trip again with them removed as I don’t remember it being so loud with wind noise before they were installed. Also, take note that the radio was off on both the drive down and back with my kid sleeping in the back most of the time so there wasn’t much other sound filling the void.
  • Driver door buzzing. The driver’s door I think around the door handle area was buzzing when driving around 45-50mph on a not smooth rural road. It was not there on smooth pavement but was loud enough to be noticed by me.
  • Radio flipped out and overheated, got stuck on the Ford logo on the way home. For some reason in the middle of Waze running, the phone disconnected and the screen went to the Ford logo/startup image. The screen felt a bit hot to the touch so I turned off the radio for the rest of the trip back. Nothing else was touched, not even the climate control, it was about 30 minutes into the drive I heard my phone disconnect and then the radio froze.
  • Radio locked me out of the browse function for USB so folder, artist, album information from my USB stick could not be accessed so you could not change music on the highway on the trip down. No messages appeared saying settings were disabled, it simply took away the browse function entirely. Then it felt like it wanted to start playing 2600 songs at random but wouldn’t let me stop it. Then it got bored and just stopped doing anything. Volume was off during this time. This really, really annoyed me because even on my 4Runner I have the ability to access folders for music categorized by artist easily on the highway from an USB stick so the radio was useless the entire trip.
  • Driving - I noticed this once before also in another trip. In traffic on a two lane highway, more often than I like, someone almost sideswipes me passing by me when I am in the right lane. Or their ass end comes way too close to the front end of the Maverick when they are passing. It almost looks like they are almost swinging into you like a drunk that can’t maintain their lane, but both times I was driving during the daytime. I suspect because the Maverick isn’t as wide or tall, they are underestimating how close they are to the truck where with a wider or taller vehicle, they may lean more towards the inside of the left lane. Maybe it’s just poor driving on their part that I noticed more since the truck was new and I had minimal distractions (no radio) on my drive as well.
  • Weird electronic buzzing/chime/alert happened twice when passing someone somewhat aggressively on the left. I did have blind spot monitoring on and the one time, I did have lane depart assistance on to try it out, the other time just blind spot monitoring was on. It was not the standard Ford chime like you hear with the door open, more like an old school cheap electronic alert/buzzer, so I wonder if it was one of my dash cams G sensor’s being tripped due to the sudden change in acceleration, going to look into this further.
  • Lane departure assist seems fairly useless compared to my 4Runner. I tried it for a couple minutes and then turned it off. I felt it may alert me that I was out of my lane after I already drove off the road but I may have to play with the settings again.
  • Steering wheel. This is uncomfortable for long trips. I might be spoiled by my 4Runner or Mustang with their leather-wrapped wheels but I found my hands sweating from it more than I liked and it just didn’t feel comfortable overall resting my hands on it. You definitely notice the roughness of the wheel the longer the drive as I never noticed this driving locally. Going to buy a steering wheel cover ASAP.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with the truck despite the cons listed. It was phenomenal for cruising on the highway, comfortable for the family, did great on gas, and did the trip with overall ease. No plans to sell and I’m looking forward to move trips in it. If I had to pick one highlight, it’s the 2.0 ecoboost engine. It gets crapped on it seems like too much in my opinion but it’s a wonderful highway cruiser engine, with just the right amount of fun, quietness and fuel economy for the price. The one big negative to pick would be the radio. I have a feeling the stock radio is actually going to be junk long term. It’s just unreliable for trips as I had issues the last long trip with it too with random navigation failing, freezing, etc. Definitely not a deal breaker but it feels like if Ford updates don’t fix it, it may end up being a warranty item.
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mavhopefull

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Just got back this weekend from a 160 mile round trip, last trip (250 miles) was right after I bought it for New Year’s Day but I was so focused on just getting used to the truck to really observe anything about it that time.

This was a trip to Cape May NJ down the NJ 55 and Rt 47, temps were ranging from high 40 to low 50s and it was slightly windy. Truck only had 600 miles on it at the start of the trip as I haven’t driven it much this past winter and am just starting to use it more.

Pro’s -
  • Power is great. Effortless to get up to speed, keep up with traffic, pass, etc. It was funny watching all the Pennsylvanian drivers have to drive so aggressively to go 1mph faster only for me to pass them without even giving the 2.0 a workout a few miles later.
  • Gas mileage was great for a XLT AWD FX4 with passengers and gear in the bed. I averaged 31.8 mpg at least according to the dash and it still was climbing when I stopped paying attention to it for in town driving. I suspect the average could have dropped in stop and go in town as expected.
  • Steering is smooth and precise making lane changes and control at 65-75mph a breeze. Still good up to 80mph at well but I only stayed there briefly for passing only.
  • Handling is very good for a truck with only slight pushing from the front end at high speeds on curves, which most people probably wouldn’t notice. Just a characteristic of a FWD bias in my opinion that only likely someone that had been driving RWD vehicles for a long time would notice.
  • Very comfortable seating once you have the seating position right.
  • Comfortable for passengers, my family was happy even the wife lol and you could have a comfortable conversation at highway speeds.
  • Ride quality was outstanding on smooth roads, reminds me a lot of the old mid-size Ford sedans from the 90s. There was some bumpiness from rough road surfaces that was noticeable but it wasn’t too bad.
  • The ecoboost was surprisingly quiet, even more so than I remember. I did install the Ford Escape engine cover and it was so quiet that it was barely noticeable it was running at highway speeds.
  • GFB DV - I loved this! It made the trip a bit more entertaining because the radio wasn’t used and hearing the turbo whistle and spool a bit more due to the DV change was cool, even with the windows up. Plus it definitely feels more torquey and responsive at lower rpms as well.
  • Saw 1 other Maverick, a white FX4 I think which was cool and we gave each other a wave.
  • Sunroof. When we got into Rio Grande NJ, we opened it up and I love it! Definitely glad I got it since I’ll be at the shore a lot and the extra sun is great even on cooler days.
  • No issues with the truck bed, worked great for all of our stuff. The rough country soft trifold cover despite being tight does flap slightly in the wind but creates no noise when it does which is good. I checked it multiple times and it seemed fine. On the plus side, no one tailgated the truck I think because of it as a result so that was a nice bonus.
Con’s:
  • Wind noise. It was noticeable as soon as you hit 75mph and felt like it was slightly worse on the way back. Granted it was slightly windy this day but I think possibly it was better without the Ford front inner fender foam Insulators installed (OEM on hybrid, go next the the firewall and fenders behind the door hinge area). I may try the trip again with them removed as I don’t remember it being so loud with wind noise before they were installed. Also, take note that the radio was off on both the drive down and back with my kid sleeping in the back most of the time so there wasn’t much other sound filling the void.
  • Driver door buzzing. The driver’s door I think around the door handle area was buzzing when driving around 45-50mph on a not smooth rural road. It was not there on smooth pavement but was loud enough to be noticed by me.
  • Radio flipped out and overheated, got stuck on the Ford logo on the way home. For some reason in the middle of Waze running, the phone disconnected and the screen went to the Ford logo/startup image. The screen felt a bit hot to the touch so I turned off the radio for the rest of the trip back. Nothing else was touched, not even the climate control, it was about 30 minutes into the drive I heard my phone disconnect and then the radio froze.
  • Radio locked me out of the browse function for USB so folder, artist, album information from my USB stick could not be accessed so you could not change music on the highway on the trip down. No messages appeared saying settings were disabled, it simply took away the browse function entirely. Then it felt like it wanted to start playing 2600 songs at random but wouldn’t let me stop it. Then it got bored and just stopped doing anything. Volume was off during this time. This really, really annoyed me because even on my 4Runner I have the ability to access folders for music categorized by artist easily on the highway from an USB stick so the radio was useless the entire trip.
  • Driving - I noticed this once before also in another trip. In traffic on a two lane highway, more often than I like, someone almost sideswipes me passing by me when I am in the right lane. Or their ass end comes way too close to the front end of the Maverick when they are passing. It almost looks like they are almost swinging into you like a drunk that can’t maintain their lane, but both times I was driving during the daytime. I suspect because the Maverick isn’t as wide or tall, they are underestimating how close they are to the truck where with a wider or taller vehicle, they may lean more towards the inside of the left lane. Maybe it’s just poor driving on their part that I noticed more since the truck was new and I had minimal distractions (no radio) on my drive as well.
  • Weird electronic buzzing/chime/alert happened twice when passing someone somewhat aggressively on the left. I did have blind spot monitoring on and the one time, I did have lane depart assistance on to try it out, the other time just blind spot monitoring was on. It was not the standard Ford chime like you hear with the door open, more like an old school cheap electronic alert/buzzer, so I wonder if it was one of my dash cams G sensor’s being tripped due to the sudden change in acceleration, going to look into this further.
  • Lane departure assist seems fairly useless compared to my 4Runner. I tried it for a couple minutes and then turned it off. I felt it may alert me that I was out of my lane after I already drove off the road but I may have to play with the settings again.
  • Steering wheel. This is uncomfortable for long trips. I might be spoiled by my 4Runner or Mustang with their leather-wrapped wheels but I found my hands sweating from it more than I liked and it just didn’t feel comfortable overall resting my hands on it. You definitely notice the roughness of the wheel the longer the drive as I never noticed this driving locally. Going to buy a steering wheel cover ASAP.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with the truck despite the cons listed. It was phenomenal for cruising on the highway, comfortable for the family, did great on gas, and did the trip with overall ease. No plans to sell and I’m looking forward to move trips in it. If I had to pick one highlight, it’s the 2.0 ecoboost engine. It gets crapped on it seems like too much in my opinion but it’s a wonderful highway cruiser engine, with just the right amount of fun, quietness and fuel economy for the price. The one big negative to pick would be the radio. I have a feeling the stock radio is actually going to be junk long term. It’s just unreliable for trips as I had issues the last long trip with it too with random navigation failing, freezing, etc. Definitely not a deal breaker but it feels like if Ford updates don’t fix it, it may end up being a warranty item.
Can you provide a link to the GFB DV you installed?
 

pnorwood54

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MightyMaverick

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I'm about to drive mine on the highway for the first time tomorrow so this review was very informative. I also have the 2.0 Ecoboost with AWD but mine is a Lariat. As a result, the driving experience may be a little different considering it has an acoustic windshield making for a quieter cabin and the slightly bigger 18 inch wheels which will add for a slightly stiffer ride. Honestly, the ride is not that stiff because it has a decent amount of sidewall on the tires which helps tremendously with ride quality. Being a Lariat, mine has the leather-wrapped steering wheel. It's soft and thick so it's very comfortable to hold long-term. I'll test out the radio to make sure mine doesn't have the freezing/overheating issues like you mentioned. I plan to use my Android Auto for the map while listening to Sirius XM so I'll be putting it to the test. Anyways, great review.
 

MaineMav

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The plastic wheel on the Maverick is probably the most uncomfortable steering wheel I've ever encountered, it's like a torture device and I don't even do long trips with it. I'm starting to research replacements and figure I may as well do the cruise control mod while I'm at it but that's my biggest gripe on the truck, I think the material amplifies vibrations or something to my hand and it's just very uncomfortable especially compared to the leather wheel on my F150
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