2017 Ford Expedition EL XLT EcoBoost review: Yep. It's a Ford.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Being a repeat Ford-owner, I'm pretty acutely familiar with Ford's many and varied "why on earth did they do it THAT way?!" design quirks. The caveat being that I haven't owned a Ford newer than 2005. So, having test driven and rented a few recently, I've learned something: nothing has changed. Ford is still cheap as Hell except where they aren't. Sure, that could be said of other brands, but Ford always seems to cut corners in ways and places that will reach out and slap you in the face with it, rather than areas you won't find until you're really digging.

It was on my drive yesterday in a 12,000-mile Expedition EL XLT with the EcoBoost soul-sucker that I learned just how true this is.

At the rental office, I arrived to find a long-wheelbase Suburban sitting next to a short-wheelbase Expedition. I was going to be transporting seven adults, including six over-6-foot-tall guys, plus a bunch of gear, so I promptly requested the Suburban. I have also rented several current-gen Suburbans before and had positive experiences. The teenager behind the desk said no, that Suburban's going back to another branch. But there's a LWB Expedition around back you can have. It's new, he said, with under 20,000 miles, and really nice. You'll like it.
I made no effort to hide my default skepticalface, and followed him outside.

Exterior: 7/10

It was indeed new. And white. And long wheelbase. And it had 12,000 miles on it with brand new tires. It already had paint damage from somebody's bad parking lot maneuvering on the rear left corner. Apparently human brains don't process basic shapes like cubes spacially with any kind of aptitude.
The Expedition is vastly nicer looking than its overdone, overstyled, overdetailed, overchromed, HEYLOOKATMEIAMSPECIALANDDIFFERENTANDCOOL F150 sibling. It's largely tasteful, especially on the XLT where most trim is body-color rather than chrome. It's nice. I like it. I would never hang a poster of one on my wall. The Suburban looks much better, even with its goofy headlight notches.

Interior: 1/10

Anyway, we all piled into the Expedition and headed off. I was immediately frustrated with the media interface while trying to pair my phone via bluetooth. Tiny color LCD with multifunction softbuttons rather than a touchscreen. Fifty-million purpose-specific quick buttons along the sides, and NONE of them for anything I EVER wanted to do during my 6 hours and half-a-thousand miles with the truck. The stuff I DID want to do, often regularly, required diving through an obtuse and opaque menu system proudly badged as "powered by SYNC" which I appreciate since it lets me know what to blame for the terribleness.

I eventually got my phone paired (you see, inevitably, if I'm on a business-related road trip with passengers, my phone is going to ring off the hook, whereas were I travelling alone I wouldn't hear a peep from anyone). I turned on some good road trip music, and found that there was nowhere to put my Nexus 6. Well, there was one place. But it was awkward to reach and not large enough for the phone with a charger connected. No worries, though; 3200mAh battery to the rescue.

But it was at this point that I realized just how cheap this truck was. There were cubbies everywhere. They were all so bizarrely-shaped and -located that they were thoroughly useless. Even more stupidly, they are a different color and texture than the rest of the titanium-hard-plastic interior materials, but NOT a different material. Atop the dash were three tacky-rubber-looking trays that would be perfect for placing phones, keys, etc. in. But in reality, they're made of the densest, rock-hardest, least-grippy material known to man. Ford should go into business with DuPont making invincible nonstick frying pan coatings; they've clearly found their niche.
The WHOLE DASH and nearly the whole interior is made of separately molded chunks of this nuclear-grade plastic, all "joined" at Grand Canyon sized seams. I think if Ford used this material on the bumpers, this truck wouldn't have its battle scar on the rear corner, since whichever immovable structural parking garage component it likely went to war with would have lost the fight spectacularly and the truck may not have even noticed.

The seats were terrible and there was no legroom in any seat except perhaps the front passenger. The seat adjustments were useless and weird. Seat cushion angle (but not height) and fore/aft movement were adjusted by a power switch. Seatback angle by a weirdly-placed and -shaped lever that had the numbest engagement point I've ever seen on a lever. Adjusting the seatback while driving should probably be worthy of a distracted driving citation, it requires so much focus. Then there was the random rotary knob that did nothing I could determine.
The seat was too high for me, but that couldn't be adjusted. Meanwhile, the footwell was tiny and cramped, and legroom under the steering wheel and column was restrictive and didn't improve no matter how the wheel was positioned.
All of this combined with the strange terraced sill design at the door openings to create the strangest entry/egress situation I've ever encountered in a car. Remember that this is a tall, 4WD truck. I'm a tall guy, and I'm used to climbing into a truck driver seat being as simple as just sliding over and stepping in. In the Expedition, that process is more like doing yoga. The cabin floor is so high, the seats so weirdly positioned, and the roof so relatively low that it's like trying to limbo into your car. When I first got into the truck, I noticed there was a hand grip on the driver-side A-pillar. Usually, the driver position doesn't need that since there's a steering wheel to grab onto. But it's probably needed for shorter people in the Expedition.
My passengers in the back rows made the same complaint, before I had even voiced it aloud myself. "This truck is so weird to climb into!" Getting out was just as weird. It had running boards, but with so many terraced sills between them and the footwells, they weren't really sensible to climb onto.
I mentioned that there was no legroom, but didn't go into detail. This is a long-wheelbase half-ton SUV with three rows. The back row is a real row (no raised floor for the footwells). But even the second row was cramped. No knee room, even with the front seats slid forward uncomfortably far for their very tall occupants (my front passenger was 6'6'', myself only slightly shorter). I experienced something I never expected in a full-size truck: my seatback being kneed repeatedly by the passenger behind me despite his best efforts.

Powertrain: Just give me a f*** V8 out of 10.
I didn't notice the Ecoboost badge on the liftgate at first, because the gate was up while the truck was being loaded.
I set off assuming I had a 5.4 liter V8 like a half-ton people-and-things hauler that weighs well over 6000lb should rightfully have. But as the first hundred miles started to creep away, and I entered mountainous terrain, I began to realize something didn't feel right. Engine behavior was odd. Power output was peaky in a hard-to-describe way. Rev response was strangely buffered-feeling. Transmission behavior was also hard to express but just sort of off. The truck did feel notably short on power, certainly. But more than that, it felt sort of uncooperative, or confused...or maybe both. Lazy 0-70 acceleration made even rural Utah's generously-long onramps feel insufficient for merging. Throttle response was numb and delayed. Accelerating to overtake was a sort of guessing game. How much throttle input was needed to accelerate the desired amount? NOBODY KNOWS. Not even the effing truck. Just push down a bit, then a bit more, then some more, then--s***--back off, wait, no back a little more--oh to Hell with it, I'll just stay back here behind this Idaho-plated, farmer-driven Buick Century, then.

The 5.4 Ford V8 has never been famous for its flat torque curve, and the Ecoboost six clearly improves on this. But I can't really figure out how to describe just how UNWILLING it seemed to actually do anything with that power. It felt JUST powerful enough, all the time, and never more than that. Never quick, never "expeditious" as other pun-laden reviews have suggested. Just barely enough. I'd have liked more, pretty much all the time, but I got by anyway, pretty much all the time. You will NOT be accidentally smoking tires while fully loaded in the Expedition the way one can, quite effortlessly, in a 5.3-equipped Silverado.

I think the most disappointing thing about this whole experience is that it validates my opinion of Ecoboost. It's a joke, a marketing sham, and it is not in any actual way a valid replacement for a V8. I did NOT get laudable fuel economy (it sucked down 19 gallons of fuel over 220 highway miles--that qualifies as thoroughly abysmal in my book). It did not get better fuel economy than a V8-equipped truck would. It didn't even get the SAME fuel economy that a V8 would. It spent a LOT of time revving up to 4,000 RPM to build boost and find some more power. It felt numb, delayed, obstinate, and barely-sufficient. It didn't sound good. It really did nothing well, everything adequately, and a few things badly. Had I bought this truck for its fuel economy claims, I'd be feeling a lot like a TDI owner who bought the car for its environmental claims. Fortunately, I have a brain that works, and I know better than to believe in magic snake oil.

But then there's another frustration: had ANY manufacturer other than Ford done EcoBoost, it wouldn't be such a joke. It'd be a nice, different alternative to a V8 for those who want it. From Ford, though, it's nothing more than a cowing to legislation. It's a gesture. And the consumer gets a poorer product for it. That's really not okay. Maybe the new, supposedly-GT-derived Ecoboost platform will be better. I sure hope so. I hate that we're setting expectations with this sad excuse for a boosted six.

Handling/Chassis dynamics: 4/10
"Numb" seems to be the word of the day for the Expedition, and that doesn't stop with the chassis. It's a good thing these things have Advancetrac with RSC (even though Ford stopped adding badging for it years ago) because it swayed like a sailor after a night at the alehouse.
The steering was probably the worst aspect of it. It felt like it might have had a variable ratio rack, but I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that on-center inputs were very twitchy, but just a few degrees off-center things slopped up fast. It made lanekeeping awkward, and changing lanes and other gradual things like highway exits very sloppy. I felt bad for my passengers on several occasions because what I intended to be a subtle direction change became lurching and abrupt.
Bodyroll was a lot more excessive than I would like, but it never upset the truck's actual dynamics. Instead, it served to highlight the two-faced steering inputs to all vehicle occupants. It'd take a long time to get used to driving this truck every day, and I'm not sure I'd want to have to learn to speak its language.

Overall: 4/10
I really didn't care for this truck, in case that wasn't already apparent. I sure wouldn't be willing to pay money to own one. Even spending stupid amounts of money for a Platinum or better with a nicer interior, it still has all the bad chassis dynamics and powertrain issues that make it unpleasant to drive.

[float_6969]

Another great review. Thank you. Do think that the engine in a lighter chassis (I think the Expedition may be Fords heaviest Ecoboost equipped vehicle) would have helped it in any way?

[MinisterofDOOM]

I dunno. I've driven other Ecoboost vehicles with mixed results. 2.7 Edge is certainly not short on power, but my understanding is the 2.7 is more closely related to the new GT motor than the old Duratec 3.5 ecoboosts from the pickups and SHO. I have driven a friend's ecoboost F150 (last-gen, pre-aluminum) a bunch of times but never had much chance to push it. It always felt a bit lazy to me, too, but again I was driving it pretty conservatively.
And I've never heard ANYTHING good about the 2 liter ecoboost motor in anything bigger than a Fusion (Ford somehow sees fit to put it in stuff as big as the Explorer...insane...)

Really, though, what it comes down to for me is this: if the Expedition is too much for the Ecoboost motor, why is it in there? If a lighter chassis is the answer, that's great for the motor, but does nothing for the truck in question. And when the fuel economy is crap, too, you have to ask exactly what benefit anyone is getting from this vehicle/powertrain combo. It's just silly and forced. I wouldn't buy a Suburban with the LF4 in it (and that's ten times the motor the ecoboost is). Why would an Expedition with a turbo six be any more appealing? Ford's DOHC V8s are way more efficient than most of the competition anyway. And they've gotten really good this last generation. The 5.4 would be a much more sensible choice. And if we REALLY want to downscale and use boost, let's do a 4.6 with turbos on the new V8 architecture. THAT would be a great competitor for the 5.3 small block and would probably blend great fuel economy with tons of torque.

I could see Dodge pushing turbo sixes in their pickups for fuel conomy reasons: the Hemi is a turd and inhales gas at a ridiculous rate. But Ford's not in that boat. They can get perfectly healthy (and impressive) fuel economy from a real V8. I don't understand their obsession with forcing too little engine on people and pretending it's good for them.

[Jesda]

The V6 Ecoboost truck engines offer a Mt McKinley of torque. It should have been anything but unresponsive unless of course throttle mapping was off (or neutered for FE purposes). Unfortunately, real world fuel economy isn't any better and you add complexity.

I suppose emissions are lower.

Otherwise, the Expedition brings with it a tradition of a bus-like driving experience with massive cargo and passenger space and flawless dependability. I have a feeling the latter may suffer. Older V8 Expeditions roll through car auctions with 300k+, often running properly with working AC and accessories.

[MinisterofDOOM]

It's rated at 420 ft-lb, but it sure didn't feel like it. I genuinely floored the thing on onramps and barely made it to 70 in time to merge. Throttle mapping certainly felt off, but I'd expect 100% pedal to equal 100% butterfly eventually. If I couldn't find that torque at WOT, I'm not sure where it was hiding.