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The third row bench is a genuine three-seater with generous legroom, headroom and a deep foot well. There’s 3-point seatbelts for everyone here. Like the second row, this one can be easily collapsed flat into the floor in a 60 / 40 split for cargo. With the seats up, however, there’s still enough room for small pieces of luggage, but not for the airport run. The driving position, though improved, still borders on the truck-like. Though the steering wheel, driver’s seat and adjustable pedals do provide fine tuning and adjustments, the overall position is still a bit too upright, especially those accustomed to a car or a soft-roader. Exterior visibility, especially from head-on front and back are fairly limited because of the Expedition’s bulk. However, Ford tries to remedy the problem by giving large, almost foot-wide side mirrors that considerably ease nipping around town. Backing up in tight spaces isn’t too much of a problem thanks to the standard sonar parking sensors. Compared to conventional ones found in other vehicles, Ford’s can detect even off-angle objects such as poles, security guards and even stray dogs. It does have the tendency of being overly sensitive. With the new Ford Expedition being a commendable improvement on all possible fronts: performance, handling, comfort and accommodations, where could it possibility go wrong then? Certainly, small gripes are unavoidable, but there are still two areas, which are, for me major concerns: mass and consumption. Though Ford has done everything to make the new Expedition handle and perform ten times better than the model it replaces, nothing can change the fact that it’s still a land yacht. Though it may be perfectly alright for some, for most, the 5227 mm overall length classifies this as the big kahuna of full-sized SUVs. Going biggie-size means having less options of choosing a parking space, being less zippy in bumper-to-bumper traffic and of course, not being able to easily get out of a tight situation, especially on a Saturday evening in route to watching The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on its opening weekend. Confidence levels will surely drop when you’d see that mall vertical clearances are usually 1.9 meters (the overall height of the Expedition is 1.97 meters). Moreover, maneuvering inside these parking lots will prove to be a handful, especially if you’re parked alongside an F-150. I’ve found another unorthodox solution to my parking problem: instead of having an Expedition owner doing the maneuvering for me, I switched my Expedition for my brother’s Toyota out of sheer frustration for that evening. |
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