2025 Ford Expedition Review | Consumer Reports

You know this thing's so big it doesn't need a license plate, it needs a zip code. I'm Michael Crossan and this is the video review of the 2025 Ford Expedition. The new Ford Expedition is a big three-row SUV that's body-on-frame. It's going up against heavy hitters like the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, the Jeep Grand Wagoneer, the Toyota Sequoia, and the Nissan Armada. All big three-row SUVs, body-on-frame vehicles that are very capable of moving people and things. If you want to know how a vehicle like this stacks up against the competition, check out CR.org and use our comparison tool. Make sorting all that stuff out a breeze. And you know actually, this isn't the biggest one you can get. You can actually get an Expedition Max that adds about a foot to the overall length of this thing. Can you believe that? For our test program, we purchased a 2025 Ford Expedition with the platinum trim and that starts at a base price of $74,430. We selected only one option and stick with me here, this is kind of a weird group. It's the Stealth Appearance Package and the 22-inch wheels, but the real reason we chose it, it's Ford's Co-Pilot 360 Active 2.0 Blue Cruise. That's all one package and it costs $3,570. There's a destination fee of $1,995 for a grand total of $79,995. The final assembly point of this vehicle was Louisville, Kentucky. So what did we really get for our nearly $80,000? Well, we got a really big body-on-frame SUV, seats seven, it's got three rows, 10-speed automatic transmission with selectable four-wheel drive. We've got the EcoBoost six-cylinder engine that makes 400 horsepower. So basically what we got is a modern-day Ford Excursion. You remember those things? Big, massive vehicles that broke everybody's mind back in the day when they came out because they were so large and the fuel economy was so terrible, but it didn't really matter because gas was cheap back then. I've actually been kind of joking around and calling this the Excursion ever since we purchased it, but it's coming back to bite me because it's the Expedition and I got to get it right for the video. So we purchased the platinum, which believe it or not, is not the highest trim level available. There's actually four trims that you can get. It starts out with the Active, then there's the Platinum, followed by the Tremor that has the 440 horsepower full-power engine option, and it has off-roady bits like locking rear differential and 33-inch all-terrain tires. And then there is the top of the heap, which is the King Ranch, and that's decked out with all the goodies, lots of bronze trim and accessories. It starts at about $84,000, cattle sold separately. So the new Expedition actually doesn't look all that different from the previous generation Expedition. They've just kind of modernized the front here a little bit. We do have all this optional stealth black trim that, I mean, quite frankly, looks pretty good. We've got the big 22-inch wheels and tires. You know, 22s are big, but this is a big vehicle and I think it kind of fits the look here. We've got an all-season Michelin that looks a little bit off-roady, so I think it kind of gives the vehicle a little bit of toughness, but it's pretty much a highway tire, so it's going to be fairly quiet and get you the best gas mileage you can expect, which is going to be at 18 miles per gallon, according to the ETA for both combined city and highway driving. As we move back, the mirrors, they kind of look like they're a little bit more in-home on it, like a car or sedan or sports car, but not the big chunky truck mirrors that we're often used to, but they actually do a good job and they're all power. They've got the heated option and they do fold in as well, so that's really nice to have. So in addition to the mirrors being power folding, we have another folding accessory and those are the running boards. You might say, what running boards? Well, they fold out and that's why we can't see them right now. So when I grab the key here and I unlock the vehicle, they're going to deploy, which I don't have any problem with and actually it's great. So my issue here is the vehicle's now unlocked, the running boards have been stowed, and I'm going to get in. So when I come over here and I open the door and get in there really fast, the running boards actually hit me in the shins. It's really particularly bad if you go to lean in the vehicle, maybe like you left your phone, you open the door real quick, you lean in there, it actually can hit you and they're pretty strong. It could maybe knock someone over. I don't love that part of them. So one thing about getting inside we liked is actually a really normal door handle. Grab it, throw the big heavy door open. Actually, I say heavy, it's not all that heavy, but it is big. It makes a nice wide opening that you can jump right in. So inside the Expedition, first thing you're going to notice is after you climb up in that the seats are actually pretty easy to get into. They're wide, they're flat, there's just a little bit of side bolstering on the bottom. There's more on the backrest, which is good. It kind of helps keep you in place while still being pretty comfortable, at least in the short term. But what most of our testers actually complained about was how much lumbar there is in the backrest. Even with it all the way reduced, there's just a lot of lumbar built in the seat. So you're in the seat and you're pretty comfortable, but you want to get yourself set up. And this is actually where things start to go downhill just a little bit. We have this steering wheel and it's this weird upside down oval shaped. I know an oval being upside down doesn't make any sense, but if you were sitting where I'm sitting, you'd say, yeah, this oval is upside down. And unfortunately it doesn't end there. The controls on the steering wheel are pretty awful as well. They're this touch capacitive. They light up, but there's nothing really actually to light up because they're blank. And that's because you can kind of customize them and configure them for what you want. But we're talking about the steering wheel, so let's move the steering wheel. I actually have to select and now I have to look on my driver's screen here and I have to choose steering wheel, which is here because the foot pedals are in there too and they're adjustable and that's nice. But I have to choose this and now I can move this up and down in and out, but I really have to pay attention to what I'm doing. If I'm off by just a little bit with my finger, it doesn't work or I might accidentally hit the back. Steering wheel controls should be the most accessible and easiest to use controls. I wish Ford did better here. All right, so that's enough about the odd steering wheel controls. I want to talk about the rest of the controls and they're actually pretty decent. Here on the driver's door, normal window controls, normal controls over the side mirrors, love all of that. So unlike the Navigator, which this vehicle shares a platform with and other Lincolns, we don't have the full dashboard screen, which quite honestly is a bit too busy. So I like the fact that they've shrunken this one down just a little bit and it's actually a decent distance away because I have a second screen here and you have all your different menu options. If we go to the home screen here, for outside, we'd be picking up navigation and things like that. We have wireless, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. And honestly, once I connected my phone and I really never looked back, I was good to go. The downside here are the climate controls. They are on the screen, they are touch sensitive, but at least they're always here. They don't hide away. It doesn't take a bunch of steps to make things happen. I can basically pick my temperature. We've got heated and cooled seats along with a heated steering wheel. That's nice. Change the fan speed, put it on auto and it is dual zone, so driver and passenger can set different temperatures. Just below, we have some physical controls. Got my gear shifter. I don't love this round style. It works, but it's not super pleasant to use. I do like that we get a real power knob and volume knob for our infotainment here. That is welcomed. We've got our gear plus and minus here, so if you need to hold the gear. A few more physical buttons down here. I think probably the most useful one down here, there's some off-roady bits, but really it's the camera button here. And I can choose between a front view camera. I've got my 360 degree bird's eye view camera. And then from here, if I want to actually see what's going on out back, I can see that. If you're pulling a trailer or pulling up to a trailer, you can actually select this downward mode, so you don't have to get out and you could probably hook up trailer by yourself. That's pretty handy, especially for a vehicle that can tow a bunch of weight. It does have pro trailer assist. That's a knob hidden down here in the center console. There are different USB ports. We've got a wireless phone charger, decent cup holders here. It's all pretty big and I find it all useful. And that's about where the good kind of stops here on the center console. It is big and bulky. A little bit of padding here on the top. It's actually pretty comfortable. I can put my elbow on it and just drive nicely. It is at a different level than the armrest on the driver's door, so it does leave you a little bit kind of leaning toward the outside. But here's something interesting. This whole apparatus actually slides, so I can push a button here and it reveals a huge area down here. And then with a push of a button, it all just slides back. I think the downside to it is this whole console, this isn't just a lid, this is the whole console kind of rocks and rolls as you lean against it or as you go down the road. And of course, underneath the lid, we do have some storage in there as well, along with a 12-volt charging port, two more USB ports in there. Overall, I think it's pretty well equipped. I think it gets broken up nicely and looks pretty premium. All right, so we're here in the second row. I'm actually sitting behind myself. These seats do slide forward and aft, which is nice. I'm all the way back right now. I have plenty of room for my feet and knees. I could definitely move up and give the people in the third row a little bit of space, which I think we're going to find out we're going to want. We've got a sunroof here, which causes the whole roof to be lower. And I basically feel like I'm sitting with my head up in the roof. Otherwise though, plenty of space, got my own window control, got two USB ports in front of me. We have heated seats back here, our own AC controls. We even have a 120-volt charging port down here in the bottom. Got a lot of stuff back here. So we got a button here on the backrest that lets the seat pivot and fold forward. And then it's just a matter of climbing up in here. It's a good thing I'm nimble like a billy goat. I'm in a cave back here. So I'm in the third row and there are three seats, but I'll be honest with you, you're not getting three of me back here. You're probably not even get two of me back here for a couple of reasons. And I think the biggest one is I'm hitting my head on this middle row seat belt thing that's protruding out of the roof. I mean, like literally go around a left-hand corner. I'm going to smack my head. That's not great. And also truthfully, you're not going to sit back here with that seat folded forward. So I could not sit behind myself. I'd really have to push that second row all the way forward. And then someone of my height probably couldn't sit in that second row. I think folding, unfolding the seats is all a little bit clunky and they are a little heavy. I think for children, the move is going to be, they're just going to hop in the middle of the row, flip up this armrest and they can just kind of come back to the aisle here. And let's be honest, kids are probably going to be who's back here anyway. Now I grew up in the nineties and I love two-tone trucks and SUVs and that kind of things, but I don't know what's going on here with this two-tone, but whatever, let's get this open. The button is right underneath the eye here. And this is a split tailgate. So the top is going to open. And then if you want to lower the rest of it, there's another button here to press. And now we have access. It is nice to have this little bit of a tailgate here. You could sit on it, put some groceries on here, you know, do whatever you got to do. Otherwise with the third row up, there is some space, you get a couple of suitcases, maybe your groceries, but I'm not a ton of space. If you really need that space, you're going to want to fold those seats. And they give us a whole bank of buttons here to make that happen. And other things happening back here, we do have a trailer hitch receiver underneath this cover and there is a spare tire way up under there as well. So that's nice to have. All right. I think it's about time to get this landmass on the move. It's only got a six cylinder engine, but it is the EcoBoost twin turbo, makes 400 horsepower. There is a 440 horsepower version available in some of the trims. To be honest, you don't really need it. 400 is enough. Would I like the 440 horsepower version? Yeah, I'm not going to turn down an extra 40 horsepower, but I'm really not needed. It sounds good. It does sound like a V8, but I don't really miss that V8. I certainly don't miss the fuel economy that the V8 would provide. This does have a 10 speed automatic transmission and it's actually surprising me. It's doing pretty good. We've had this transmission in other Ford vehicles and as they age, they tend to get a little bit clunky. This one's better than what I've experienced in some other vehicles though. The shifter down here, a little weird. You can control your gears with a plus and a minus. It's not super useful. I kind of wish there were some paddles here on the steering wheel, but again, it's not the end of the world. This isn't a sports car. I'd probably really only need to like lock a gear if I was maybe doing some towing or off-roading something along those lines. It is a big body on frame vehicle and that lets it do real kind of truck work, but the downside, and there are a few, is mainly ride and sort of noise and comfort in the vehicle. There is a little bit of tire noise. It's not bad, but what I can feel here, and we're only doing 30 miles an hour, there's sort of like a low frequency vibration coming through the floor of the vehicle and that's pretty much all the time and that's one of those downsides of having a real ladder frame chassis with a body on top. The other thing that's really noticeable is when you hit bumps, the big wheels and tires just kind of shake and vibrate and just sort of reverberates through the inside of the vehicle. Again, it's not great, but that is one of the trade-offs when you're dealing with trucks. So when it comes to big vehicles, a lot of people like them because you sit up higher and they might offer good visibility, and to some degree that's true. It lets you see over the traffic around you, particularly the smaller cars, but big vehicles do pose some problems. Looking out the front here, the pillars are a little bit wide at the bottom, not so bad as they move up. The grab handle is actually sort of nicely designed to sort of tucked in. It doesn't take up any of the space. The hood is definitely prominent. I can see quite a bit of the hood and that is going to affect what I can see in front of the vehicle. It does make parking and tight parking spaces a little bit more difficult. Side windows are pretty large and when I look over my shoulder, I can see quite a bit. The rear view mirror is basically the same kind of shape as the back glass and I can pretty much see everything I need to. The second row headrests do block just a little bit and if the third row was up, those headrests do block quite a bit of the view, so at that point you really are sort of relying on your backup camera. Overall, the standard active and passive safety systems are basically what we're looking for in a vehicle and you should be seeing those on the screen now. We do wish that there was standard rear occupant detection system, which is not the same thing as the end of trip reminder that the Expedition does have. Another area of improvement would be the IIHS crash testing. The Expedition scores marginal in most of the tests. And then there is Blue Cruise. That's Ford's essentially hands-off driving system and it is one of the better systems that's out there along with GM Super Cruise. The one option we picked on this vehicle was Blue Cruise and that's great and we have it, but you only get 90 days quote-unquote free. It's basically a subscription service and after those 90 days, you have to pay $49.99 per month if you want to continue to use your Blue Cruise. GM Super Cruise gives you three years worth of free subscription when you purchase a Super Cruise equipped vehicle and Ford is 90 days. That is, in my opinion, way too short. You've basically just kind of got used to your vehicle at that point in a major system that you paid a lot of money for. Over $3,000 is being turned off unless you want to spend $50 a month. I really miss the days when you just optioned a car, you paid the money up front, and then you had that thing for the rest of your ownership. So a big vehicle like this, you're apt to put a lot of people in it, put a lot of stuff in it. You might even want to tow a camper, a boat, something along those lines. And this vehicle can do that. The Expedition is rated up to 9,600 pounds of towing and that's quite a lot. Be aware though that they're not all rated at 9,600 pounds and that 9,600 is when properly equipped. So I've been with the Expedition a few times now, driven it the last week, and overall, despite my criticisms of it, I really do enjoy driving it. It maneuvers pretty well, easy to park given its size. The cameras do a pretty good job to help you out in that department and it seems to be a capable vehicle. I just kind of feel like I might miss the excursion just a little bit too much and this definitely has excursion vibes. You could get it with the V8, you could get it with a big V10, you could get it with a 7.3 power stroke diesel, and as primitive as that engine was, it was quite a good motor. You know, we had it really good, I just don't think we knew how good we had it back then. At the end of the day, this vehicle has its pluses and minuses. It's a large capable vehicle that I think I've actually decided might not be quite large enough, believe it or not. The controls are a little questionable, they're not the best. The center console, although big, is kind of wobbly and moves around a little bit and I've got this odd-shaped steering wheel that looks like it came out of the movie Demolition Man. If I needed a big vehicle that I could put seven people in, put a bunch of stuff in the back, and even tow a trailer, would I buy this or would I buy one of the competitors like the Chevrolet Suburban or the Jeep Grand Wagoneer? It's a really tough choice. If you're interested in seeing how the Expedition stacks up against all the other three-row SUVs, check out CR.org for all of those details. Thank you for watching and be well.