Off Topic: Ford Expedition

D

DCM

New member
Sorry for this off topic subject but I know of no other place to post it and no one locally seems to give the same answer to my question.

I am considering buying a new Ford Expedition in a month or two and cannot decide between 2wd and 4wd.

In Southern California, the 4wd is rare and the dealer does not have any in stock. He can order them though.

Some say that they 4wd drive rides hard and gets poor gas mileage. Others say that the ride is about the same and mileage is only 1-2 mgp lower.

Around here, we have little need for a 4wd but my wife and I plan on some long trips to the Dakotas, Minnesota and on to New York in November and maybe December. After that, most of our trips would be in warm weather or early fall in Wyoming before it snows.

Does anyone here have any experience with both or at least the 4wd?

Thanks
 
I'd go with the 4wd for the better re-sale down the road, and especially if your in the Dakotas/Minnesota in the winter.
 
Quote:early fall in Wyoming before it snows..It's been known to snow in Wyoming in the early Fall and Early Summer...When I was spending a lot of time on a motorcycle, our chapter out of Rapid City used to complain about getting caught in the snow fall quite often...

In June, they used to sponsor a "Too Early Big Horn Run" into Wyoming...On a camping trip/rally that I attended in lower Wisconsin, we had seven inches in mid May one year..A lot of guys got stuck there for several days..

We don't normally have a lot of snow in Missouri during the Winter months, but I still keep an AWD or 4 wheel drive handy, as a lot of times we are traveling to some of the northern states in the "Non-Winter" months...
 
I see no reason to NOT buy a 4x4. It's resells easier. Plus the obvious off highway advantages. Even once in a while, the 4x4 is much better then 2x4. I drag a camper, often times in early spring and late fall. Try pulling a hill with a load in the snow, muck, etc with 2wd. Heck, even a 2x4 on gravel roads in the summer can be fun with a steep grade and heavy load.

The loss of MPG is negligible. My Cummins 4x4 averages 22 highway. That's plenty for me out of a 7500+ lb truck.
 
Couple of thoughts from a former 2001 Expedition, 4.6, 4X4 owner which I bought new. I would the NEVER recommend Ford's load leveling option which we had..think BOAT - Bring Out Another Thousand..it was trouble free for 100K and then really ate our lunch on repairs. Initially had some trouble with a badly leaking moon roof which dealer finally fixed under warranty. Our Eddie Bauer option had everything but skid plates which I subsequently had installed by dealer at >$200 - was a $93 option if ordered..that price differential kind of frosted me but I choose to buy from dealer stock and didn't pay enough attention...but who sells an occasional 4X4 without skid plates - Ford.

Ran strong but load leveling option died on a WY PD trip..not sick, DEAD. One of my shooting partners is a real MASTER mechanic and he had to call back to FL to get a FoMoCo friend to locate the position of the relay that we had to jump..took an on-line search. If it wasn't for that connection we'd have been screwed due to our remote location..even big Ford shops and my local mechanic had trouble..guess they didn't get enough hands on experience to ever get good..well, my local guy finally did on my dime.

I had 4 Captain's seats and 3rd row bench..even when pulled 3rd row for PD trips not a whole lot of room but in fairness 3 men, 15 rifles, ammunition and three(3) shooting benches plus the rest of our gear was a load.

When we traded the Expedition for my daughters new car with right at 200K got $5K in trade which I thought was OK.

One of my nephews recently bought a new Expedition[long version] 2x4 for his wife and she likes it better than her Mercedes SUV.

We're still a Ford family and I would buy another Expedition 4x4 V8 but not with the load leveling option [or whatever they might call it now] or moon roof.
 
I would never own an SUV without 4WD. The difference in fuel economy is mimimal at best, and the difference in resale is huge. Though we don't have lots of snow here in Indiana, it's great to have 4WD anytime there's even a light snow cover on the roads. Every one in my family drive a 4WD Ford Explorer, and we love them. My 17 YO daughter drives 5 miles to school in a rural area and I know the stability of FWD helps on slick roads after an overnight snow. I use my Explorer to hunt from. It's great to have 4WD when I pull off rural roads through snow that's been plowed deep into the side ditches. I can get out early before snow plows get the drifts plowed through, and I can drive back into places 2WD would never go with 10 or 12 inches of snow on the ground. My wife loves hers for its stability on snow covered streets even here in town.
 
We do not get much snow in my area of Virginia but I hunt from a 4wd and like to have one just in case. As the others have said, the fuel economy difference won't be that much.

Is the Expedition the only SUV you are considering? Reason I ask is my wife and I considered buying a used SUV this summer. We found several different brands of large SUV's. A couple of observations from our search: People really seem to drive these a lot as we found several with over 200,000 on the odometer. The Expedition seems to have the worst resale value, at least in my area. The Chevrolet Tahoe, Suburban, the GMC clones and the Toyota Sequoia were all priced higher than the Ford products.

I expected to find the GM products to be cheaper since there are so many large GM SUV's on the market. Just something I thought I'd throw out from my own observations.

 
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I like the Expedition because the seats fold down flat while the Suburban seats stick up. My previous SUV was a 2wd Suburban and it was OK except for the gas mileage (9 mpg on the highway). I also like the Sequoia but last time I looked at it in Consumer Reports, it had pretty bad gas mileage.

It looks like I'd better find or order a 4wd because we do spend time in Wyoming and Minnsota every year, usually in the fall (September-October). We have even been snowed into a small town that we visit every year and that was either late September or the first week of October. We were there for a week before being allowed to leave.

I am glad this posting was moved to this forum. I did not know it existed and now have bookmarked it.

Thanks for all the replies. They have been very helpful and made up my mind for me.
 
If you are not dead set on an Expedition, you might consider a Chevrolet Traverse...I bought a new 2001 Suburban and in eight years rolled up just under 200,000 miles...

Last August, I replaced it with a 2011 Traverse, AWD and all the seats fold flat, for a lot of cargo room if needed, and it has four captains chairs (LT package) with a rear view back up camera...We keep the third row seats folded down as there is very seldom any riders requiring them...It gets an honest 21mpg on the highway and offers the safety that I require..
 
Originally Posted By: OldTurtleIf you are not dead set on an Expedition, you might consider a Chevrolet Traverse...I bought a new 2001 Suburban and in eight years rolled up just under 200,000 miles...

Last August, I replaced it with a 2011 Traverse, AWD and all the seats fold flat, for a lot of cargo room if needed, and it has four captains chairs (LT package) with a rear view back up camera...We keep the third row seats folded down as there is very seldom any riders requiring them...It gets an honest 21mpg on the highway and offers the safety that I require..

My wife and I looked at a few of those a couple of weeks ago. She likes the Traverse and Acadia better than the truck based SUV's. Seems like a pretty well thought out vehicle and does have a lot of room.
 
I will look at the Traverse. Right now, I do not know what that is but when I go to Wyoming, I go into places that require pretty good ground clearance.

Thanks
 
Our dealer got a 4wd Expedition in this week.

Went to look at it today but it is a black color. It is a very pretty SUV but I once owned a black convertible and after that had no interest in a black vehicle or a convertible.

The sticker said that it gets 13 mpg in the city and 18 mpg on the road. The 2wd says 14 mpg and 20 mpg.

Are these gas mileage realistic?
 
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