Rental Explorer

I had a 2021 Explorer Limited as a rental this week. Nice SUV! It’s quiet, comfortable, and soaks up the bumps very well. It has a limousine quality ride, and for the trim level, it should. The 2.3L EcoBoost provides very good performance too. I’m surprised that such a small engine, even turbocharged, gives performance like this. I did not measure 0 to 60 with a stopwatch, but it took 8 or 9 Mississippis to get there. Impressive, but not breathtaking. The seats are air conditioned and I like that too. Ford’s entertainment systems is easy to use and Apple Car Play is seamless. The only problem I had with it was getting out of cell tower range, which happens often where I am. When I picked it up, all the monitoring systems were turned on. It told me when I was veering out of my lane and showed the speed limit in the speedometer screen. Lane monitoring showed up there too. The speed limit icon even flashed when I exceeded the speed limit. It’s as if my mother in-law rode with me everywhere! Can’t beat that! :confused:. I pulled out the owner’s manual and figured out how to put a sock in her mouth. Much better. Gas mileage was 23.7 mpg, good for something this large. If you want a large SUV, look at this one. You might like it too.

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Unfortunately you have to go up several trim levels to get the turbo V6.
I’m old school, consider the Explorer midsize.

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Good review, thanks. Another example why renting a make/model that you might decide to purchase later is an excellent idea. By contrast I rented a Corolla a couple years ago, and while it did the job w/aplomb, still I prefer my 1990’s model. The later model version was too big, had a very low to the ground front-piece so I had to be very careful not to run into curbs when parking, and over the course of an entire week of driving, I never did figure out how to turn on the headlights.