The Ford Explorer is considered to be the all-time best-selling SUV in America So when it comes time for a full redesign you better bet that families all over the country are paying attention That’s why we headed over to Jack Kain Ford as soon as we heard the first unit came in and of course if you’re in the market for any new ford Be sure to stop by their dealership or visit them via their website, which we provided a link to in the video description. So With that all said, let’s see how the new Explorer improves on the winning formula you So getting started with the exterior design the new Explorer really charts its own course It looks nothing like the expedition or any other whore for that matter though. It does have some similarities to the outgoing line The grill continues to fill the entire space between the headlights and as far as the designs they do change for every single trim Our limited and the Platinum have similar silver finished grilles while the XLT and Sport go for sporty or gray and black finishes
Turn it to the headlights themselves They are fully LED across the entire lineup for both the low and high beams Both of the designs are a little bit different for the ST and platinum models Finally LED fog lights also come on the XLT 202 a and above Now heading on to the side this is where you see the biggest difference from the old Explorer It is now moved to a rear drive architecture which gives it really pleasing proportions and a much sportier.
Look compared to the competition It also looks a lot smaller, even though the size stays pretty much the same Around back This is the place that looks the most similar to the outgoing model since we have a chrome accent dual exhaust and two similar bracket shaped LED taillights of course choosing the S T will black everything out and give you quad exhaust tips instead and While we’re down here, I might as well mention the toy which has increased to fifty three hundred pounds from the previous 3000 for the base four cylinder and then 5,600 pounds with the upgraded v6 But overall the styling of the new Explorer certainly stands out with rear-drive Proportions and a much more masculine vibe than the vast majority of rivals
Now heading up to the wheels as you’d expect there are a wide assortment of choices
What you are looking at are the optional 20-inch polished alloys which replaced the limited’s normal 20 inch alloys the XLT comes with an 18 inch alloy the ST and platinum come with similar looking contrast alloys and Finally only the st can get an optional 21 Moving on to the mirrors they are always heated with standard blind spot monitoring while the limited adds power folding and st adds auto dimming abilities
Now one of the biggest and most important changes for 2020 is that advanced safety features are now included standard across the entire lineup The co-pilot 360 suite includes automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection Lane Keeping Assist Auto high beam headlights and the BSM system that I already mentioned
Additionally choosing the limited or higher will also add in adaptive cruise control and evasive steering assist Finally ending things at the fuel tank this limited all-wheel drive model has an 18 gallon guilty, which is good for 414 miles of range all the engines even the upgraded v6 request regular unleaded fuel But anyways, that’s pretty much it for the all-new exterior, so now let’s get inside and see how much Ford has upgraded the cabin So walking up to the all-new Ford Explorer for its intelligent entry system is actually standard across all the trim levels And will come with this nice pop and if you get the XLT 202A and up you will also have the remote start system Now you get inside the vehicle itself there is a sensor behind the handle so all you have to do is just grab it and When you do it, the power mirrors will also deploy a helper
All right So checking out the cabin of the all-new 2020 Ford Explorer As you can tell right off the bat this really represents a whole new design philosophy for Ford Now this is a vehicle that comes in at a wide range of price points So there is also a wide range of interior color options and materials So starting out with the XLT. You’re going to have cloth seating However, you can option on leatherette if you want But all the rest of the trims are going to come standard with real leather seating Which has have a special quilted design if you go for the platinum trim as far as colors That’s pretty simple because you actually only have two different color options on all the trim levels You have evany or sandstone on the Platinum though.
It’s considered light stand stone. It’s a little bit of a more white color Now turning over here to your door trim, it is very nicely appointed as you can see here on the limited We have full leather all over the armrest with a color contrast stitching that runs all through here Your top part is very softly padded Got an aluminum speaker grille here and you will find three person memory seating on the limited and up As far as your windows here all four are one touch automatic As far as your seat controls They do range between six-way six-way power on the lower end and 10-way power on the upper end models like this one here
And then like I said We do have real leather seating just feel nice and soft and supple You do have perforation as well as the color contrast stitching and it looks pretty attractive One of the really neat things is this new animation comes up in the center display As well as on this display, sometimes when you get in I’m just kind of like a nature scape pretty nice looking Well, I was saying checking out the cabin for the first time it really doesn’t look anything like any existing Ford models And as far as the materials they have taken a big step up from the outgoing generation So across your entire upper dash this is all soft touch plastic even on your lower trim levels here on the limited We have a faux wood that runs through this whole center part here This would be a real wood if you go for the platinum trunk and the upper dash as well as the top of the door trims would be covered and I Love the red on the Platinum
As far as the other materials you have this silver trim That runs through here on the limited as well as some metallic finish across here and everything fits together, really really solidly Now no matter what model you get you do have a standard push-button start When you press it, you will see this 8 inch touch display fire up on the vast majority of models however, if you go for the st or the top end of platinum model, you have the option of getting that really Interesting looking 10.1 inch display. So let’s stand up a little bit taller than this one All right, so checking out the gauges over here This is actually your base set up for the gauges and you have a really large six and a half inch a reconfigurable display
Right in between your two analog gauges And you can just cycle through a bunch of different information. This is different than the typical fourth set up So it’s kind of an all new Version but it does contain pretty much the same information just it’s a really really high resolution Now you can get a twelve point three inch display. That’s fully reconfigure Bullough takes up the entire gauge cluster That comes on the st in the plateau Now coming back to your steering wheel Ford has nicely Included this leather wrap steering wheel across all of the trim levels, even the base model It does have a new design here kind of a little bit boxy looking here We’ve got our buttons for our adaptive cruise control our audio controls on this side
We got our multifunction display as well as iPhone and voice commands One nice touch is that on the limited and up you do have a power adjusting steering wheel and you also have steering wheel heated Now moving on to interior storage This is one of the most important aspects of a family crossover and Ford has really done a great job here .There’s a ton of different places to stick things so we can start out here with our center console As you can see, you’ve got a little tray right here that you can remove and then looking inside. This is very deep But we have a nice little rubber pad down at the bottom of it as well as a 12-volt outlet Right up in front of that you actually have a wireless phone charger. It’s setting sideways here So you just stick your phone in like that and then set it like that. That’s a pretty cool way to save space You’ve got another two more cup holders right here, which are illuminated a small area here for your fob or a tiny phone We can pop this up and you see this is a really really large bin It’s actually extremely deep it also is lined with the same rubber mat. This is where you’ll find your USB your USB type-c and another 12 volt outlet and Then finally there is another place to stick stuff us This looks like a good shelf that for a phone or something else small like your wallet. And this is kind of a little bit hidden Definitely a nice use of space here And one of the reasons for it has been able to give you this much space is because they’ve gone to a compact Electronic shifter like we see in the expedition So it operates the same way you just twist over for drive. You can press in the center to activate the manual mode and Interesting leaf Ford actually includes paddle shifters across all the trim levels even the base XLT Therefore reverse you’re just gonna twist back to they are And when you do so you will find a 360-degree camera system that’s actually included on the vast majority of the trim so all but the base XLT will have this 360 camera system as.
You can see you’ve got your 360 view on this side and your traditional view on the left-hand side We can hit the camera button here to cycle through some different views Like our corner view and we do also have the ability to hit the zoom button and Check that with that little line there to line up a trailer And then for bark you just twist it over to the P And right behind it You will find an electronic parking brake as well as a brake hold feature now right behind that you will notice a few more buttons This turns on and off your auto start/stop. You have your fill descent control and this turns off your traction control However, in the middle we have a drive mode selector So when we select that we have this really nice animation come up here which shows us all of our different drive modes There are a lot of different choices here. So we start out with our normal then we scroll over we have slippery trail and Deep snow and sand now we can go back the other direction. We have an eco mode a sport mode and then a dedicated towing and Hall
So as you can see each one of those comes with its own animation to make sure you know exactly what mode you’re in It looks really cool. Now the next thing to check out is going to be our climate controls Ford has actually included three zone automatic climate control standard across the board So what you’re looking at you’ll find on every single Explorer All your buttons are located right here. So you can control everything without having to go into the display or anything like that You’re just going to press up on this really nice feeling button To adjust the temperature for both the driver and passenger right here is going to be your fan speed adjustment turn on and off Right there and you can adjust your zones right there
You can also press this to turn on off the rear And if you hit the menu this gives you some additional options Will quickly pop up here so you don’t have to take around and figure out how to find that in the system Off to the side of that You will find your buttons for your seat heating heating his standard on the limited and up optional on the XLT and Ventilation is standard on the limited and up as well as the heated steering wheel, which I already talked about All right, so now that brings us here to our audio system now naturally. There are a couple different ones to choose from a six speaker one on the XLT or on the limited enough
You have a 12 speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system. That’s what we have. So let’s go ahead and take a seat Sall quality of this system is phenomenal There is actually a third sound system available as an option on the esti and the platinum That’s a 980 watt 14 speaker banging olsen sound system, but honestly hearing this one. I don’t think you’ll need to pay for the upgrade Already and now that brings us here to our sync 3 system. It has been updated a little bit with some new graphics So let’s go ahead and take a quick look but you do have your home screen with different Tiles that you can click on real fast to move into that section so in our Bluetooth audio we can play and pause the music straight from here and we can also switch to our different sources from Right there We also have a phone section where you have access to contacts your text messages things like that The other big thing is the applications because we booked we have standard Android auto and apple carplay which may kind of mix up for the fact that we do not have integrated navigation on this trim level so you can still use Google Earth maps or Apple Maps, whatever you prefer to use through those systems here on the STX That’s pretty much the main features that we’ll cover here But we do have a dedicated tech help video available If you want to learn more about the sync 3 system a link to that is in the video description Now moving on up from that on the Limited and up You will find an auto dimming mirror with your home link universal remote mounted right here Now our particular limited has a very nice option which is our panoramic So go ahead and bring this shade back here.
This is an option across most of the trims It’s only standard on the Platinum. All the other trims can’t add it for sixteen hundred and fifty dollars Of course as you expect this front portion does slide open And this piece of glass here is really really large you also have a wind buffer right up there But overall, I have to say I’m very impressed by the cabin of the 2024 Explorer It really feels very very spacious very It feels like a really big step up from the outgoing model the materials the solidity and the technology Really bring this back up towards the top of the class All right, so now go ahead and hand it off to Mason who will check out the back seats and the cargo area All righty So moving around to the rear seat of the all-new 2020 Explorer you are gonna find a good amount of space Especially for its class you’ll find 39 inches of rear legroom and 41 inches of rear headroom Which does actually place it above its main competition like the Honda Pilot and Toyota Highlander Now turning over here to the door trim You do have a really nice Luxurious door trim to do have leather wrapping across all the bottom and it goes even all the way up here to the very top now in addition on this limited trim, we do have rear window sun shades and Down below you will find a power window Now down below that you will also find plenty of drawer storage plenty of space for maybe a bottle and some other junk In turning over to the seat itself You will notice that this particular model is the captain’s chairs model and that is because captains chairs are standard across every Explorer
You actually have the option to add a bench seat and that is an extra cost option So if you’re looking for captains chairs, they are standard here Now here in the center for does give you plenty of nice equipment So you will find your own climate control standard across all of the models and you will also find your own climate vents now down below that you will notice that we do have two stated rear seats and that is on the limited and platinum trims and. Down below that you have a smart charging USB port as well as a USB type-c and a household star outlet as well Now down below that you have a really large storage bin. You can fit quite a bit of stuff in there and here in the center like I said This is the captain’s chairs model and it is really nice that Ford has included these nice cupholders in the floor as well as another little storage area and Like I said, this is captain’s chair. So you do have these nice armrest. Top we do have this beautiful panoramic moonroof, which is an option on the limited trim and off to the side We have some LED lighting here your vents, which I mentioned earlier and a copa Now like I said in terms of space This is on par with most of the rivals. If not a little bit ahead and behind your seating position I have plenty of space probably 4 to 5 inches of rear legroom and my feet can easily slide from the deceit And coming around to the third row obviously
This is a very important part of the Explorer and Ford hasn’t made it really easy to get back here So I have to do is look at this little button on the top of the seat Push it and it will electrically fold out of the way kind of like me Honda Pilot Now once you get back here you are going to find 30 2.2 inches of rear legroom and 38 inches of rear headroom Which is pretty class competitive if not on the larger end of the segment So now it’s go ahead and get back there and see what it’s like All right, and so my first impression is it seems pretty class competitive back here as you can see I don’t really have much legroom, but my feet do have a nice spot up underneath the seat to slide, which is good But the thigh support is a little bit lacking as well However off to the side for does give you a little storage area as Well as your own vents up here and on the side as well some lighting And on this side you do have a cup holder as well And in order to slight the seat back into place just push it right back Now coming around to the tailgate of the Explorer It is standard power, which is a really nice feature and it is also hands-free if you go for the limited or platinum trims So just wave your foot under the bumper to open Now once you’re inside of the Explorers trunk you are going to be very pleasantly surprised with the amount of space It’s larger than most of the class since you have 18 cubic feet behind the third row seats And if you fold those seats this goes up to 48 cubic feet And if you fold all of the seats as a maximum, it’s 88 cubic feet now like I mentioned that is larger than That’s actually larger than the last year’s Explorer and it’s larger than the Honda Pilot and Toyota Highlander as well Now as far as how Ford finishes it back here It is really nicely finished to do have a nice carpeted floor board and up underneath of the floor. You even have more room so this is probably about Eight to ten inches deep and it goes across the entire Rear you can fit plenty of stuff back here that you want hit up and off to the side You will notice a few features. So you do have a 12-volt power outlet as well as your power folding third row Now this is actually standard on the limited trims and higher so I have to do is fold the seats down is to push this button and It does fold right down Now you will notice that Ford was nice enough to include I’ve never seen this before but they have both the left and the right seat So all you have to do is push this one button instead of both buttons at the same time And as you can see when the seats do fold they are completely flat with the floor And coming over to the passenger seat it is power adjusting across every trim of the Explorer it’s either 6 or 8 way power adjusting depending on your trim level and You do have nice materials in front of the passenger as well as a good sized glovebox its dampened and there’s plenty of space inside And up top would you have a Sun Visor with a mirror and light Bay’s our LED lights and it does also detach next end But anyway guys that sums up all of the usable areas of the 2020 Ford Explorer So now let’s go ahead get on the road and see how it all performs All right, so let’s go ahead and talk about this vehicles power trains Now Ford has a quite a variety of options for you to pick from So the XLT and their limited are going to start with a 2.3 liter turbo four-cylinder. I Produces very healthy numbers of 300 horsepower and 310 pound feet of torque Now the next step up on the limited trim is going to be a hybrid option we’re gonna cover that in a separate video But as far as the ST and the Platinum they jump up to a 3 litre turbo v6 And that produce has really really good numbers 365 horsepower and 380 pound-feet of torque in the Platinum trim if you go for the ST that’s actually tuned up to 400 horsepower and 415 pound-feet of torque Wow So those are very impressive numbers and then of course it is as many of you have heard rear-wheel drive now So you have the rear wheel drive bias On the bottom two trims at a standard rear wheel drive optional all-wheel drive. The top two trims all-wheel drive is standard As far as your transmission, we have a 10 speed automatic transmission onboard And all that together does produce pretty good fuel economy So the base model with the rear wheel drive 2.3 liter, there’s gonna be 21 City 28 Highway 24 combined When you go for all-wheel drive like this one, that’s gonna drop that down to 23 combined And then if you choose that really powerful 3.0 liter engine you’re gonna get 18 city 24 highway 20 combined which is still Pretty good for the class since a lot of rivals have less powerful engines that get similar fuel economy But with all that said let’s go ahead and take it out on the road and see how it performs there All right so first launching off in the 2020 Ford explorer as we’ve already said numerous times, this is the limited trim And it comes with the 2.3 liter EcoBoost engine Now we were just driving the f-150 with the 2.7 liter EcoBoost v6 So and this is this is a four-cylinder But the small displacement EcoBoost engines. They’re they’re really impressive When you start going down the road in this it? It’s really surprising just watching off. It feels quite powerful for such a small engine Yeah, for sure and even even the sound it doesn’t really sound like a strange 4-cylinder You know in a big vehicle like this, you know If you got like a 4 cylinder in any of its competition It’s gonna sound really really strained and this engine definitely doesn’t have any of that Right. So this is basically playing substitute for a v6 engine.
I Believe that you used to have to option this engine on you had a standard v6, but now this is the standard engine And you’re not gonna miss the v6 This certainly has plenty of power more than the competition actually on average and Of course, you’re looking at fuel economy benefits, of course as well having that four-cylinder And of course the biggest news of 2020 is we’re back to a rear-drive platform. So that’s that’s really cool that’s also different from most of the competition besides for maybe like the Dodge Durango and That is something that makes it stand out As far as just driving along here going to a rear-drive architecture doesn’t just make it become like a sports sedan anything magical like that, but You know it does it feels very well balanced and what’s impressing me is that it doesn’t feel super big or anything a lot of the competition and wallows around and Just feels absolutely gigantic. This feel is pretty agile And just rolling down the road here did you have a good sense of where the wheels are placed Yeah, it feels pretty good I don’t feel but much body roll is one of the things yeah, it’s pretty buttoned down Even in this version, of course, this is more of a family version a luxury minded version versus the ST We’re definitely impressed by what I’m feeling here in the driving dynamics
The 10 speed automatic doesn’t hesitate to drop gears Just like in the f-150 We were just in it drops gears sometimes multiple ones at a time just to keep you right and the power band There ten-speed does a really good job. You cannot feel the shifts at all. Yeah. It’s an excellent. Very serious minute transmission Now one of the other things I do want to comment line is just cruising along you know An explorer is supposed to be a family vehicle. You have three rows for you and your family to come along comfortably And this cart really does a great job of keeping it quiet and comfortable in here Those are your two main things that you want in a car like this and they do a really good job with it we are cruising down about thirty miles an hour and there’s almost no noise at all in this cabin, and it feels absolutely Super comfortable. These seats are awesome. And I really think that all three rows are going to be comfortable As far as the characteristics of the engine It definitely has good torque down low it runs out of breath a little bit up top, but that’s the way all four cylinders are but what’s really important is how you take off and That the torque richness of the turbo definitely helps you take off really nicely
All right, so our auto start/stop system just engaged so we’ll go ahead and take off and see how smooth it restarts. Oh Very very very smoothly. This is that’s definitely one of the best system felt It’s a very very very good system can’t remember exactly how the old Explorer was but this would definitely that type of smoothness is Top level for this class now, of course you can turn it off as I pointed out earlier right here if this is something that annoys you Yeah, I’m definitely liking the feel of this turbo engine really peppy So if you’re looking at that compared to a v6 and think that that’s going to be a huge downgrade I’m gonna tell you you should come test drive it because these EcoBoost engines are really impressing me they oppress me in the the 2.7 and the F-150 we did and this is really just as good. That’s right And we have a lot of different drive moves that we can try out. As i pointed out earlier there are a ton of them That’s what I’ll do is I’ll go ahead and scroll us into the sport mode and see if that makes me into a difference Like I was saying the transmission does not hesitate to give you drop the gears to give you exactly whatever you need That’s the benefit of having 10 speeds to choose from is You have always have kind of the best make sure performance and fuel economy Remarkably comfortable here at highway speeds Yeah, this is a rough concrete road here so these and roads are usually a Rougher loud louder particularly, it’s very hushed in here. I don’t hear any road noise particularly The wind noise is very minimal Here in the sport mode the sterring definitely tightens up a lot It’s a quite a bit heavier This is I you know, I prefer heavier steering generally but it is nice that for it since you have so many different drive modes to pick between That you really can cater that to where like the normal mode is definitely liked Just the way that people in this class typically want it, but if you do want the sporty or drive We have the different drive modes
Or of course if you want to go Full fledged support st than the ST is always available to you that that changes a lot Obviously this just now came out this is the first one to come to our dealership and You know Hopefully with the chance to try out the st in the future And see what exactly is different about that as well as the hybrid model — there’s really a lot going on with this Ford Explorer lineup and I think that really is kind of a good summary to the whole vehicle is the fact that there’s kind of Something for everyone. I guess you could say. You can start out on on the basic end and still have a really nice engine and really good standard equipment and then you can just keep bumping up and Go all the way up to kind of like a perfunctory performance a luxury crossover so, you know Yeah, if you know you’re shopping in this class Then you should stop by your ford dealership take a look at it and see you know What kind of mixture kind of matches what you’re what you’re looking for And now let’s go ahead and take some time to discuss the pricing of this all-new 2020 Explorer So for your very base model The starting price is going to be thirty six thousand six hundred and seventy five dollars and that is for the XLT trim in rear-wheel drive Configuration now if you want to go one rung up to what we have here This is the limited trim and that’s going to start at forty eight thousand one hundred and thirty dollars also and rear-wheel drive as Drew is talking about And then the next rung up is actually your performance model that’s the ST and that’s going to come in at fifty four thousand seven hundred and forty dollars with standard all-wheel drive and The Platinum which is the top dog has everything you could ever want is going to start at fifty eight thousand two hundred fifty dollars
Also a standard all-wheel drive Now as far as how this particular Explorer is equipped, we do have a pretty highly a configured limited trim so we have the star white paint for five hundred ninety five dollars as was the optional twin panel moonroof for sixteen ninety five and We also have optional 20-inch wheels for five ninety five And then finally when you add in the destination charge of a thousand ninety five dollars This particular model as equipped and four-wheel drive is going to come in at fifty four thousand one hundred and ten dollars Which definitely you know looking around here. It is a lot more expensive than some of its rivals like the Highlander and pilot But I do think that you’re getting a lot more than those rifles, you know, especially in your higher-end trims You’re going to be getting the faster engine with I mean 400 horsepower and the st So you’re getting a lot of stuff that is not even available and a lot of those on the top end. Yeah, exactly That’s not even offered in the competition So while that top-end price is significantly more than the top in price for a competition You do have to keep in mind you’re getting a totally different package than what they offer Well guys you enjoyed watching this in-depth look at the 2020 Ford Explorer limited Please let those like and subscribe buttons if you haven’t already and we’ll catch you next time as they stand for more of the latest automotive delicacies!