2011 Ford Explorer Review

Ford’s radically redesigned 2011 Explorer casts away preconceptions with an impressive appetite for the rough stuff that belies its stylish new exterior.

I was going to start this review of the re-designed 2011 Ford Explorer by calling it the car that saved my life. Well, that sounds a bit too much like a paid marketing story in some trade magazine, or maybe a blog entry, but the truth is that the new Explorer really did stick to an icy road for an entire week, and at least kept me out of the ditch and from some panicky moments on a lonely country road covered with snow. The much-improved SUV now looks and drives like a true crossover, with a stately interior and a radical new unibody construction. Yet, the intelligent drivetrain, third-row seating, and reasonable price tag make the Explorer the crowning SUV of the moment, minus a few weird snafus.

Everything is new on the Explorer except the name, and apparently Ford even thought about changing that. At least a dozen people commented during our test that the vehicle looks nothing like the old Explorer and more like a beefed up Ford Escape. (If they had known more about the similarly styled Ford Edge, they may have said the Explorer looks like a close cousin.) The auto industry has followed the path of unibody construction because it means cheaper all-in-one materials, but Ford managed to beef up the hood, provide a few sleek angles (especially in the rear), and liven up the design for the current century. The Explorer looks absolutely refined in person, although the Jeep Grand Cherokee has a bit beefier all-terrain look and gets the nod as the more appealing total re-design. Overall, the new Explorer is about 100 pounds lighter than the previous generation Explorer model.

Interestingly, the front grill is a bit more subtle than the Edge, which is almost too pronounced. The outside of the car is sleek and rugged, but not quite as urbanized as the Lincoln MKX. That’s a good thing, especially if you decide to pull an old clunky fishing boat or a dilapidated camper. Ford intends the Explorer to look and feel like a crossover but in reality is a full SUV that can carry and pull cargo.

Inside, the new Explorer feels like a fish bowl, and I mean that in a good way. Several passengers commented about the roominess in the first and second row, about the quality of construction (essentially hard plastic, but molded in a way that feels almost dignified.) Really, the interior is just as much of a radical departure from the old Explorer as the outside, mostly because it just seems so spacious compared to even the Grand Cherokee and the Edge. Of course, every Explorer, even the entry-level model that costs $28,190 includes a third row seat for seven total passengers. That third row is definitely cramped but not awkwardly so – for school age kids, it’s just about right.

Speaking of the third-tow seat, there is also a way to fold the back seats down automatically. This worked well, and looks cool when you use the buttons. However, we preferred the speed on the Dodge Grand Caravan because the Explorer tends to run just a tad slow in comparison. If you fold the third row seats down, you get 43.8 cubic feet of cargo space. If you fold down the second row seats, you get 80.7 cubic feet of space. In keeping with the fish-bowl feel of the car, the Explorer has more space than the Grand Cherokee, which has 68.7 cubic feet in the back with the second row seats folded down.