Ford has been selling millions of its F-150 trucks seemingly forever. More than just producing vehicle sales, it has allowed the company to experiment with other vehicle styles atop the F-150 platform. Ending in 1996, that was the heart of the Ford Bronco, a 2-door SUV for off-road adventurers. The next year, Ford replaced the 2-door Bronco with the 4-door Expedition, a three-row family hauler intended to be one jump up from the two-row Ford Explorer. Five years later, Ford offered a third-row seat in a few premium Explorer trim levels, and since 2011, 3-row seating is standard in the Explorer. Today, the Expedition remains the primary full-size, big family hauler from Ford.
And it's big. Really big. It's 30 inches longer than a Ford Escape, an additional 16 inches on the wheel base and almost 7 inches wider. Most impressively, the Expedition has a curb weight of about 5,400 pounds versus the lightweight 3,200 pound Escape. A Ford Mach-E? By comparison, that's 4,600 pounds with its chonky EV batteries.
Ford offered to let me have a week driving the 2025 Ford Expedition Tremor 4x4 in "Wild Green" and, though I knew it would be culture and size shock after my compact Mazda CX-5 daily drive, I have 'em drop it off in my driveway for some adventures...
The Wild Green was a very interesting color that looked more khaki or sand in direct light, and more of a neutral, almost Army green in more diffuse light, as shown above. It's attractive, but other than the touches of yellow in the front grill and wheels, it's a very utilitarian design and curb presence. No one is going to say "Cool SUV, dude!"
It is, however, great if you need a big truck with tons of passenger capacity and plenty of towing oomph. In fact, its towing capacity is an impressive 9,600 pounds. That's almost 5 tons! This is all powered by a 3.5L EcoBoost High‑Output (440 hp / 510 lb‑ft) engine and 10-speed automatic transmission. The Expedition is all about having more capacity than you need with less complexity than you may be expecting.
Fuel efficiency? Well, as they say with super cars, if you have to ask, this might not be the vehicle for you. The official EPA rating for the Tremor edition is 15 city / 22 highway, but across quite a varied terrain I never saw better than 15.3 mpg. When gas is $2.49/gallon that's not so painful, but when it inevitably heads up to $5.00 or more per gallon, filling that 23.5 gallon tank is definitely going to put a dent in that gold card.
The entire experience of being in an Expedition can be summed up in one word: Spacious. It's so big that it not only has a 13.2 inch infotainment screen but it also has a 24" panoramic display behind that. Confusingly, I found lots of redundancy in the display, though in the above, you can see the Ford map view on the pano display, whereas the foreground screen is all Apple CarPlay (in this instance, showing an audio book I was enjoying). After a week of driving and experimenting, I felt like the right portion of the pano screen was unnecessary and poorly utilized by the vehicle.
And then there's the steering wheel controls. That's a whole 'nother level of technological abstraction:
This is what Ford calls its Capacitive Steering Wheel Controls and the buttons have no labels. Fear not, however, because once you lightly touch either button area, the relevant functional icons appear on the pano display, as you can see in this next photo:
Once I figured out how to interact with these buttons, it was easy enough, and my most used were volume up and volume down, the top center and bottom center spots on the right control. But if you're used to having labels logically located where you're supposed to tap, touch, push, or rotate, this is a whole 'nother interface to master.
The Expedition might be ready to go off road, but it's interesting that the drive mode control knob is tucked away by the driver's left knee. Fortunately, "4A" does most of the heavy lifting with its automatic switching from 2-wheel drive to 4-wheel drive as needed, so it's really just a backup drive control for rough terrain.
Ford also had a terrific feature I've appreciated in Kia, Hyundai, and Genesis vehicles: a live video view of the relevant side of your vehicle when you engage the turn indicators. In the above, I'm about to change lanes to the left, so it's showing me a view of that side to ensure nothing's in my blind spot.
Yes, I was just experimenting with the video view, I wasn't actually about to change lanes over a double yellow line. Not to worry, dear reader!
There was plenty of legroom for the second row, as expected. The above is with the driver's seat all the way back (I'm a tall driver at 6'3"). The rear seats are quite comfortable too, though this portion of the vehicle - in "Black Onyx/Electric Spice" - looks more utilitarian than luxurious.
And then there's that third row...
In this photo you can see 2/3 of the second row and a single seat up for the third row. Not a lot of legroom in row three, but with just about any three-row vehicle that's not a passenger van, the last row's for the smaller folk so this is no surprise.
No manual lifting and lowering of seats for the Expedition, however; the above are the seat controls just to the left of the rear cargo hatch. Push a button and any - or all - of the seats raise or lower. What a pleasure, especially if you're busy trying to manage a crowd of kiddos.
Keep that third row folded down and you've got lots of cargo space. Even with it raised, there's plenty for an enthusiastic Costco run. But look closely at the above photo: The Expedition has a two part rear hatch where mostly it's a liftgate, but there's also a small tailgate that Ford calls the Cargo Management System Load Floor. In practice it's a nice little shelf that can be kept closed even as the top liftgate raises up to allow rear access.
I really enjoyed driving the Expedition for a week, though eventually felt guilty that I didn't have a crew to try out all the seats and cargo space on a drive. If it's just you, or you and a little one, there's no way that a vehicle this big isn't overkill; Why not just step down to a Ford Explorer or even a Bronco (the new ones are quite cool) and simplify? But if you need the towing capacity and the space for your posse, there's a lot to like about the technologically advanced Ford Expedition.
2025 Ford Expedition Tremor 4x4, powered by a 3.5L H/O EcoBoost V6 and 10-speed automatic transmission. BASE PRICE: $81,350.00. Options Included: 2nd Row Power Fold Bench, Connectivity Package, Underbody Protection, Cargo Tailgate Manager. AS DRIVEN: $85,700.00.
Disclosure: Ford loaned me the Expedition for a week in return for this candid write-up. This article originally appeared on PlanetDave.com with the title The Big, Beautiful 2025 Ford Expedition Tremor 4x4 and is republished with permission of the author.
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