First Week with my 2022 Expedition Max King Ranch

[balthisar]

I think I saw in the order guide, you can access the 360 camera by touching the expedition icon on the top left corner of the screen when not in motion.

On my Mach E, touching the Expedition icon (err, Mach E icon) in the top left is only the first step. You'll still need two more taps to activate the cameras. This is my biggest complaint with the big screen.

 

[NukeLife]

Not sure what you mean by cross shop. I was looking at full sized SUVs, Tahoe, Suburban, Denali, Escalade. Availability was the biggest factor as I sold my ram to take advantage of the used car market. After that I was interested in technology and comfort features. I liked wireless carplay, vented front seats, adaptive cruise control.

Initial impressions are this is a step up from the ram limited trim. Nicer appointments and cozier ride. I like the 10 speed transmission, up from 8 in the ram. Doesn't seem to lack in power compared with the hemi, but I haven't towed anything or been in any street races yet. MPG is an improvment (15 in the Ram, 18.5 so far in the expy), but I am babying it right now. I think I'll end up settling in around 17-17.5mpg.

A few minor knocks so far compared to the ram:
-cigarette lighter does not kill power when turning off the car, which means my dash cam does not turn off with the car.
-adaptive cruise control is a constant fight with the steering wheel, and it periodically cancels itself because it thinks my hands aren't on the wheel. The ram tech was better in 2019.
-you can't customize your quick tabs on the screen. In the ram you could choose your quick access buttons, i.e. one touch backup camera, one touch for your preferred apps.
-in relation to quick access, there is no one button for surround cameras. You have to go into the menu if the parking cameras are not already triggered.
-It sometimes shows the audio playing on the instrument cluster, and sometimes doesn't. Seems like a bug, and obviously a very minor gripe.

I wasn't a fan at first but it is growing on me. The King Ranch accent color along the bottom helps. My wife says it is a "dad color".

So while Fort Mill Ford had my Expy for 9 weeks, I had a loaner Edge with the 15” screen Sync 4.
Unfortunately ……I had plenty of time to get familiar with all the controls and newer Ford tech. (Newer than my 2018 Platy)

My impressions:
The two things I was most interested in were the wireless CarPlay and the new lane-keeping.
Wireless CarPlay worked very well…sort of. And by that I mean, it was seamless, and always connected as soon as I got into the car. The display worked well and I liked the format on the screen, especially the artist / song information. Waze looked really good, also. Used it all the time and even took it on a few trips (put 3,000 miles on it)

The one problem I had was probably more of a Sync4 issue. The Sync4 was GLITCHY!!!. Numerous occurrences of the screen locking up. Twice the display just turned off completely, and then went into a hard reboot. And the worst one was on a trip to the state high school basketball championship game, the screen started switching from one view, to another, to another… almost like somebody was constantly clicking on icons of the touchscreen. And every time the screen changed it made the little “blip” sound it makes confirming that you touched a ”button”.
This went on for about 15 miles as we drove through Columbia, and finally my wife looked at me with that “look”.
So I had to pull over and fix it—which involved just shutting the car off and letting it set for a minute. But I also noticed that my iPhone was really hot, so I wondered if maybe something with CarPlay made it freak out, and I disabled CarPlay for the rest of the trip.

When I returned the loaner I mentioned all this to the Service manager and he rolled his eyes and nodded his head. He acknowledged that they are getting a lot of new Sync4 vehicles in with the same type problems I described. So evidently there are some bugs to be worked out with Sync 4 and that new large display.

The other thing I was really interested in was the newer lane-keeping system. My ears perked up when you said you found yourself fighting the wheel a lot, until the system would shut itself off.
YESSSSS!!! So it wasn’t just me!! whew!

Ford needs to go back to the drawing board on this one. I was constantly getting warning messages to “keep my hands on the wheel”. Never once took my hands off?? Why does it not know my hands are on the f—king wheel??? And yes, it will only give the “warning” so many times before it turns off lane-keeping for your “safety”.
I mean, if you don’t have both hands on the wheel..furiously rowing back and forth like 15 yr old learning to drive a 1968 F100, the system dings at you…. C’mon man. I turned it off and just gave up.
The other thing I didn’t like about it was the track it wanted to take around curves. Every curve it hugged the inside edge—and I mean sometimes on the rumble strips! We aren’t in a Formula 1 race Ford.. I don’t need to be that aggressive on hanging one tire off the inside shoulder. And if you prefer to stay more centered in your lane, you will be FIGHTING the steering wheel in nearly every curve.

For comparison, I drove a rental Nissan Altima for a week before the dealership was able to get me the loaner Edge. The lane-keeping system in that was AMAZING. We took a 4 hour road trip in it, and that thing can absolutely drive itself. Alway centered in the lane, never barking at me about my hands on the wheel, never had to fight the steering wheel,.. auto-cruise worked great. I was very impressed with the Nissan tech!
Fun fact: the wife gets really mad when you lean your seat back and pretend like you are taking a nap while driving. Oh and the Altima will eventually sound off all kind of warnings for you to start driving again, and then it turns on the hazard lights and slowly brings the car to a stop——in the middle of the road— LOL! The wife wasn’t amused.

So Ford has a LOT to learn / improve on with lane-keeping. It SUCKED!

And my final general impressions of the 15” screen with virtually every hard control button, now being only on the touchscreen?
I am not a fan. Yes, it is a big high-res screen, but I was constantly hitting the wrong “button”.. or hitting it too many times because of the lag.. Honestly, it takes WAY more of your attention off driving to do anything with the controls now. It is actually LESS safe. And when you are moving you can’t just reach out and tap a precise spot on the screen. I mean, your hand is moving… the vehicle is moving…you find yourself trying to brace your hand by resting the heel of your hand on the dash to steady it, and then tapping the screen button with your finger. Ugh.

I was so happy to get my 2018 Expy back. Discreet buttons for almost everything… and you can reach down while driving and “feel” you are on the correct button, or knob, and operate it without ever taking your eyes off the road.

With the large 15” screen?.. you reach down and “feel” nothing. It is just a big smooth screen. Oh, and when you did reach down thinking you were touching the right part of the screen, you didn’t. And now you are on a different screen…. Or you operated something you weren’t intending to… Just changing the climate control temperature is a chore. And the lag on those ridiculous “slide controls for temperature” and heated seats is frustrating.

I’m fine with a larger high-res screen… although I think 15” is a bit too large. But why take away the discreet controls and hard buttons?? This a BIG swing-and-miss, for me. Just bad. I had 2 months and 3000 miles with it, and I can tell you I will NEVER have that setup in one of my vehicles.

 

[bbenz3]

I haven't driven a vehicle with Ford's land assist in it but other rentals I've had I was very unimpressed. I often felt like a ping pong ball due to over correcting. I highly doubt I'll use it when/if we get our new Expedition someday.

I was very happy the 15" screen was an option because I didn't want it. I too really like the discreet physical buttons. I know others that really want the large screen so I'm just glad there are options for whatever you want.

 

[balthisar]

So Ford has a LOT to learn / improve on with lane-keeping. It SUCKED!

I can't wait to test it out when I get mine. The system works perfectly on my Mach E.

 

[taylor312]

@NukeLife I’m curious, was your phone being charged wirelessly during the screen switching incident where the phone heated up?

Did you try using voice commands for things like changing temp instead of the screen?


Edit: Thank you for the detailed write up. We have a platinum on order with this screen and I’m concerned about some of the things you mentioned. Especially the functionality of the screen vs physical buttons. In my research many of the larger screen options out there end up requiring multiple actions just to do basic things like turn on/off heated/cooled seats, change temp, etc. Anything that adds to driver distraction loses its “cool” factor fast IMHO.

 

[8131full]

I can't wait to test it out when I get mine. The system works perfectly on my Mach E.

Same. We've got a Mach E with the screen and it works fine. No issues. Wife loves it.

 

[rob4092xx]

I ordered the 15" screen. Can you tell it to change temperature, radio station, etc., through voice commands???

 

[dlcorbett]

I ordered the 15" screen. Can you tell it to change temperature, radio station, etc., through voice commands???

It has natural voice recognition and Alexa, so it picks up natural speech commands and you can say more to it

 

[Saturnfire]

I was hesitant to post a brag thread as a lurker, but got some encouragement in another thread. I've had my 2022 for 1 week and absolutely love it. Answering questions and posting pics here if anyone wants to see anything specific.

Drive is smooth and quiet. Sits up high (coming from a 2019 Ram). The talk of the 15" screen, while understandably subjective, is unwarranted. The bottom 1/3 of the screen is climate control so the portion used for Nav/audio is not any bigger than the standard screen imo. 15" screen is responsive with minimal lag. A couple photos below. Also, thanks everyone for the wealth of knowledge on here.

Thank you for posting. A lot of good information. I am hoping to order the Expedition later this year. Now more stressed on the model to get . I am also going to order a 2023F350 Tremor at the same time, so I am doing a lot of research on both.
I initially was also considering an LX600, but the supply shortages and freaking greedy dealers put that off the list. (I am NOT paying 20K over MSRP)

One question, are the Massage seats only available in the Platinum trim?

 

[dlcorbett]

Thank you for posting. A lot of good information. I am hoping to order the Expedition later this year. Now more stressed on the model to get . I am also going to order a 2023F350 Tremor at the same time, so I am doing a lot of research on both.
I initially was also considering an LX600, but the supply shortages and freaking greedy dealers put that off the list. (I am NOT paying 20K over MSRP)

One question, are the Massage seats only available in the Platinum trim?

Yes.