If it ain't broke don't fix it. But society and companies can't adhere to that for many reasons. We've had a 2000 Expedition with a 5-4 for about seven years. Bought it with 193,000 miles on it and now it has over 250 and is still a great running truck. I have had and worked on so many 4.6 is in town cars I've lost count so they are my preference.
After having a town car for a daily driver for about seven years I decided I wanted to go back to an SUV so I decided on a navigator I wanted leather and they are more plentiful than expeditions with leather. I ended up driving around 250 miles away to get a southern nice rust-free one but I decided I had to have it 03 or 04. I would not have an 05 because of the 3 valve engine and I would not have an 06 because of the new ZF transmission. It actually upsets me that the Expedition and Navigators don't have the 4R100 transmission. My Excursion has that and it's the best ford transmission ever in my opinion.
So I got a near-mint condition Navigator with 117000 miles on it for $300 under Kelley Blue Book. It wasn't a steal but it's absolutely rust-free and the underside of it including frame rockers lines hoses everything looks like a 9 to 10 month old vehicle compared to everything else around here.
I only buy old stuff and the cheap price range for cash so I will have to skip over a lot of these newer ones and all the junk they have creayed in their annoying boredom to change things and the push for fuel mileage. As someone stated, I don't need or expect a huge SUV to get 25 miles per gallon. I am thinking in the future I will seriously be considering one of the newer explorers if the engines and Transmissions are not problematic. I like the look of them and they have the same seating capacity although it's a little more snug I guess as the larger Expeditions and Navigators. The dumbest thing Ford ever did was put the center console in The Navigators and make it a seven instead of eight passenger. Completely stupid I cannot figure out why they couldn't make a seat that you can sit on but the top part folds down to be an arm rest with two cup holders. The seat option for jumper seat does fold down with the rest of the seat but it's not really designed to just flip down & be an armrest or be convenient. If I had more time this will become my pet peeve and I would make one myself just to make it the perfect height. The only thing the center console is good for is putting two liters of pop and milk in so they won't fall over.
But overall I completely hate it. It cast now I'm one passenger capacity and it makes it almost impossible for both rear seat passengers to get in from the same door. Sometimes passengers might like the division with both having an armrest but other times passengers want to be able to actually be closer to each other or sit next to each other in the rear seat like they can in a town car. It seems 03-06 95% of them have the center console but now it seems you see a lot more of the newer ones with a jumper seat. Who makes these decisions,? What market research? Do you think anything's changed in a few years? Of course not. It should have been the other way around with the console being an option. Or get some cool Asian designers involved and make one that does all three. It's a seat with the top that folds down for an armrest with cup holders and the bottom folds up to have a solid storage box below that instead of just having air underneath of it.
