Faults:

I have not bought this car (thanks god!!). I am living in the San Francisco bay area and I have rented a Ford Explorer to go to Death Valley National Park, California. Here's what happened in only 3 days.

First a tire blew out. OK, that's not linked to the car, so why not...

And then, the alternator went down, and the battery was not recharging anymore.

We tried to escape from the heat but the Ford never left the valley and we became pedestrians in Death Valley, with a temperature over 110F. Fortunately, a ranger was able to help us and we were finally towed to Las Vegas where we got a Jeep Grand Cherokee to drive back to San Francisco.

General Comments:

When I arrived from France, I did not know that American cars in America were so unreliable. In Europe, Ford models, for example, don't seem so crappy. If you have a look on the reviews made for the Ford Mondeo for instance, it appears that most of their owners seem to be satisfied.

I really think that when you buy a car more than $25000, you should not have these kinds of problems with only 15000 miles on your odometer. This is completely unacceptable.

As far as the performance is concerned, it isn't glorious. The V6 engine is completely enslaved by a crappy automatic transmission. The V6 powered Grand Cherokee we got to drive back to San Francisco was really better. This was also an automatic transmission, but this one was correctly designed.

The only good point I have to say about the Ford Explorer is the comfort. It was not too bad actually, for a Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) of this size.

Unfortunately for Ford, it is not enough to make a good car...

Of course, I certainly do not recommend this SUV to anyone on Earth.

As far as I am concerned, I will never buy a Ford on the North American market.

And for the European market, I will be always suspicious...

Faults:

Transmission has had several failure warnings. The overdrive light starts to strobe, then the transmission warning light and buzzer goes off to be followed by the check engine warning lights. This has been in to the dealer 6 times and they have not been able to repair it.

Sunroof has a mis-formed seal on the roof liner. This seal will tear away the fabric from the cover in a short period of time. The new design is apparently beyond the ability of the service department to fix because they wound up breaking the drive mechanism trying to fix it. They then claimed that the grinding noise was normal.

General Comments:

The transmission is apparently new for this year. There is a tag on it that states the transmission is not to be worked on. Instead, you are to contact the Ford factory.

The Ford factory has been of little help. Their best statement to date is "sorry you are having trouble and thank you for buying from Ford. Have a nice day!"

Faults:

Squeaks, rattles (passenger window and steering column), radio dial lights flicker.

General Comments:

This vehicle is a wobbly duck with poor power and poorer gas mileage. Terrible spongy brakes and cheaply built interior. Dealer said all was normal.

1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee LTD is also poor on gas, everything else is far superior to the Explorer. Dealer experience much better with the Jeep.

Faults:

I love to travel. I bought My Ford Explorer in 2000 and I went to Washington DC to see the White House right. Well on my way down there my Explorer engine blew up. I don't know how but it did. I live in New York and this happened in Mansfield Pa. 3 hours away. I then got rid of that Explorer and I got a Dodge Dakota and I love it.

General Comments:

The A/C worked wonderfully and the seats were awesome for traveling.