Picked up my 2025 Ford Explore ST last week

[2020FordRaptor]

LOL complaining about something happening at 100K miles. It's a Honda, so the faithful think it should last 250K miles with no issues.

Well it is bad if an engine is blowing at 100k miles. I would understand normal maintenance but that’s not good.

 

[hbalek]

You would think so, but it's a very mixed community. Some echo your 250K statement and other spout doom and gloom.

I'm an agnostic in all my beliefs/faiths: religions, politics and brand loyalty! Especially with all my major problems on this Ford. Still I have owned 5 Ford products and 1 Nissan, so I definitely am loyal to a fault!

 

[Nascarbilly]

Interesting. I picked up a 2025 Explorer ST on Saturday evening. I had some similar thoughts but also some different takes:

1. Hands-free, Foot-activated liftgate would be nice to have.
2. Don't care about active park assist but i have a button that has a P on it and I don't know what it does (and haven't bothered to figure it out yet)
3. I like the FP door sills and I've got ST puddle lights, so I don't think I'm missing anything - there's plenty of interior lighting on this thing for me.
4. Leather seats would be nice to have. I'd have paid a lot extra to have them on the front row with heated/cooled seats and perforation, but solid on the second row. Or weatherproof and childproof vinyl, the bronco marine grade vinyl really seems to hold up pretty well.
5. Where the hell are my performance gauges and more RED when I go to sport mode? Ford took away the beautiful rolling-rocks-become-a-Bronco on the Bronco with the big screen but it still has the custom displays for the various modes, even if its just a color palette change for sport or eco, but there's some great additional, wide-dash displays for offroad modes so long as you don't have the lane-assist or cruise control enabled, etc. The Explorer has the equivalent of the splash video that was removed by OTA update but doesn't have mode-specific screens? That should be enhanced via OTA update and should have at least a performance view with lots of info, including boost pressure, trans-temp, oil-temp, tire psi + temp, etc etc.

I like the android based system so far. I had to get used to where to get things quickly, the ability to uninstall useless things, how to rearrange apps to prioritize the ones i want, and the like. The different user profiles are very nice, including the recall of not just seat/mirror position, but also display dark-mode, disabled lane-assist etc.

As always, Auto Start Stop (beautiful A.S.S. acronym here) should be a rocker switch or push-button w memory rather than a push button without memory.

I was given no explanation of BlueCruise either, but it seems intuitive. Got on the interstate with cruise enabled and lane-assist and it did its thing for me. I didn't realize it was a free trial of a subscription service, which I am not a fan of. I'd rather it be a pre-paid option of some $500-1,500 1x fee and its on 'forever'.

Gluestick:
First of all, Welcome Aboard

Now to your comments:

"4. Leather seats would be nice to have." Appearance wise, I totally agree the leather material would be a nice upgrade. However, the surface of the seating material and the somewhat different contour of the seats make them more conducive to the preferred performance handling of the vehicle. Two of my four previous Mustang vehicles were SHELBY GTE's which were modified by Shelby American in Las Vegas. Both had the KATZKIN suede like material seat covers strictly for performance. You tromp down the gas pedal and your butt sticks in the seats, period.

"5. Where the hell are my performance gauges and more RED when I go to sport mode?" 200% AGREE!!!! Performance gauges for these Ecoboost type vehicles should include an engine oil temp, engine oil pressure AND a Vac/Boost gauge in addition to the existing transmission temp gauge. This is what comes in the Shelby Upgrade Packages.

 

[GomerPyleST]

#2 - the P if you still have not figured it out brings up the parking sensor screen so you can turn them off. Not sure why its seems to be a two step process but it is. Hit the P it brings up the parking sensor page then you have to toggle them off. I think in the reverse the P toggles them back on automatically but I have not played with it enough to verify that part.

 

[RFC1992]

Generally agree about missing features. I have had this Block 1 build 2025 since FEB 2025. The worst part is the gauges - I prefer analog gauges. This unmarked ring around the numbers is not the same. Also, why, in this age of Unreal Engine 5, can we not have analog sport clusters (real temp gauges, alternator, boost, etc.)? The Mustangs have a myriad of ways to display information already resident in vehicle. All that is required is programming. I want analog readouts, of course.

Seems like a rant, but I like the vehicle so far. It replaced a 2011 Expedition but I am not paying for the full-size SUV at today's prices. Trimmed down towing & cargo and traded for go faster.

BTW: The 2017 Mustang gauges go RED when you are at red-line. I am intrigued by the RED in sport mode.

 

[Gluestick]

Would also think the three color palettes that affect the gauges available to can pick from indicate the simplicity available to trigger one palette from the drive mode selection. For whatever reason, this was cut from product features release and/or de-scoped by the product manager. If Ford ever monitors these forums, this would be great OTA update opportunity.


In comparing experiences, we also have a ‘23 Bronco Badlands w every option possible. The display quality of the ‘25 ST, as far as resolution and image crispness of the dash, a million times better than the Bronco. The Bronco dash looks perpetually fuzzy or list slightly out of focus by comparison. And the Bronco has visual changes on the dash relative to each drive mode, and with your driver assistance set to off (lane assist, cruise control) the Offroad gauges showing pitch/roll/attitude and steering angle can take over a lot of the screen the way the map-mode does for the ST (but the Bronco doesn’t lose the tach when you do that, it just squishes it together w speedometer).

but be leery the OTA updates, on the Bronco it’s been less “giveth” and more “taketh away” - we used to have a rolling rocks startup animation where boulders would roll together and stack up to form the shape of a Bronco. Now just a blue gradient screen with static image. Boo.

w/r/t steering audio controls: I think someone mentioned they only have volume. But on RH buttons, paired w phone controls are forward and rewind audio controls.