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The Maverick is about 2/3rds of the Ridgeline in terms of size and weight. The Ridgeline is certainly a class up, more space in all dimensions, more luxurious. Thus, very apples to oranges. The Maverick feels a lot lighter and smaller because it is a lot lighter and smaller. The Ridgeline feels a lot more luxurious, the Maverick feels more sporty and drives more like a sporty sedan because it is essentially a sedan chassis with truck body on it.

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Road Trip Bodega Bay, did over 550 miles before lunch on Wednesday.

Mr Happy rides center, we stop for a "Pup Patty".

Small truck doing small truck jobs, in this case 10 cases of wine needed to get moved for charity event. Could easily double stack and hold 20 cases. Low bed height reminds me of the way trucks were back in the day and is sure easier to load!
Sunset Konig Heliograms and my favorite pic currently for the Maverick.

A few words about the lowest cost new truck in the USA, the Ford Maverick. These start at 20k. We ordered one back when Rivian was telling us it was going to be another two years of waiting on the Rivian. Picture from when we picked up the Maverick in June:




The little Ford Maverick is really growing on me after a road trip over last few days and a few thousand miles, including over 550 miles today in just under 8 hours. Over 80mph for much of the trip plus canyon and mountain pass driving and still 28mpg for the turbo 2.0 version. Other owners of the turbo report better than 30 mpg with more reasonable pace and owners of the lowest cost version with the hybrid motor often get 40mph and better. So, it is sort of an economy car in the shape of a pickup.




For anyone interested in the build thread, that is in our forum HERE. These are good little trucks given the starting 20k price, driving it reminds me a lot of the mini truck days of decades ago.

Took the Maverick to visit the wife's parents in Northern California and did a few thousand miles over just five days. What I like about this little truck is that it is little, it really is the new Miata of trucks given a relatively low weight and very compact size for a truck. When equipped with the turbo motor it jumps through gaps in traffic easily enough. It also starts out relatively low to the ground, sitting on what is essentially a sedan unibody chassis it drives like a decent sedan. My list of what I don't like is relatively short, mainly that on the first drive home in it we noticed that road surface noise is significant over rough surfaces, too easily revealing the low price point and relatively light use of sound proofing (I will likely add some). It was a blast to drive on the curvy coastline of northern California thanks to decent little turbo motor and decent balance. We did some suspension upgrades to road test on the trip and that went well. It goes up on the lift for a different set of test springs tomorrow. For road trip use we appreciated all the little storage cubbies and device charging options.

Something else that did impress me on this long trip over the last few days was the latest Ford Android Auto integration and the driver assist stuff (cruise control with lane control and auto adjusting to the speed of the vehicle in front, etc.). In stop and go traffic through Los Angeles the cruise control will brake as needed to maintain distance interval you select to the car in front, whether you are doing 20mph or 80mph. Frankly, it is MUCH better than the driver assist features we had in the Ridgeline we sold, and smoother in some aspects than what is in the much more costly Rivian. Wife and I took turns driving today and during her stint I watched the Formula One Race using the wifi hotspot.

NEW Eibach Springs Made for the Maverick!

Excited to drive these. The H&R springs intended for Ford Escape that so many have installed on the Maverick were good for helping us figure what we really want, but the balance was terrible with really bad understeer until we added rear sway bar at high rate. Quick check of rates on these suggests the native balance will be much much better, which makes sense since they are actually made for the Maverick. Our quick measurement of rates says 172 lbs front, 420 rear (I don't know if Eibach will publish rates and if they do expect some minor variation since this is just a quick measurement....UPDATE LATER, Eibach tells us actual rates 400 rear and 175 front, so were pretty close!). These Eibach Springs for Maverick should handle a lot better, and ride better too since the H&R front rate of 220 lbs was just a bit sharp over freeway expansion joints with stock front struts. And the H&R rate of 320 rear (again, intended for Ford Escape) wasn't enough rear rate to balance the 220 lb front spring in the turns.

Eibach Springs Installed.

FRONT Eibach Maverick Springs: REAR Eibach Maverick Springs:

If you get the tow package you get a bigger radiator and cooling fan and 'transmission cooler' which turns out to be this sandwich style heat exchanger that dumps heat from transmission oil to the coolant radiator.

First DRIVE WITH EIBACH SPRINGS!

So much better than H&R for Escape, these Eibach Springs nail the heights all around and the rates give much better balance on our favorite local test turns.

Wow, that looks great!

Some of the tuning results out there look promising as well. Any plans for power improvements beyond the MF catback?