Best New Truck of 2022? Towing, Hauling and Off-Roading in the 2022 Ford Maverick

Hey folks and welcome to the Truck King YouTube channel. Today is exciting because we have the brand new Ford Maverick here at our Ironwood test facility and you can see we've already got it dirty. Now what that means is that today we're going to put a max tow trailer behind this truck, we're going to load it up with payload, and then we're even going to go off-road to see if this new Maverick is the real deal. Let's start with the walk around. The truck you're looking at here today is a Maverick Lariat and there is one important difference between Canada and the United States. Here in Canada the Lariat only comes with the two liter EcoBoost. In the States you can get the hybrid powertrain in every single trim so that's one thing for Canadians to note. If you want the hybrid you have to go to the lower trims and just so you know we already have a word in with Ford we want one of those hybrids so we can test it here on the channel. Stay tuned for that. So let's talk about this engine. That's a two liter turbocharged inline four-cylinder that makes 250 horsepower, 277 pound-feet of torque, and that is sent through an eight-speed automatic. Now the truck we have here today is also fitted with the FX4 off-road package so we do have all-wheel drive. It also comes with drive modes, off-road drive modes, and I'm definitely curious to put those to the test. Now one decision Ford made with the Bronco Sport they developed a twin clutch rear drive unit which is going to make that thing better off-road. This Maverick didn't get that so basically it has one clutch it can send power to the rear but then that's an open differential back there and I'm very curious to see like I said how it performs once it gets a little bit muddy. Now let's take a look at the business end of the Maverick and the first thing I have to point out the tailgate is not damped. Now many of the commenters disagree. I like a damped tailgate. I think it's weird that the top trim Maverick is not damped but if the commenters are to be believed most of you guys don't want damp tailgates so once again let me know do you like that it's not damped or do you wish it was like me. Anyways everything else back here we have all the features for this bed so you do get a rail system with movable tie down cleats that's nice you get a little storage pocket over here you do get bed lighting and a plug in your bed good for 400 watts that's cool too plus a really unique feature there's actually power behind these little caps here and you can run that to whatever you want a little fridge or a small tv that's kind of cool too. Ford really went out of their way to make sure you can design things specifically for your Maverick. Now talking about size this is four and a half feet long and rather than go over all the rest of the numbers because that's boring I'm gonna go get my atv let's find out if it fits. This is our Yamaha Kodiak 700 a very kind of standard size atv 48 inches wide just under 50 that's always been the number that people went to for atvs is 50 inches to make sure that you could fit also for the four by eight sheet of plywood of course right. So let's load up and see what happens and I'll also remind you we did this with a Honda Ridgeline it fit and then we did it with the Hyundai Santa Cruz and it didn't fit now to be fair that was mostly because of the tonneau cover but that tonneau is standard here in Canada so yeah it's make it more annoying now let's find out what happens in the map looking okay width wise and now I am gonna either rub the wheel wells or drive up on them let's see well I think I'm there yeah I am there so the tires like I said they didn't fit between the wells they're kind of sort of sandwiched in between but this is in here and now I could tie it down and roll down the road so I guess now you know can a Ford Maverick haul an atv in its bed the answer is yes all right dad so we took the atv out and we loaded in a 500 pound barrel payload on this truck as it sits is a little bit over 1200 pounds so of course with the barrel and then us up here we probably got a couple pounds to spare in there but not many we're basically just enough to have luck so uh yeah like usual the question is what do you feel back there you feel the suspension's working or how's it feel it it's smoothed out a little bit from when you normally drive it um empty but then that's fairly typical right yeah um but no it's planted it's it's comfortable uh there's no lift on the nose it's uh it's trucky man you know everything about this Maverick in every configuration that I've been driving it in now is just keep coming back to the same thing it's uh it's Ford it's trucky feels like a little truck yeah that's just it's a little truck there's nothing there's nothing wimpy about this thing so we've done a first drive of this truck where we just drove it around empty for a little bit that's here on the channel one feeling dad and I both got right away and I'm going to reiterate it is how big it is in this small truck it just feels light and airy in this cabin there's quite a bit of space and for two big guys we're not even touching which is always nice um and but what I've really noticed about the interior too dad is just that it's it's simplistic it's a lot of touch buttons not too much touch screen uh it's the kind of vehicle where you jump in and you basically know where everything is right away and then one thing I really like is your screen setup up there because we have the you get a screen up there in your gauge cluster and I just like the information it provides you you can see all four of your seats or all five of your seats and see who's seat belted in there's an off-road screen up there there's an all-wheel drive power split screen that one's particularly interesting to watch where the power is going um and then just more than that that those screens are just easy to navigate go up go down there's all your info so that's another feeling I've really got here is that yeah it's all simple and if you're used to I don't know old trucks you get in here nothing's going to be like whoa that's new and fancy and confusing no there's nothing space age in here and that's exactly fine because that's not really what you want some some guys have got a little bananas uh you know trying to make everything touch screen everything's a touch sometimes you know what don't don't reinvent the wheel stuff works it works just keep at it the way it is yeah and that's what Ford's done now let's measure the squat see how much this barrel affects the truck center of the tire that's 33 inches let's pull it off and see how much it raises up all right the barrel's stripped off which is 500 pounds just to remind you and we're at 34 inches so let's make Steve do the math how much is that that's one inch dad so it's squatted one inch which is almost dead nuts even for pretty much everything yeah exactly normal all right folks time to back into our trailer which means I can show you the camera system now here in the Maverick you really only have this single view there is a hitching guideline there which is nice although the one thing you also have is once you get close you can hit that plus for the zoomed in view and it should help me get it right there bang all right now we've got our 4,000 pound trailer on the back that's a 2,000 pound block on a 2,000 pound trailer and uh we're just getting up to highway speed here the power feels okay um one thing I'll get out of the way right off the bat we've actually already towed with this Maverick dad and I went and hooked up a small travel trailer to this truck if you want to see that video it's here on the channel so we've already kind of felt it and I'll say the same thing I did with the travel trailer the power here with a max trailer on feels like enough it's not overwhelming the trailer it's not like whoa that's crazy but it's it's certainly well matched to the weight back there what do you feel well first of all I just want to speak to the fact that normally we try to go somewhere around 75 80 percent of whatever the published tow limit is so most people know that or watch us so however we towed with this truck yesterday with the travel trailer it's rated at 4,000 so to go to say 3,000 seems stupid so just if you're wondering why we went to max 4,000 uh plus the math just worked because we just happen to have a 2,000 pound block and the trailer and the trailer weighs 2,000 so that's the reason we're at max and to speak to that yeah it works just fine you know what the turbo's always spinning so that's something but you know it's a small engine yeah it feels like it's working but other than that I got uh I've really got no complaints doing this job and I think the real nice thing is is it's obvious how much time Ford spent on towing with this truck when you think about integrated trailer brake controller that's excellent it has a brake light check system for you which is especially cool because we actually do have some trailer light issues so it checks your trailer lights and you can see here it actually told us specifically that the left turn signal is out we already knew that but the truck reminded us we got some wiring to do but that's such a cool feature that it's you know looking for those trailer lights for you and then last but not least you know you do get a beefier rear end when you get this 4k towing package so yeah you are actually getting a little bit more you know torque to the ground when you're talking actually yeah I do have a complaint these mirrors these mirrors suck yeah they're small for towing be nice to have towing mirrors in these smaller trucks I don't know why manufacturers haven't got there yet maybe aerodynamics fuel economy styling I don't know at least at least make them optional yeah like at this point you're this is it that's what you can get so if you want a proper towing mirror you're going to the aftermarket yeah all right now let's take a look at our fuel economy with that trailer on we manage 13.2 liters per hundred over 38.6 miles and for the u.s folks that is 17.8 mpg over 24 miles and now the moment of truth time for 0 to 60 with our 4 000 pounds of trailer on the back we're in tow haul mode ready for the race dad hit it 100 okay okay that was a 15.6 0 to 100 kilometers an hour just kind of right in the middle not the best not the worst you can see how it stacks up here on the leaderboard and now it is time for a little off-roading in the maverick and we start right here with the twist ditch to see how the all-wheel drive splits its power so first run through dad's got her in normal mode let's see what happens now keep coming straight forward keep coming straight forward now cut it wow that was very quick so this tire lifted right off it barely spun and the maverick sent the power exactly where it needed to be we'll run it again in mud and ruts but that was pretty impressive in normal yep right about there nice yeah same thing almost no spin there whatsoever so that really does show you it the all-wheel drive is very quick at distributing that power well you saw the twist ditch right there and yeah the all-wheel drive was very quick to react i mentioned off the top it's just an open differential in the rear end but just with brake based traction control it sent the power pretty quick now we went down our local unmaintained county road that's kind of our all-wheel drive road and that's what this vehicle is right the maverick is not a hardcore off-roader you just don't have the clearances or the angles to really tackle a hard off-road trail but this vehicle is all-wheel drive it is a truck so there's some pretense of off-roading and and that's why we went to that road because that is a legitimate town road where there's actual cabins out in the woods that guys have to get to and this is the kind of vehicle you want and then plus dad there was an extra complication or you know maybe made it more fun too was the ice we didn't necessarily expect that but things are getting cold up here so the entire trail was just packed with ice so all that said you know what did you feel coming through there well what i was particularly feeling for was whether or not we bought them and we didn't bought them um it scrapes its belly here and there but uh in other words it went through really deep deep potholes at reasonable speed and did not and of course this is fx4 so you're getting some of that unique suspension tuning to make sure that doesn't happen and that's what you would expect from it which is nice so no it's not a monster off-roader but it doesn't need to be dad the beauty of ford's lineup now is four trucks maverick ranger f-150 and super duty and you know you got the raptor if you want to go race across the desert you have the tremor package on f-150 and on ranger so i'm not going to sit here and be like oh it's not good off-roading that's fine no one buys the maverick for off-roading and there's other vehicles in the ford lineup in fact what it did today was exactly what i would expect it to do on a normal basis basically nothing more and it did it well yeah i just want to be able to get into uh rough roads and into the back 40 here and there the things that i've always done with trucks i don't buy this to off-road and so in other words it hasn't let us down by any stretch if anything it uh it handled that gnarly gnarly road pretty well well folks we have arrived at the end of this video so what is the verdict well i think with this maverick ford is making a statement compact trucks are back and we are going to own that segment and i have to tell you i'm so excited for new competition to show up to see if that claim holds true so for now we are all done please now go below leave me a comment let me know what you think of the maverick and all of our testing as always while you're down there don't forget to hit like hit subscribe hit join to become a member and then come right back here to truck gig to see what we're testing next see ya