The 2025 Ford Expedition Active Is The Cheapest And Best Expedition Ever!

This is the new Ford Expedition. This is the biggest SUV that you can buy in the Ford lineup. This is also a Ford Expedition Active. And what that means is that it's the entry-level or the base model. And in today's video, I'm gonna explain why, probably for the first time that I'm making a car review ever, why the entry-level or the base model of a vehicle is actually the best value. For anyone that's followed my channel for a long time, you guys know that I started off as a Ford salesman at Moontownship Ford way back in the day. It's actually over 10 years ago now. And Moontownship Ford is actually the dealership that's providing this Expedition in today's video. If you guys are interested in this one or anything else they have to offer, I'll leave all their contact information in the description below. But back in the day when I was selling Fords and started doing YouTube videos by reviewing Fords, the trim levels looked different. So no longer do you have an XL. Technically there is an XL for this, but it's only for fleet customers. So us regular people, we can't really buy that. So we're not really gonna mention that much in today's video. But back then there was also XLT, and then you would go up to a Limited, and then you would go up to a King Ranch, and then you would go up to a Platinum. Through the years they've flipped these around, so sometimes the Platinum is lower than the Limited, and sometimes the Platinum's higher than the Limited. Now a Platinum, which is the trim level after this here, the Active, is now a mid-range trim. After that, we also have a Tremor, and then we have the King Ranch. Like we said, in today's video, we're gonna talk about the entry-level version, which is this, the Active. And you get so much for the money, as we're gonna see later on in the video with the interior and the technical features and so on, that you just would not get back in the day, especially not for an entry-level trim. So for 2025, we got a whole new front end. Very nice LED daytime running strips. We have the Expedition badge on the front of the hood, and no matter what trim level, you do get this badging here. We have a nice black grille. It's a little plasticky here at the lower part of the front bumper, but that's also what you should expect from an entry-level Ford. Even as an entry-level, you do get a full 360 camera. So the Expedition gets the 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 EcoBoost. In the Active, it puts out 400 horsepower and 480 pound-feet of torque. For the higher trims, you can also get the 440 horsepower and 510 pound-feet of torque version of this engine. So I guess that is one little downside with having an entry-level Expedition that you lose 40 horsepower. I don't really know why they do that. It's kind of silly, but it is what it is. So the Expedition comes in two variants. No matter what trim level that you pick, this is the regular wheelbase version. It also comes in a long or extended wheelbase version called the Max. Now, the Expedition Active comes standard with rear-wheel drive, and that starts at around $62,300. Up here in the North, PA to be exact, we want four-wheel drive, so then you got to add on another $2,000. So it starts at around $64,500. If you want a Platinum, you got to bump that up almost $11,000, and that's a lot of money. Now, most people that pick an Active, they don't really care about, you know, 24-inch wheels and all that stuff. But also back in the day when I used to sell these, if you bought an entry-level version, you got really boring wheels. They were like 17-inch. There's a lot of tire. Now, granted, that's kind of practical, I guess, especially for an SUV. But with the Active, you do still get 20-inch wheels. And, you know, the design is in the eye of the beholder, I guess, but they are pretty nice looking, and they're sitting on 275, 60-diameter Pirelli Scorpion tires. And then we get to the rear, and this, again, looks and beauty and all that is in the eyes of the beholder. I don't know what I think of the rear. I'm not, just me personally, I'm not a huge fan of the taillights, just the way that they look, the design. But then again, that's just my opinion. Who cares what I think? It's all up to you and if you like it or not. But this specific Expedition that we have today is in a very nice color, though. It's called Stone Blue Metallic, and it actually matches very well with this black here. Because this part of the tailgate, to my understanding, is always black. No matter what color you pick of the Expedition. And that's something that I don't really like either, but it blends in a whole lot better with this Stone Blue Metallic. We also have a big Expedition badge across the tailgate, just like we have it across the hood. Now, we have the good old Ford fob. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a good looking fob. Been around for ages, though. They need to update this at some point. But what we're gonna do is we're gonna open the tailgate because they have a very nice, look at that, tailgate system, actually. So you can put this up if you don't want it. And you can program your key to just open the tailgate and not the actual tailgate part where you can actually sit and tailgate, if you guys know what I'm saying. But this tailgate holds up to 500 pounds. And I mean, I guess if you're three tiny little girls, you can fit three people. But for normal-sized dudes, you can only fit two dudes here if you're sitting and tailgating somewhere. And if it holds 500 pounds, you know it's American-made. I mean, like two 250-pound dudes. So since the Expedition is the biggest SUV in the Ford lineup, we all know that it is third row. And here's another thing that would never happen back in the day when I used to sell Fords and I sold Expeditions. An entry-level Expedition would never have power folding third row seats, but this one does. So when you fold the third row down, I mean, you got insane amounts of room. We do have some floor mats laying here. But over here, we have a 12-volt. We have a full power plug. We have two USB-C ports. And over here on the left, we have a zone lighting button there. And then the buttons for getting the third row up and down. We're gonna put them up because I gotta get back there and check the legroom here soon. And also, you can tell when you put the third row up, it's not as much room. The Expedition is also body-on-frame. So it's pretty much a proper truck. And properly equipped, an Expedition can tow 9,600 pounds. And I mean, that's F-150 levels. All right. I'm 6'2", sitting behind my driving position at 6'2", and I got plenty of knee room in the second row, plenty of headroom as well. And then right here in front of me, we got two USB-C ports. We have our own climate control buttons right there. We have a full power plug in the back here. And this is pretty cool as well. I'm pretty sure this is made for kids or anyone being able to put an iPad right there. And it kind of chisels in right between here, which it's ingenious in my opinion. The seats are very nice and very comfortable. We got big armrests as well. And this one is with the captain's seats. And this is the standard version of the Expedition. You can spec it though with a bench seat, so you get an extra spot. And that is if, you know, you and the missus have been getting really busy and you have five kids. Now it moves front and back. You just pull this here and you can enter the third row where you also have plenty of room. I'm gonna pull the seat back. I mean, look at this, plenty of knee room. Now granted the seat is pushed up. So even if it comes back for a third row, you got plenty of room back here and it actually reclines. You have two cup holders, a little cubby space right there. Yeah, it's very comfortable here. I like it. So to get out, we'll use the little aisle. All right, so let's hop in the driver's seat because, you know, this is where you're gonna be spending most of your time. And it's really nice in here. Again, for an entry level, it is pretty sweet. So we'll start here at the door. We got red stitching here. Got soft leather right here. Soft up here as well. Even though it looks a little plasticky, it's not. We got speaker and just our controls for the windows. We got two different cup holders right there. We got a little cubby and cubby right over here. Now, I don't know how this is coming out on the lens because there's pixels in this LED screen and many times it doesn't agree with the lens of a camera, but we got a 24 inch screen up top here and it sits higher than a instrument cluster usually does. Now the Expeditions Prep Your Cousin, which is the Lincoln Navigator, has a 48 inch screen that stretches all the way to the end there, which is definitely nice looking and it's cool. Is it really necessary? I don't know. But that's kind of the difference between an Expedition and a Navigator when it comes to this panoramic screen that I guess is not full panoramic in the Expedition. So for the active trim level, you don't have any, you know, stitching or embroiderment that says active in the seats. If you've got a Platinum, for instance, or a King Ranch, it obviously would have a little nicer leather interior, but this, in my opinion, still works. And if you haven't seen this already, this is kind of the new style of steering wheel that I guess Ford SUVs are gonna be getting. This, if I'm not mistaken, was first in the Lincoln Nautilus and then now the Navigator has it as well and now also the Expedition. And I mean, it takes, I guess, a little getting used to. I'm fine with it. It's fine. It's a little oval shaped, not quite as oval as the Ford logo there, but it is a nice steering wheel. A couple little gripes though, and I had this especially with the Navigator. It took a little time to figure it out because I'm like, how do I adjust the steering wheel? And you have to go over here and then you click this button and then it's kind of like a little scrolly pad and then you go adjust down, adjust up, adjust out. It's got a little tilting feature there. And you might think that's so unnecessary. Can it just be a button on the side here or just a manual lever? And I kind of get it, but once you know what to do, you know what to do. And it has memory settings for you and your wife or whatever. And every time you get in the vehicle, it auto sets to your settings. So you don't really have to think about it, but it's still kind of like, I'm not much for these like touchy pads and stuff. And then over here, we have a button and that's basically just for the cruise control and lane keeping system off and on. As you can see here, there's like room for other features, but since this is an active, I guess you don't get all the techie features. And then here we have a little radar and this thing keeps an eye on your eyeballs. And it's for Ford's Blue Cruise, which is basically hands-free driving. So here we have the infotainment screen. It is the Sync 4. It's a very good system. One little gripe that I have with it though is, at least with this model here, is that you have to go into the touchscreen to, for instance, mess around with your lighting. Like if you want to turn the parking lights on, automatics, turn off headlamps. Granted, you can flash people right here as normal, but you have to go in here and do a lot of stuff like the heated seats or the heated steering wheel. You don't get cooled seats. You have to jump up to platinum to get the cooled or the ventilated seats. And all your climate stuff is here. So the climate speed, which, you know, I'm like kind of, can't you have just physical buttons right here? Which there are some, and this is for the auto start stop. We do have a button for the 360 camera though. And this thing is excellent. Like we said in the beginning, even though the Active is an entry-level trim, you do get a 360 camera and you can do all kinds of stuff with this. One thing that I like is this one right here. So even when you're driving, you can have the two blind spots on the screen at all time. The home screen is just kind of where you sync your phone and you can have Google Maps up. And then this button right here is for all your settings, driver memory, valet mode settings, and just vehicle status. Then it has all these apps. I mean, you can play video games on here, look at YouTube. Now here's the gear selector. It's the rotator dial type of gear selector. It does have a manual mode, but to shift in manual mode, you have to like sit and like use these buttons. I mean, I can't see anyone doing that. That is kind of stupid. I like this. That should be a lot, but that's dumb. Anyhow, it's piano black right here. We have a volume button. If we go over here, what I do like is that they kind of hid the Pro Trailer Backup Assist right there. So you don't have to look at that button at all time, but in here we have wireless charging for your phone. You have a USB port and USB-C, two cup holders. You can open this. We got a big cubby right here, a lot of room. You got two USB-C ports down there. We have a 12-volt as well. And this is really cool. So even though, again, this is an entry-level Expedition, you got power buttons right here to scoot this whole part back. And then we got tons of room right here. I mean, you can keep a lot of stuff here, like a purse, a small bag, all kinds of whatever. You can, I guess, keep a, or you know what? Maybe not. Wait, wait, wait, hold on, bro. You gotta give me a second here. No, but jokes aside, it is cool that it does have this little sliding feature here, even though you might wanna keep your safety equipment somewhere else if you wanna access it real quick. But we got nice red stitching here in this armrest. Even up here, nice surface, regular glove box. Even the vents look pretty nice. It's really nice in here, even though me personally, I think, not the previous Jim, but before this facelift, that Expedition looks better. I like those taillights better and all that, but the interior is day and night. I mean, it's very nice in here. Got a nice panoramic sunroof as well. Pretty much all Fords get this little sunglass holder right there. But how does it drive? Well, we're gonna find out here. And we have different drive modes. Now, I know the screen is gonna look all flickery because like I said earlier with the GoPro lens and then the pixels in the LED screen, they don't match well. But we have different drive modes. So this is balanced everyday driving. We go to the right, trailer and heavy payload. And we have efficient, we have sport or spirited on-road driving. You actually get a little tachometer right there as well. And then you have wet, icy, snowy roads. And then you have rough, uneven, mixed terrain. And then the camera here turns on as well, just like Baja mode for a Raptor. And then it's off-road status. It puts it in four high, but we're just gonna drive it in balanced everyday driving. And also it has a lot of power. This three and a half liter EcoBoost with the 400 horsepower, 480 pound foot of torque. I mean, it is really torquey. And like we said, properly equipped, this can tow 9,600 pounds. And that's, I mean, that's a lot. Now, if you go with the two-wheel drive version of this, that does not get four-wheel drive, you can get 24 miles per gallon on the highway. Again, and that's also really, really good fuel economy for something that weighs over 6,000 pounds. Yeah, it definitely has them up and go. And just like you would expect from a new modern luxury SUV, it's very quiet in here. The ride is extremely soft. It just does everything that a vehicle like this needs to do. So if you buy something like this, you either tug a lot of friends around all the time, like you're always the DD, but 99% of the time you just have a big family and you need to be able to fit all the kiddos and you gotta be able to keep them safe, have all the power plugs that they need for all the iPads and phones. So when you're using your turn signal, obviously we have blind spot information systems and all that, like every car has nowadays, but up on this 24-inch screen, it also turns on a camera so you can see your blind spot on the screen, whether you're turning left or right. And then also you can have the split vision between the two mirrors on the screen at all time. So you definitely don't have an excuse for crashing while making a turn or switching lanes or anything like that. So I'm trying to get, see if I get used to the steering wheel or not. I mean, I like the look of it and the design, and I think I would easily get used to it. It's just that it's not round up top like you're used to. It's not quite a Tesla yoke because that doesn't have a top at all. Yeah, it's the future, I guess. I don't know, it looks cool. It is leather wrapped as well, so it's nice to touch. Yeah, I can't really find any downsides with the new Expedition. It's extremely nice to drive, has all the room that you need, and the active trim that we're filming today has pretty much every feature that you might need as well. Again, if you go to a Platinum with the Plus package, you can get massaging seats as well, but you're like over 80 grand. I mean, it's just like minor things that you're missing, like cooled seats, massaging seats. I've owned two cars with massaging seats. I never use them because they suck. The massage in itself is just, it's not good enough. So I personally don't need that. What do you guys think? I'm not gonna drag this video out for much longer. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Let me know what your favorite feature of the new Expedition is, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye.