Nine months and seven days later

[altivo]

Order placed August 25, 2021. Yesterday I (finally) took delivery on my little truck.

2022 Maverick Portrait

2022 Maverick Profile

We are pretty pleased with it. (Especially since I got back over 80% of what I paid for the temporary wheels last September when I traded that car in.) The hybrid is great. For the trip home from the dealership (~12 miles) plus a trip into Marengo to the insurance agent to change my insurance over (~8 miles round trip,) the trip meter shows it got 38.4 miles per gallon and ran about a third of that time on the electric motor alone. I drive like a grandma, which probably helps. But at the gas prices we've had lately, this is really good news. Also, despite some reviewers who complained it was noisy, we found it was very smooth and quiet. So quiet that neither of us could tell when it switched between electric and ICE power, which it must have done several times. No, "it doesn't sound like a truck." And despite that appearing in several reviews, I'm quite delighted with that. Easy to drive, very much like my old Escape carryall. Steering seemed a bit stiff, but after I got the steering wheel position and seat adjusted a bit, that feeling went away.

The ride is a bit stiffer than our recent passenger cars have been, but it IS a truck after all. I have driven a pick-up truck only once before this, for a short round trip when friends gave us some gates they no longer needed to use on our pasture fences. Gilbert lent us his truck for that, and since it had a manual transmission I was the driver. Gary F. doesn't like dealing with a clutch and shifter, and I'm used to it.

There are a lot of features to learn, and kinks to get used to. I'm only 100 pages into the owner's manual of 560 pages length, so it'll take a while. But I've got the basics down, and sales rep Anthony helped me get the FordPass app on my phone linked to the car's internals. It uses two different bluetooth linkages. Another thing to explore and learn.

Two silly but best things so far: the little "cubby hole" in the dash next to the 8 inch "infotainment" touch screen is just the right size for the little beany baby dog that looks like my old and still missed pet, Simon; and the back-up alarm which is required on all trucks now is just plain cute (sounds like one of those wind-up monkey toys that bang two tiny cymbals together over and over.)

Was it worth the excessively long wait? In my case, yes, but I'm sure glad it's over.

Comments

[ranunculus]

That is Great! I am quite envious.
Took me almost a year to get used to driving the Subaru with all its electronic embellishments.

[altivo]

The "temporary" Fusion was more complicated than the Maverick is, in many ways. At least from my point of view, the dash was covered with buttons with little incomprehensible graphics on them. Most were related to linking a phone by bluetooth and using it for hands free communications, including receiving and sending texts. None of that is stuff I have ever done while driving.

Being a hybrid, the thing I have to get used to is the display on the dash, which replaces the tachometer with information about whether the battery is charging or discharging, and related things. The owner's manual is nearly 600 pages and yet explains these things poorly and disjointedly. Looks as if most of it is about "luxury features" I didn't buy. But I'll figure it out. Driving the truck is quite pleasant, and so far the fuel efficiency looks really good. That's what I got it for. Next week we'll see how easy it is to load bales of horse bedding and bags of feed.

[hrrunka]

Glad it has finally arrived, and good that the trade-in on the interim vehicle worked out, too.

Next time I'm in the market for a vehicle I'll be looking for one that handles steep inclines and tight turning circles well...

[altivo]

Probably not a hybrid for the steep inclines. And not this one for tight turns. It's front wheel drive and too light on the horsepower for that stuff. General road conditions and cargo hauling or trailering, yes. The radio is good though the other audio connectivity (bluetooth, wi-fi) is unnecessarily complicated I think. No CD player, but I guess the whole industry is working to kill those. Plays MP3 and other audio formats from a USB connected storage device OK.

I need to figure out how to get a dual-band mobile rig into it. I think I have a magnet-mounted roof vertical for 2 meters somewhere so that's where I'll start.

Rides a bit more like a truck than my old Escape did, but it's really quiet running whether on ICE or electric drive power. On the whole, it's what I thought I was getting, no surprises or disappointments. So that's good.

[hrrunka]

We have the back seats of our present vehicle stored in the garage most of the time, because we so often need the load space, but our drive is a bit of a clutch-burner, with a tight turn at the top. Some friends have got hybrids recently. We'll see how they manage next time they visit...

I never did figure out how to fit a rig in our present vehicle. The manufacturer does have a recommended antenna placement, but it involves drilling the roof, and there's no obvious place for a rig in among all the curving plastic trim, and no practical access to a suitably high current 12V supply either. The only times I'm tempted to use a rig while mobile it's because I'm not driving, so I use a hand-held and run an antenna wire past a door seal to a mag-mount on the roof.

[moonhare]

That is a nice looking ride! Too many bells and whistles for me :o) Speaking of which, I didn't know all trucks needed back up alarms now. Considering these outnumber passenger cars probably 3-1 these days, the parking lot noise will soon be deafening.

[altivo]

Bells and whistles? Well if you count the backup signal as a "bell" maybe. I haven't noticed a whistle yet but maybe a slightly open window at speed?

It's the XL hybrid version of Maverick. That's the stripped down one with none of the luxury features, not even cruise control. I added Co-Pilot 360 to get some of the safety extras, but beyond that, a trailer hitch and a key lock for the tailgate is it.

[lhexan]

Hooray for blue vehicles! I bought a dark blue Corolla a couple years ago, and the new technology was a bit of a shock. All of a sudden I had adaptive cruise control, a rear camera, power mirrors, and fuel efficiency tracking. I was a bit disturbed to find messages from my dealership show up, until I figured out how to cut them off.

[altivo]

I like blue or red. In this case, red wasn't available unless you took a higher trim level AND paid extra for the color. The blue is quite nice, actually.