Long-Term Test: 2016 Ford Explorer Sport – Part 2
Story and photo by John LeBlanc
For a while there, it looked like winter was being put on “pause” in Ontario this season. Halfway through our 60-day test drive of the 2016 Ford Explorer Sport, though, Mother Nature finally hit the “play” button — and hard.
Right after Boxing Day, our hometown of Ottawa received more than 20 centimetres of snow in one shot. Then it just kept on snowing and snowing, pretty much every day for a week. So while those in lesser vehicles were struggling to negotiate our neighbourhood’s unplowed city streets, the winter-ready Explorer Sport’s standard all-wheel-drive, adaptable Terrain Management System, proper winter tires — and ground clearance greater than a Chevrolet Traverse — literally plowed its way through winter’s first snowy blast.
The winter driving freedom the Ford midsize crossover has provided us left no excuses to continue holing-up indoors, polishing-off Grandma’s Christmas shortbread cookies and binge-watching Netflix. Instead, we packed up the Explorer Sport with our winter sports gear and headed to Quebec’s Gatineau Hills for a long overdue day of skiing and snowshoeing. And after four weeks into our long-term tester, we are discovering that many of the details that are part of a major update for all 2016 Explorers combine to make the vehicle more refined and easier to live with when having to do both driving and parenting duties.
For instance, because our $50,399 (base MSRP) Explorer Sport sits under the topline $59,099 Platinum model, it comes equipped with not only heated and cooled front seats but also a heated leather steering wheel — just the thing for this lazy driver who forgets his gloves on cold winter morning drives.
And the Sport version also comes with a full-on infotainment package as standard fare. Dubbed MyFord Touch, the Explorer’s high-resolution touchscreen that sits in the middle of the dash, plus two smaller screens that flank the driver’s main gauges, gives the mainstream Ford a luxury SUV feel.
One of the reasons we selected a midsize crossover, like the Explorer, for eight weeks of winter testing was primarily for its ability to carry loads of both people and their stuff in comfort in whatever weather and road conditions a typical Canadian winter brings. And, so far, the Ford’s been a delight.
As a hauler of people wearing oversized winter outdoor clothes, the roomy 2016 Explorer does a great imitation of a minivan. You can order a pair of second-row bucket seats. However, our Explorer Sport came with the standard 60/40-split bench, making it a seven-seater.
For those in the second-row, Ford has squeezed out more knee-room for 2016 models thanks to slimmer front seats. And with more shoulder and legroom than rival three-row crossovers like the aforementioned Traverse or Dodge Durango, the Explorer’s second-row room accommodates three pre-teens easily without any adults having to hand out too many elbowing penalties. Plus the optional ($1,750) dual-panel sunroof also allowed what little winter sun there is these days to lighten up the cabin.
Though some rivals offer three-across seating, the Explorer’s 50/50-split third-row seats remain one of the roomiest setups in its class. For our first winter sports day of the season, we didn’t require the Explorer Sport to haul more than four of us to the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, which allowed us to maximize the Ford’s relatively large cargo area that’s created when the pair of back row seats are not in use.
Even with the third row up, the Explorer offers a deep storage well that can hold up to 595 litres of outdoor winter stuff, more than the Durango but a bit less than the Traverse.
For longer items, like our skis, the third-row seats can be powered down via handy switches located in the back. While the Chevy crossover offers more overall space, the Ford easily swallowed our kit handily. And with the new-for-2016 hands-free power liftgate, a wave of a foot would open the rear hatch when our arms were filled with mugs of hot chocolate.
As we mentioned in our first entry of this long-term test, you can get a front-wheel-drive 2016 Explorer for under $35K. But the advantages of our Sport’s standard AWD setup became obvious after the first snowfall of the season.
Like a lot of systems in its class, the Explorer’s AWD technology continuously checks wheel speed, throttle position and steering wheel angle to figure out the crossover’s handling and its driver’s intentions. Even on dry winter roads, the Ford’s so-called Intelligent 4WD System will swap torque back and forth between the front and rear wheels to optimize the vehicle’s performance (i.e. acceleration onto a highway).
In addition, every AWD Explorer comes with Ford’s Terrain Management System. First seen on luxury SUVs such as Land Rovers, a five-mode dial located beside the gear selector tailors the vehicle’s performance depending on where you would like to drive it.
For example, Normal mode will transfer the majority of torque to the front wheels and only distribute torque to the rear wheels when needed; Mud/Ruts delivers a more aggressive throttle response, limits upshifts and backs off the stability control to allow for more tire spin; Hills sets and maintains a consistent speed while travelling downhill, and Sand will transfer maximum torque to all wheels to regain traction.
Thankfully, the Terrain Management’s fifth mode is Snow/Grass/Gravel. It offers more responsive upshifting and automatically adjusts engine torque to create additional traction on a firm surface covered in loose material — like freshly plowed roads. With no grass in sight, we left it in this mode for the majority of our ski day travels.
The Explorer Sport confidently handled our snow-day road trip. But if circumstances called for it, it was also good to know that the Ford is rated well for accidents. The 2016 version gets a U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) five-star rating for overall crash protection, with five stars for total front-impact protection and five stars for total side-impact protection. The U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gave its top score of “Good” for the Explorer’s performance in moderate-overlap frontal-offset, side-impact and roof-strength tests.
Roomy, comfortable, safe — the 2016 Explorer Sport makes for a great transportation device to haul the family off the couch and out into the snow for the day. Over the next weeks, we’ll stretch the Ford’s legs with a return Ottawa-to-Detroit road trip to test the Explorer Sport’s highway habits.