Dark Pearl Blue Metallic
87
USA Today
By any name or description, the new Explorer easily deserves to be at or near the top of an SUV (or crossover) shopping list.
87
Detroit News
The 2011 Ford Explorer is bigger but drives smaller. It's modern. It's filled with high-tech features that don't make me feel like an idiot. And it gets good gas mileage. Oh, and it looks really nice, too.
87
New York Times
The new Explorer’s excellence on pavement, its safety equipment and its comforts are likely to match the needs of many families most of the time. It may well be the new benchmark in its class.
85
DriverSide.com
Ford has wiped the grins off everyone’s faces with this new turbocharged Explorer. All things considered, it's one of the best three-row crossovers you can buy.
85
Cars.com
The 2011 Ford Explorer is altogether pleasant for the whole family and nearly car-like to drive. It has responsive acceleration, just-right braking and a smooth and surprisingly quiet feel on the road.
84
LeftLane News
This new Explorer, with its new tightly constructed unibody platform, is quieter than any recent SUV we can recall. Look out GMC Acadia, Honda Pilot and Toyota Highlander: Suburbia’s new Explorer has arrived.
84
Popular Mechanics
The Explorer has leapt into the 21st century with the rest of the crossover crowd. It's certainly lost a bit of its off-road chops, but that tradeoff for the 99 percent of Explorer buyers who never venture off-pavement is welcome.
84
Road & Track
For the all-new 2011 Ford Explorer the emphasis is on-pavement excellence. The new Explorer addresses demands for much better fuel economy, a gentler ride, higher overall quality, more safety and electronics.
84
AutoSavant.com
The 2011 Ford Explorer is probably more capable off road than 90% of the world, and 95% of its owners could ever ask for, and it has a comfortable high-tech interior.
84
Bloomberg News
What a difference a year makes. Just take a look at a 2010 Ford Explorer parked next to a totally redesigned 2011 model. Only a year separates the two but in terms of appearance and workmanship they might as well have been made in different decades. Hot and not.
84
Edmunds.com
With solid on-road dynamics, decent fuel efficiency and an accommodating, high-class cabin, the 2012 Ford Explorer is a top pick for a large crossover SUV.
84
Edmunds.com
With solid on-road dynamics, decent fuel efficiency and an accommodating, high-class cabin, the 2013 Ford Explorer is a top pick for a large crossover SUV.
84
AutoWeek
This new car-based Explorer is far more realistic about what SUV/CUV buyers really want: something roomy inside with excellent on-road manners and very little road noise or wind noise. Most of the Explorer is in fine shape, at or near the head of its class.
84
AutoWeek
This new car-based 2011 Ford Explorer is far more realistic about what SUV/CUV buyers really want: something roomy inside with excellent on-road manners and very little road noise or wind noise.
84
AutoBlog.com
There may have been a lot of arched eyebrows leading up to the 2011 Explorer, but after driving it, the only looks of surprise are likely to be accompanied by feelings of delight. It's impossible not to be struck by how well-rounded a package it truly is.
84
DriverSide.com
The Explorer has all the right components to remind buyers why it’s been successful for so long. Fuel economy improvements, interior refinements and the addition of more tech than ever make its ‘pro’ list considerably longer than the ‘con.’
84
Fortune
For those who need a vehicle with this kind of size and capability, the 2011 Explorer is exceptionally well executed.
84
MotorWeek
The 2011 Ford Explorer is a very capable and solid family utility vehicle, one built for the 21st century.
84
CarReview.com
In many senses, the new Explorer is a definite improvement over the old model. It’s when you actually try to push the Explorer, whether on or off-road, that memories of the under-performing old model come flooding back, which is really too bad.
83
Fortune
Gone are the Explorer's pickup-truck engineering, beefy four-wheel-drive, and trail-tough ride. Instead of an off-roader built for climbing and towing heavy loads, the Explorer becomes a soft-roader, more at home on the highway than a mountain trail.
83
Popular Mechanics
Ford radically alters the fifth-generation Explorer, ditching body-on-frame construction and pickup truck mechanicals for fuel economy and enhanced safety features in a seven-passenger body that doesn't look like a minivan.
83
Boston Globe
The new Explorer won't blaze a new trail the way the original did, but it will make following that trail a whole lot more pleasurable
83
Automobile Magazine
The 2011 Ford Explorer is a well-executed version of the family crossover. Its main competitors are the Chevy Traverse, Toyota Highlander, and Honda Pilot, and the Ford is at or near the top in terms of on-road behavior and interior refinement.
83
Edmunds.com
The 2011 Ford Explorer Limited 4WD is an excellent choice for a family vehicle, with one caveat: It's more expensive than vehicles such as the Chevrolet Traverse, the Honda Pilot Touring and the Toyota Highlander.
83
Consumer Guide
The 2011 Ford Explorer's wealth of high-tech features will certainly delight tech-savvy shoppers. For everyone else, it's still a very nice 7-passenger crossover that’s in danger of being lost in the crowd of very nice 7-passenger crossovers.
83
Forbes
Overall, the new Explorer demonstrates Ford’s commitment to innovating again. The general quality of this vehicle, along with the fit and finish, has improved.
82
LeftLane News
Perfect it is not, but this new 2011 Ford Explorer finally makes sense for most buyers. Just don’t buy into the marketing hype that suggests it loves to leave the pavement
82
AOL Autos
This new, seven-passenger model, due in dealerships this winter, couldn't be more different from the Explorers that preceded it. It's clear that the Explorer has evolved. We’ll have to wait to see whether public perception of this redesigned SUV will change in turn.
82
Edmunds.com
Ford's decision to make the Explorer into a car-based SUV was the right one. It's convenient and comfortable in all the ways families will appreciate, and it's a worthy rival to vehicles like the CX-9, Durango, Highlander and Traverse.
81
TheTruthAboutCars.com
Functionality doesn’t sell, so it wasn’t a high priority this time around. Nevertheless, conventionally attractive styling does sell, and the new Explorer looks the part while doing everything else well enough or better.
81
TheTruthAboutCars.com
The Explorer was never a truly outstanding answer to the family-wagon question, so Ford created the Flex, which is an outstanding answer. It should have made the Explorer obsolete, but it wasn’t really an SUV, and it wasn’t an Explorer. So the Explorer is back.
80
Car and Driver
The portly Explorer is just a bit too much Ford for four cylinders to handle—even with a turbo.
80
Cars.com
The Explorer will undoubtedly please SUV fans but it might leave families flat, thanks to a tight second row and high step-in height.
79
AutoBlog.com
Some 20 years after America met the first Explorer, size is the main thing that's holding this latest model back from ever achieving the big box office numbers of its predecessors. That kind of money is reserved for much smaller vehicles these days.
78
Automobile Magazine
Ford is making no attempt to hide the fact that the new Explorer is a totally different type of vehicle. This fresh Explorer, they say, does everything buyers have demanded from the current model while improving on comfort and fuel economy.
76
Motor Trend
Slow, clumsy, pricey, thirstier than we would have thought, and a packaging disaster, the new Ford Explorer EcoBoost is not a Motor Trend favorite. We're not sure we even like the styling anymore.
