1.Powerful 6.8 L engine
2.Roomy interior with plenty of room for the family
3.Imposing presence
4.6 disc CD player
5.I appreciated the 10,000 lb. towing capacity

The gas mileage was atrocious, to say the least The ride could be somewhat annoying at times and it was a pain to park.

It entirely depends on where you live and the size of your family. If you have to run around town shopping or navigating congested city streets, I wouldn't reccomend it. The massive proportions of this vehicle make it frustrating to find suitable parking spaces. But if you have a large family and you need a vehicle that can tackle bad weather and huge trailers, this isn't a bad choice. You don't notice the bloated dimensions as much on the highway, and the interior is inviting (mine had heated seats, 6-disc changer and all the goodies) and comfortable, especially for long trips. So yes, I would reccomend it - for certain people.

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I tested a new Suburban and I found that it had slightly less room. Also, the interior and exterior styling did not appeal to me. The Suburban did exhibit slightly better road manners, however.

Cargo capacity is that of a jumbo jet. The fact that if you were in a wreck with a tank, you would have to call the army to report an WIA. I can tow my boat, jet skis, another car, and a few 18 wheelers if I need to. When your on the highway in this thing and you come up behind a honda civic they always get out of your way.

Doesn't come in yellow so I can make from schools. You have to pull your own BP station with you every where you go.

Price was average compared to some of the expensive yet smaller luxury suv's. I would recommend getting one if you have a large family or if you just want to scare compact cars.

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Ford Expedition, Chevy Tahoe, and few other "big" suv's that don't matter now.

It is huge. Very intimidating to other motorists, attention getter. Can seat 7 big adults with ease. plus luggage with room left over.

impossible to park legally. Gas mileage is unbelievable. twitchy steering, cheap interior, pricey

Awesome SUV. Just rented one to take a bunch of friends on a vacation. All of us over 6 feet tall all over 200 lbs fit in this thing with ease. Nothing else like it on the road. Dwarfs "Full Size" pickups, expeditions, even Suburbans. Rented the base model, felt underpowered, too much downshifting. Get the V 10 especially if you get 4 wheel drive. Can get expensive quickly. If I needed a vehicle for a large family or you take a lot of trips with friends or the such this is the Suv for you. There is no compromise with the Excursion, it will fit anything.

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None

Any strengths that this vehicle has are outweighed by the vibration of the ride which makes this SUV very uncomfortable.

In November of 1999, I traded in a 1995 Chevy Suburban and I purchased the 2000 Ford Excursion XLT V10. After purchase of the Excursion, I began to realize that it has a serious shaking or vibration tendency. This defect is most notable when you are at speeds over 55 mph, however the vehicle has this same very rough ride on all road surfaces regardless of the speed, and regardless if you have stock or after market wheels.

The Vibration problem was not disclosed to us before purchase of the vehicle but was later admitted by Ford as being a normal part of the SUV's ride.

This SUV was purchased at Galpan Ford of North Hills (California) where they admitted that the Excursion provides the rough ride of a large truck. An Employee of Galpan admitted that with plenty of complaints, the Ford Engineers might provide something in about a year's time. At this point, Galpan Ford service said there was nothing that they could do for us.

Shirley of the Excursion Team comments to me were that the vehicle "rides rough because it is a large truck design" and that this is "characteristic of the vehicle".

I do not find the statements of the Ford Excursion Team acceptable for a $40,000 plus vehicle for the following reasons:

> First the Ford people stated that the reason our vehicle was riding rough was because of after market tires, but when it was proven that this was not correct, they conceded that it is a rough riding vehicle no matter what tires it has on it.

> This Excursion is advertised as the "Ultimate Luxury S.U.V.".

> They continually tell us that we need weight in the vehicle, but we are a family of 5 adults, and our combined weight comes close to the suggested weight for a smoother ride, yet we are all uncomfortable when riding as a group.

> When the driver of this vehicle does not even want to hold onto a vibrating steering wheel during a long trip, we feel that the vehicle was not properly designed and would go so far as to say that it is unsafe to drive.

I conclude that Ford presents a callused attitude of unwillingness to help correct the problem of a poorly designed, poorly engineered vehicle in a timely fashion.

Please let me know if you or someone you know is also experiencing this problem, and if you have been able to find a solution. Your input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you - hlynn@netzero.net

Purchase Price: $40,000 +
Condition: New
Model Year: 2000
Model and options: XLT - V10

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> Ford claims that it is a large truck and that is why it rides rough, yet the Chevrolet Suburban that we traded in for this vehicle was known as the "largest vehicle on the planet" yet it had a comfortable ride regardless of the road surface.

-6.8L V-10 Engine is VERY strong
-The Ride is very good except for sharp bumps
- The 4 wheel disk, 4 wheel ABS Brakes are very good
- The F-250 SuperDuty is a proven platform

- The Engine/Transmission Drivetrain Mapping uses too much RPMS for me
- 10.5 MPG City, 12.5 MPG Highway
- Parking because of large size

SUMMARY
I am VERY pleased with my Excursion. It is everything and more that I expected. If I had it to do again, I absolutely would.

A large part of my decision was based on the Excursion looks. I personally think it is the best looking vehicle ever built. I had Suburbans for 8 eight years, and sometimes you just want a change. Like coaches in today's professional sports, some good ones get fired, even though they're still good coaches. My Suburban got fired, but its not the Suburban's fault.

Personally, I beleive the Suburban is more appropriate than the Excursion for most family car applications. I believe someone needs to really think if the size of this vehicle may be too much of a burden. However, if someone decides it is the vehicle for them, I would HIGHLY recommend it.

*** DETAILED REVIEW ***
Following are some of my opinions of the 2000 Excursion after 4+ months of ownership. Please note that I was mostly aware of any negative traits, expressed below, of the Excursion before I bought it, and I bought it anyway. Just because a trait is not perfect, does not mean it is not good. With the high caliber of vehicles today, the Excursion can fall short of the Suburban in most areas, and still be a VERY good vehicle, its just not THE BEST SUV or as good as the Suburban. But 'Not THE BEST' in today's market, can still be very good.

ENGINE / TRANSMISSION
My 6.8L V-10 engine is MORE than adequate in all situations: from a stop, accelerating at speed, high speed driving, etc. I am very pleased with the engine power. It NEVER leaves me wanting more, and I also drive a Kawasaki ZX-11 and Honda VFR-800 sport bike. That is also saying alot considering the Excursion's almost 4 ton vehicle weight.

I am not as pleased with Ford's tuning of the engine/transmission combination. In my opinion, Ford uses too much RPM in their drivetrain mapping. When you try to accelerate from speed, they always shift down to a lower gear much sooner than I would prefer. That gives the vehicle a tinny operation feel. They never let you FEEL the torque of the engine, which is what I would prefer. I suspect Ford mapped their drivetrain in favor of gas mileage and emissions over driveability. This feature of the Excursion is its most negative point for me.

RIDE
I am very pleased with the smoothness of the ride. It appears they tuned the suspension for a luxury ride rather than a work truck. The ride falls short however, on high frequency (sharp) bumps. Short, abrupt bumps are transferred directly to the driver, VERY truck like.

The Excursion has 4-wheel disk, 4-wheel anti-lock brakes and I find them to be very good.

GAS MILEAGE
I use an Excel Spreadsheet to record all gasoline purchases. I have filled up with gasoline 15 times and recorded gas mileages as follows:
Highest Gas Mileage 14.1 mpg
Lowest Gas Mileage 9.75 mpg
Average Gas Mileage 11.7 mpg

After 4,809 miles, I have used 409 gallons at a cost of $542.

In general, I am getting about 10.5 mpg in city driving and about 12.5 mpg highway. My driving style for the Excursion would be considered mild, so this mileage is about as good as I would expect.

The worst thing about the Excursion gas mileage is its range. The Excursion has a 44 gallon gas tank, as opposed to the Suburban 42 gallon. However, the poorer gas mileage of the Excursion way more than offsets the extra 2 gallons. In the Suburban, I didn't start thinking about filling up until 500 miles. Unforturnately, with the Excursion, I generally fill up shortly after 400.

EXTERIOR SIZE
The Excursion is a bit uncomfortably large in some normal situations. In parking lots with smaller size parking slots, I will make sure that I park away from the crowd. It would be very close to the next car, and I wouldn't want to risk someone dinging up the paint, accidentally or on purpose (welcome to Houston).

When there is a parking lot with straight in slots and the driveway between the parks is not very wide, I always back the Excursion in to those slots. Once I made the mistake of pulling in forward to a straight slot that had parallel parking behind. When I returned to leave, there was indeed a car parked parellel behind me. I probably had to jog back and forth about 6 times.

Shortly before I purchased the Excursion, my office had moved from downtown Houston, which used an underground garage. If I still had to use that underground garage, I am not sure that the Excursion would clear the low garage overhead height. For the record, I measured my Excursion height, 6' 8 3/8".

The Excursion does fit in my garage at home. However, unlike the Suburban, there is not enough room between the door and the back of the vehicle for me to open the garage door manually from inside. I always use the automatic door opener. If I didn't use the auto door opener, I would have to open and close the garage door from the outside when the Excursion is parked inside.

The tollway in Houston has some 'Express' pay lanes that are a bit narrower than the regular toll booths. The Excursion is too wide to fit through the narrower 'Express' lanes without folding in the drivers mirror.

When the hood is open, I have to stand on my tip toes to reach the front center of the hood to lower it.

The 18-wheeler like hump in the hood tends to make judging distance to objects to the side of the vehicle more difficult than normal. For instance, the hump on the passenger side hood blocks your view from the top of the actual right fender. This makes judging your distance from objects to the right side of the vehicle very difficult. Its my understanding the hump in the hood was needed for clearance on one of the engines.

I would have preferred if Ford would have also offered the Excursion in the 1/2 ton (F-150) platform. I did not need or want the larger F-250 platform. But I believe that Ford's decision was probably based on Federal regulations which lax emission specifications for 'larger' trucks. And I understand and accept those types of business decisions. I also beleive those laxed emission standards for large trucks will be eliminated this year. Perhaps that could lead to a future F-150 Excursion.

INTERIOR ROOM
The interior of the Excursion has noticeably more room than the Suburban. There is certainly more room inside after all my motorcycle gear and tools are loaded than there is in the Suburban.

The leg room in the second and third row seats are the most I have ever seen on any vehicle. The amount of leg room in the second seat is absolutely unbelievable.

However, the cargo room behind the third seat is slightly less in the Excursion, than in the Suburban. Ford used the extra Excursion interior room for second and third row leg room. This is not a problem for me, since when I want to carry cargo, I remove the third seat and fold down the second seats, for an Alaskan wilderness size cargo area. One example, I have hauled several sections of 10' PVC pipe fully inside the vehicle with all the doors closed.

The rear 2 swinging doors on the Excursion open a bit past 90 degrees under normal operation. However, by removing the plastic holder clips which limit the door opening, each of the doors will open to almost 180 degrees. This feature is NOT mentioned in the owners manual. To use this feature, open the swing doors to full open. On the hinge side of each door, bend the silver metal tab away from the black plastic holder arm. Now just raise the black plastic arm up and off the small dowel.

Here is another door feature I found nice that is not mentioned in the owners manual. With the two swing doors open to their normal full open position, you can close the upper glass hatch. This would be useful if you were carrying a load that extended past the doors. Lay the load on the floor, leave the two (or just one) swing doors open, and close the glass hatch.

VEHICLE MAINTENANCE
Underneath the vehicle is incredibly roomy after you get past the outside rails. Underneath the vehicle, there is actually enough shoulder room to turn your (at least mine) body sideways.

Unlike other cars I am used to, the oil filter sets out in the open, not crowded on one side by the transmission bell housing. Therefore, after you install the oil filter, it is easy to wipe all the way around the filter to prevent leftover drips. This 6.8L V-10 engine holds 6 quarts of oil, not the usual 5 quarts that you are used to.

I did notice one electrical ground mesh cable hanging underneath the vehicle near the catalytic converter not connected to anything.

When I buy a vehicle, I always replace the jack with a standard 2 1/2 ton floor jack. When I bought the Excursion, I simply used the floor jack from the Suburban I traded in. When I proceeded to rotate the tires on the Excursion after 5,000 miles, I learned that the standard floor jack would not lift the rear wheels high enough to remove them. The problem was with the jack height, not the weight. I had to replace it with a larger floor jack.

My normal and comfortable way to place my car in to gear is to SIMUTANEOUSLY press the brake and move the gear shift lever in to reverse or drive. The Excursion has a brake / shift interlock that requires you to press the brake before you shift in to gear. The interlock solenoid has a slight delay that requires about 2 seconds after you hit the brake before the gear shift will operate. I found this delay very annoying to my normal simutaneous operation. As I expected, I was unable to find any dealership or major car maintenance facility willing to disable the system. And the small shops who were willing to disable it couldn't figure out how. I spent about 15 hours over several days on my own trying to figure out how to disable it and was unsuccessful. I was unable to remove the upper steering column shroud which first requires removal of the ignition cylinder. Finally, in December, Helm Inc. finally came out with the Workshop and electrical manuals for the Excursion. After my manuals arrived, I was able to disconnect the system in about 3 minutes.

I also wanted to install a hidden kill switch into the inertia reset switch wiring. Ford uses the inertia switch is to kill electrical power to the fuel pump relay in the event of a vehicle accident. It is located behind the passenger kick panel. I was also able to install this kill switch with the help of the Helm wiring diagrams.

THE END

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1992 Chevrolet Suburban
1997 Chevrolet Suburban

Its good when i need to bring 6 people along, engine is powerful if you need to tow something big.

near everything, its too big and gas milage could be a lot better. I have bad knees and its hard to get in and out of.

i havent been satisfied at all with it. Im trying to sell it, if you think this is going to be a practical and versitile suv, think again. with the combination of poor handling, its size(it wont fit in my garage), gas milage(i keep talking about it because its so terrible, i pay around $60 to fill my tank EVERY week), its also been keyed numerous times. I cannot take it into bad areas, I learned this real quick after coming out to see my tires slashed. It would be a good suv if you had a big boat to tow occasionally, it tows like nothing is behind it. but, dont expect any acceleration. So, to sum things up, this is not a good vehicle for taking the kids to soccer practice and not good for a daily commute to work. But if you have something to tow, get it.

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had a 94 cherokee that was WAY better than this, more practical, got a lot better gas milage, quicker

Power, room and conveniences. It's quite frankly, the only choice for larger families that have to transport a large group to outings, using one vehicle instead of two to move thr group (with all their gear).

The roof rack is extremely unstable, in fact, one movable segment flew off my vehicle when braking hard on the freeway (even though it was secured, using the flip-down tab "locks" Ford uses.

Overall, it's an awesome vehicle, that can easily transport (comfortably) my 2 teenage daughters with friends AND my toddler on a roadtrip -- with all of their stuff (sport bags, stroller, high chair, etc.). Try that with a Suburban and you'll need a roof carrier or a trailer, plus be lacking a lot of passenger room. The power it delivers is incredible, especially with the Triton V10. The sound system sounds great, plus my girls and their friends can listen to their own radio station or CD without the rest of the occupants having to be a captive audience to their teenage music selections.

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Suburban, multiple Vans, etc.

Nice ride, excellent towing vehicle (tow a 6500lb boat all summer)
comfortable leather seats, good sound system, kids love it,

Poor gas mileage (11 in the city) but I knew that going in and you would be foolish to assume otherwise.
*****I have taken my vehicle to the dealership and have had the BODY MOUNTS replaced twice ! Has any one else had this problem? Vehicle only has 10,000 miles on it in 10 months? I don't know what would cause this.

Overall experience has been great. Got rid of a 1995 Chevy Suburban that went through 3 transmissions and 3 rear ends with only 45,000. miles on it. The excursion is a more quality product then the Suburban from exterior features to interior. Excursion is more solid and much safer.

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1995 Chevy Suburban LT. V-8. NO COMPARISON. I have learned that you simply cannot compare a chevy truck to a Ford truck. Ford builds a quality truck and Chevy builds a tin can.

The 7.3 Diesel, ROOMY, HUGE we found that trips to Raliegh was extremly east to carry all our stuff

Can there Be any?

When we 1st got the Excursion we were a little afraid of the Diesel (gas milage) but after a few days our gas milage shot up to 18 to 25 we were EXTREMLY happy. My son just turned 15 and he loves it he plans to drive the monster to school.

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98 Linclon Navigator, 99 Ford F-350

- Very roomy (headroom, legroom)
- Brute force with a touch of class
- Very comfortable for the driver as well as passengers
- Don't have to take out the 3rd row seats to make room for luggage
- Fun to drive

- Takes some time to get used to (parking, etc.)
- Filling up is a small investment each time with it's 44 gallon tank

I originally was looking at the Expedition until I saw the Excursion for the first time. I was sold. I don't think that I could have made a better choice. The vehicle is about the biggest thing I ever drove outside of military vehicles, but I love it to death.

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I drove a myriad of other SUV's before fianlly deciding to go with the Excursion. I tested the Expedition first. It was nice, but I like big cars, so the Excursion beat it. I drove the Linclon Navigator, again a smaller SUV. It had a lot of nice options, but I didn't like the looks of the vehicle. I then tested the Cadillac Escalade. I must say that the Escalade is a very nice SUV, and it has a lot to offer, but I did not choose it basically for two reasons. One: the availability. I would have to have waited about six months to get the car. Two: the price. Cadillac would not make me a good offer. I did like the Escalade because it had a lot of buttons and switches, but I think I made the right decision with the Excursion.