[onewhippedpuppy]

We test drove a 2005 Expedition back-to-back with a 2005 Armada. The Armada was dramatically more responsive and felt substantially more powerful. I also recall thinking that the Ford motor was thrashy at higher RPMs. After driving the Expedition, the wife's comment was that she was afraid she wouldn't be able to pass on 2-lane roads. The interior was noticably cheaper as well, enough so that my wife noticed it. Lots of cheap hard plastic and exposed edges. The car we test drove had the 2nd row bench seat, I recall the flip-forward seat having absolutely no cover over the underside, leaving many sharp edges to scratch and snag kids when crawling to the 3rd row. I thought that was a particularly blatant oversight, most vehicles with flip forward seats (including our MPV) have a plastic cover over the seat underside mechanism.

We really tried to consider a Ford. The Expedition we drove had 30k, it was cheaper than a similar Armada with 60k. When we moved our focus to a minivan we test drove an uplevel Ford Freestar because they were also so cheap. Unfortunately, we had similar complaints. We ended up buying an older MPV with more miles because it was a better driving van with a higher quality feel.

Maybe I'm just picky, I don't know. Even in my father-in-law's nearly new 2008 F150 I can find nits to pick. Lots of hard plastic and a few exposed seams, it still feels cheap to me. Kaisen, I will say that I really liked the new GMC Sierra that I drove, so I don't hate all domestics. I also liked my Cadillac SRX until it started falling apart.