Quote:
Originally Posted by Elysium
I was in the same boat hoping for a 5-ft bed on both the Maverick and Santa Cruz when they originally got announced. The under seat storage is great to help mitigate that, and there’s always bed extenders.
When I started looking for a new vehicle I had quickly honed in on those models as they offer the truck utility I need, but are not a hulking monstrosity.
I really wanted the hybrid option Maverick at first, but the lack of an AWD option for now was a non-starter for Maine winters and the backwoods roads I want to enjoy for camping. In my opinion, the Santa Cruz is a bit more suited for outdoors activities, whereas the Maverick is more of a city/highway driver.
I ultimately chose the Santa Cruz SEL Premium. Gas mileage sucks, but so do all the competitors. I was finally able to reserve an incoming one to the dealer that had 90% of my options. Hopefully take ownership 10/28.
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Hope it all works out. To me neither are really a bad choice, but I find myself thinking I'm going to have to dump this Maverick once the warranty is up, I dread dealing with the problems that tend to plague Ford vehicles. I'm just waiting for a letter from Ford for a side-curtain airbag recall. I think that's 3-4 recalls on the Hybrid so far, and it's not even been in production for year. Year one problems I suppose, thankfully other than the last one, all of the others were fixed before mine was built. I'm hoping Toyota or Honda will make a similar plug-in hybrid in 5 years, based on the RAV or CRV. One thing I can say for Ford, is they do know how to make the vehicle utilitarian, something the Japanese automakers could stand to learn from.
One word of warning, from what I've seen from reviewers who took the Santa Cruz with the dual clutch transmission for off road adventures, is that the dual clutch is not great for that. It was a while ago, so I don't remember why, but I konw they thought the Maverick EcoBoost AWD package was better than the dual clutch Santa Cruz when both vehicles were tested on the same paths off the pavement. One of them who later bought a Santa Cruz got the lower trim just to get the standard automatic, which they said was better for off road.