2025 Ford Expedition: New Friendly Features and a Tremor for Legit Off-Roading

Ford’s entry in the large family SUV competition includes updated BlueCruise, multi-use Split Gate and excellent manners on- and off-road.

May 14, 2025

Chris Clonts

The 2025 Expedition Tremor had no problem with the rain-soaked trails, mud pits and rocks of Interlake State Recreation Area in Indiana. (Ford)

Ford has engineered the 2025 Expedition with an eye to putting it at the top of the large SUV class in which it has usually been a contender. With loads of tech that works well and is controlled easily, friendly features and a highly capable new Tremor off-road edition, it offers plenty of justifications for its pricing.

The 2025 Expedition in Platinum Ultimate trim. (Ford)

SAE Media was hosted by Ford in Louisville, Kentucky, for a drive of various Expedition trim levels, including a first-hand view of the Tremor’s off-road prowess.

Among the useful features is the new Split Gate, of which the top 75% lifts like a traditional SUV liftgate. The utility comes in with the lower 25%, which drops like a truck tailgate and can support up to 500 pounds for your football tailgating or other purposes. And avoiding a potential user annoyance is available Open-on-Approach, which opens both gate portions by merely standing near the back of the Expedition.

The Expedition’s well-placed exterior lighting, which has many uses, can be controlled from the center stack touchscreen. (Ford)

The design of the upper part of the Split Gate, by the way, evokes the apocryphal quote from Henry Ford about color options on the Model T: “Any color the customer wants, as long as it’s black.” Exterior designer Jill Dougherty said the development team wanted the split gate to stand out proudly on most color combinations. The contrast is most stark on SUVs with one of the two available white body colors. For the paranoid, it sort of evokes a police vehicle from behind.

With 10.6 inches of ground clearance and skid plates protecting everything except the transmission, the 2025 Expedition Tremor handles rocky trails easily. (Ford)

A four-zone lighting system is available for the exterior that makes living or working around the vehicle at night easier. Control of the individual zones is handled via the Expedition’s redesigned Digital Experience infotainment system. Also on the exterior are automatic running boards that extend outward only during ingress and egress.

Other nifty touches inside include a power sliding center console that opens to a space deep enough to hold a purse. It’s similar to the one that has been available in the Chevy Tahoe since 2021, but the Expedition’s has more room inside. There is also a pass-through in the middle of the 40-20-40 rear seat for carrying longer items without having to drop the tailgate.

The touch screens are snappy, but Ford encourages drivers to use Google Assist to use voice commands to, say, adjust the HVAC. That comes with Ford’s Connectivity package, which is a flat $749 at the time of purchase for at least seven years, or $149.95 paid annually.

On-road manners, excellent BlueCruise

It's easy to see what drive mode is selected on the 2025 Expedition’s dash. (Ford)

The first two things most drivers will notice when sliding into the Expedition: The 24-inch panoramic display panel that is slightly raised to put more info within the driver’s line of sight, and a curiously shaped steering wheel that some describe as oblong, but seems more like a rectangle with rounded corners. Engineers said that shape is meant to improve dash vision above it and easier ingress and egress for legs below.

I worried it would be as problematic as yoke-style steering wheels have proven to be on vehicles such as the Tesla Model S. In general, a yoke only works well when the max you can or need to turn it is 90 degrees. But this shape is far more subtle and, despite lock-to-lock requiring more than three 360-degree turns, it never exhibited the “grabbing for air” feeling of turning a yoke through 270 or more degrees.

The non-Tremor versions of the 2025 Expedition were a pleasure to drive. The steering is well-weighted, and while it is a giant SUV, knowing where you are in your lane and where the limit is around curves is a snap. And speaking of curves, we drove the Expedition on amusing twisty roads in the hills around Louisville, Kentucky and highways of widely varied quality. On the better roads, the Expedition could even be described as fun to drive. It makes one wonder what an Expedition ST would be like. (“Calm down,”I hear you saying. “We just got the Tremor.”) The 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 turbo that generates 400 hp (298 kW) and 480 lb-ft (651 Nm) of torque offered plenty of power to get and keep the 5,400-lb (2,449-kg) SUV moving.

Though it looks a little odd, the curved-corner rectangular steering wheel was easy to get used to and presented no problems on- or off-road. (Ford)

The BlueCruise hands-free driving software is now available in 90% of the lineup. Platinum, King Ranch, Active and Tremor models now include access to the subscription service, which is free for 90 days, then $49.99 a month or $495 a year. Improvements to the system have made lane centering quite the smooth experience, without any hint of bouncing between lane markers. And the auto-pass feature, by which you tell the activated system to pass a car ahead by merely touching the turn signal, is smart, smooth and safe due to its use of blind spot monitoring to avoid pulling out in front of a car approaching from the rear in the next lane.

A cargo organizer that can turn into a picnic table takes advantage of the lower tailgate. (Ford)

A subtle feature that will no doubt reassure many drivers: BlueCruise can sense when you are either passing or being overtaken by a large semi. It then scooches you over in the lane to allow a greater margin of error for the pass before returning to normal lane-centering. The system doesn’t nag the driver to keep hands on the wheel at short intervals, but it does watch the driver and offer an “eyes on road” reminder if attention is focused elsewhere.

The interior, by the way, approaches true luxury levels of noise suppression. In steady 65-mph driving on a tarmac road with a bit of gravel embedded in it, the noise in the King Ranch trim level hovered at around 58 dB, or about the same level as an average quiet office. And that was with a steady crosswind, traditionally problematic for NVH. Anything below 70 dB is considered to be good for most vehicles.

The Expedition’s standard size comes in Active, Tremor, King Ranch and Platinum trim levels. All but the Tremor package are available in the Expedition Max, which offers about 12 inches (30 cm) more room in the rear cargo area.

Tremor: Trusty off-road companion

The backs of the front seats feature tech holders that can accommodate phones and large tablets. (Ford)

The off-road-ready Tremor, which replaces the Timberline in the Expedition lineup, is powered by a high-ouput version of the same 3.5-L turbo V6. In the Tremor, it generates 440 hp (328 kW) and 510 lb-ft. Power is routed through enormous 33-inch General Grabber AT tires.

Nearly every Ford employee on hand at this media drive event and tour of the Kentucky Truck Plant emphasized how much Ford relies on customer feedback. Kartik Ramanathan, Expedition vehicle engineering manager, was no different, saying Tremor’s off-road bona fides are tied directly to customer desires. “It may be the family vehicle,” he said. “But those families want to have big adventures beyond the pavement they commute on during the week.”

The tremor has an additional two inches (5 cm) of ground clearance for a total of 10.6 inches (27 cm). It has a suspension that Ramanathan said is intended to err on the side of providing comfort in off-road situations.

Ford hosted an off-road drive at Interlake State Park in Indiana. The trails there, twisty tracks through forested hills with occasional rocky sections, offered a legitimate test of the Tremor’s capabilities. The test was made harder by multiple days of heavy rain that turned the trails into slick, muddy uphills, deep pits and water crossings. A few narrow, between-multiple trees, off-camber turns next to significant drop-offs had drivers a) grateful for the tires and b) learning quickly to trust their spotter.

Also helping the off-road efforts were excellent 360-degree above-view camera as well as forward and rear-looking views.

The rear diff locks electronically and skid plates protect the front suspension and transfer case. A transmission-protecting plate is available. Among many drive modes, the Tremor has a rock-crawling mode and what Ford calls Trail Turn Assist. It helps round close obstacles by locking the inside rear axle. There is also a one-pedal driving mode that brakes when the throttle is lifted. And of course, “all serious off-road vehicles must have tow hooks,” Ramanathan said. The Tremor’s are orange.

For the hauling crowd, Pro-Trailer-Hitch Assist uses cameras to guide the hitch to the receiver on the trailer. It never failed in multiple demonstrations. The Expedition can tow up to 7,000 pounds (3175 kg) with no load-leveling bars needed. Capacities vary by powertrain:

6,100-lb (2,767 kg) towing capacity for 4x2 Expedition
9,600-lb (4,354 kg) max towing capacity for 4x4 Expedition
6,300-lb (2,857 kg) towing capacity for 4x2 Expedition MAX
9,000-lb (4,082 kg) max towing capacity for 4x4 Expedition MAX

Expedition pricing ranges from $64,000 to more than $90,000. That’s the price of entry in the large SUV class. But beyond that, Ford has put engineering and content into every facet of the vehicle to make it worth considering if that’s your market.