Review: 2012 Ford Explorer Limited FWD With Ecoboost – Part 1

This week is a bit of a departure for me. While I have reviewed cars in the past, they have been very short reviews. This week Ford Canada has provided me with a 2012 Ford Explorer Limited for the week. It a front wheel drive SUV with the new Ecoboost engine. It seats seven and comes with pretty much every option one could possibly need. I have to admit that this is a significant step up from what I am used to as the list price is just under $50K Canadian.

This vehicle has a lot to it, so I am going to do a six part review that will cover the following sections:

• Interior
• MyFord Touch and other technology in the vehicle.
• Engine and Fuel Economy
• Drive quality
• Wrap Up

Seeing as I’ve had the car for a couple of hours now, I do have some thoughts that I can share with you:

• This SUV is huge, but it doesn’t feel huge. Though I am still getting used to driving it having driven a much smaller Toyota Matrix, I’m not having any problems with how big it is.
• There is a ton of technology in the vehicle, and thus far it isn’t distracting. In fact it’s very helpful.
• The interior room is substantial.
• The engine has some get up and go to it.
• Everything I touch feels soft.
• So far, I’m not bothered by the fact that this vehicle has front wheel drive (you read that correctly, it’s front wheel drive and not all wheel drive).

So will I have a positive view of this vehicle by the end of the review? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Rogers LTE Now Available In Calgary And Halifax

Rogers continues their aggressive expansion of their LTE network by expanding into Calgary and Halifax. Here’s the details that “my best friends at Rogers” sent me:

I wanted to pop you a quick note to let you know that today we’re launching LTE in two new cities, Calgary and Halifax, and in the coming months we’ll be bringing LTE to Edmonton.  Rogers LTE network now reaches close to 12 million people or one third of the Canadian population.  By the end of the year, it will reach nearly 60 per cent.

For more details about the launch you can check out RedBoard and for all LTE information you can visit www.rogers.com/LTE

One other thing that I note from the RedBoard post is that two new phones will be available for Rogers LTE customers. Coming soon are the Nokia Lumia 900 which runs the Windows Phone OS and the HTC One X, the first smartphone in Canada designed with Beats Audio by rapper Dr. Dre.

Clearly Rogers wants to rule the LTE universe in Canada. Will this make you want to upgrade to LTE? Post your comments below please.