Explorer good daily driver?

[johnny o]

I'm thinking of picking up an Explorer for a daily driver and am wondering what you guys think of them. The things I already know about them are: they tend to rust a lot mainly on the back door and inbetween the wheel wells and the back seat doors, the front wheel drive is of poor design and costs about $1500 to fix but the RWD will still work when/if it goes oh and they are SLOW :) I am thinking early 90s 4.0L any comments would be good.

[BT Motorsports]

At least of you get the 4.0, there is an M90 blower kit available for it:D Seriously though, the heads are weak on that engine, prone to cracking.

Paul

[fast Ed]

The 1st gen. (91 - 94) Explorers are known for having bad 4WD automatic hubs. These are about $400 each to replace, or you can get cheaper aftermarket manual hubs. As Paul mentioned, te 4.0L can be prone to cracked cyl. heads, also they can be pretty bad oil leakers as well. Ride and handling on these isn't really so hot either.


cheers
Ed N.

[BlueThunder90]

One word. NO! :D

When I was in the market for trucks I looked into Explorers. Too many potential problems and the 4x4 system is just a nightmare on most.

I ended up going with a 95 S-10 Blazer 4x4. Great truck so far and the 4.3 Vortec is a solid motor.

[fast Ed]

Oh yeah, I forgot, they suck fuel like crazy too, but so do most vehicles of that genre.

A related question ... do you need to have a 4WD vehicle ? If not, why not just get something else and put 4 good winter tires on it, if you're concerned with traction in slippery conditions ...



cheers
Ed N.

[johnny o]

I miss my AWD Talon in the winter :( I was hoping for something 4x4 and I could also use to haul stuff around with. Maybe I will start looking at other SUVs.

[Steve Richards]

My wife likes her Explorer. Generally had only a few problems, mainly of the nuisance type - rear wiper has a short, hub service, exhaust heat shields fall off, heating. Got new tires out of the recall deal. There's another recall out there right now.

These rolling bricks do not get very good gas mileage but has been great up north getting us through the deep snow.

[Jason Wild]

The new recall is for a bolt in the seat something you want to get fixed soon. It was broken on my parents explorer. I would not say there all that bad on gas it gets about the same as a windstar van that we have as well.