Had to get the aviator to get the 32v mach1/cobra (normally aspirated) motor, and some other minor upgrades from the explorer/mountaineer family. And I have emissions inspections every year, so it's best to start high, and keep mods to a minimum.

I'm really digging it so far, although I HAVE to get the stereo done, and I wish I could disable the traction control permanently.

 

We bought one for my wife in 2008. Love it. Her's is Black, which tendes to get very hot and has dried the plastic mounting brackets out for the upper console on the roof, as well as the Sunvisor brackets. Problems that are common on these are issues with the coil packs from time to time that creates a miss at idle, of course the same tailgate panel cracking issue that the explorer also has, the shifter tends to bind up and does not opporate smoothly at times, also rattling in the headliners. With that said, we still love and enjoy ours. I have not had to do any major repair outside of just putting a new A/C compressor, dryer and expansion block on it recently. Everything else has just been normal wear stuff like brakes and tune up. We have the Ultimate AWD version with every option down to the A/C seats, and man do those things feel great on the way back from a day on the beach.