New owner - Things I'm surprised about

[MAJB Retired]

I've got a BS BB and none of this stuff bothers me. Great little truck.

Sponsored

 

[Kachadurian]

I've have had my Outer Banks only three days, but I've already learned a few things that contradict what others have said on this forum.

1. I don't hate auto start. Perhaps it's because most of my life I have driven a manual, but I find the auto start stop no trouble at all. I don't immediately take my foot off the brake and stomp on the gas, so for me, I don't notice any power delay. As far as the slight vibration when the engine restarts; it's an engine starting, what do you expect? Mine doesn't jerk or jump or anything.

2. Gas mileage is way better than I expected. Again, I'm pretty light on the pedal, and I also live in an area with a lot of roads with 55 mile an hour speed limits, which is a sweet spot, mileagewise. But in mixed city/highway driving I am getting 34mpg. That only one tank of gas, so things will change, but initially I'm comfortably over 30mpg. For comparison, I never got over 28mpg mixed on my Subaru Crosstrek.

3. It's been a long time since I drove a Ford. My several cars have been Subaru, GM, Saturn, and Fiat. The Ford Outer Banks feels like a much more sophisticated vehicle. The tech is second only to maybe Honda, (I drive my girlfriend's CRV often) but I like the Ford Sync3 better. Sync4 must be something amazing.

4. Ford missed the boat on the Cruise Control switch. Every car I've ever owned or driven, even rentals, have had the Cruise controls on the right side of the steering wheel. Ford chose to move it to the left. It's almost like moving the turn signal to the right and the wipers to the left.

5. I don't like rear window tint, or the inside mirror. I don't know which is to blame, but I feel like I can't even see out of the back window through the mirror. It seems like a day/night mirror stuck on dark. Am I alone on this?

6. I knew this because I'm not a jack rabbit driver, but the 1.5L has plenty of power for me. I have owned many cars with less power. I'm glad I didn't get a BL just for the 2.0L engine.

That's all for now. I'm sure I'll have more observations as I drive more, but overall I'm really happy I waited.

Tom

I have an addendum. #7 Brake hold. I learned about this from this very thread. I never really understood what it was until I tried it out the last few days. I absolutely love it. It makes me enjoy a stoplight.

 

[R. Bird]

Something I am surprised about is the lack of self door locking when you walk away from the BS. My Trax will lock itself and set the alarm when I walk about 10 feet away. I loved this feature! Now I am constantly forgetting to lock my BS. At least the FordPass helps with this! Trying to retrain this old brain is hard... lol

Oh... And the fact that the G.O.A.T. mode always resets to Normal Mode. If you want to stay in Eco, why do you have to select it every time? Anyhoo... If these are my biggest issues, I have no need to complain!

 

[mrsrebel]

I've never had a 'knob' to select gear with and yesterday I stopped (parking space) and pushed the button to turn off--without putting gear into park. Imagine my surprise when the gear knob rotated itself back to P! What sorcery is this?? Get home, stop and get out to get the mail (left Bronco running) while in Park and when I get back in, the parking brake is engaged. Thinking of starting to call this one Christine...not sure what she's doing when I'm not driving!

 

[VirtualJMills]

Something I am surprised about is the lack of self door locking when you walk away from the BS. My Trax will lock itself and set the alarm when I walk about 10 feet away. I loved this feature! Now I am constantly forgetting to lock my BS. At least the FordPass helps with this! Trying to retrain this old brain is hard... lol

Not sure if this is an all-trim-levels feature, but there are some proximity reactive features that can be enabled/disabled -- I have them entirely disabled, so I can't speak to whether or not you can achieve entirely hands-off door-lock / alarm-arm state, but the ribbing on the driver's door handle is an affordance to highlight the locations for the lock/unlock capacitive-touch pad spots.

This is separate from the SecuriCode keypad which is in the riser of the driver's door circa chest-level, if installed.

 

[VirtualJMills]

Thinking of starting to call this one Christine...not sure what she's doing when I'm not driving!

Expect the toll-crossing bills to show-up in the US Mail in a week or so. Plus the photos from the road trip.

 

[Kraken]

I've never had a 'knob' to select gear with and yesterday I stopped (parking space) and pushed the button to turn off--without putting gear into park. Imagine my surprise when the gear knob rotated itself back to P! What sorcery is this?? Get home, stop and get out to get the mail (left Bronco running) while in Park and when I get back in, the parking brake is engaged. Thinking of starting to call this one Christine...not sure what she's doing when I'm not driving!

It does the same thing if you open the door while in Drive

 

[Deleted User 772562]

Just wanted to chime in and say that I love my BS, but I, too, have noticed some strangeness with the rear view mirror. It seems dark and I also see something almost mirror-like towards the top if I don't have it aimed down enough. I was wondering if something was wrong with it, as well...

This sounds like a manual dimming rear view mirror. I have an auto dimmer in my OB, but one of my previous cars (Jeep Sahara) had a manual dimmer that you flip to make it darker (dim). Does it have a little tab on the bottom of the mirror?

 

[Flash]

This one seems odd, as I can see fine and will not tint my windows.
I’ve got my center mirror set and my view is the whole back window, I can see just fine..
Just sayin.

Since I purchased my Outer Banks in Arizona, extra tint was added to all 7 extra windows by the dealer before I bought it, but not the windshield, of course. The other windows are considerably darker than the windshield, so I'd guess it's around 35% since the windshield is 70% from the factory.

I see out of it just fine, including using the rear view mirror, and when it's 110 degrees outside and the sun is shining in the window, it barely even feels warm, so the tint works well.

 

[Morly]

This sounds like a manual dimming rear view mirror. I have an auto dimmer in my OB, but one of my previous cars (Jeep Sahara) had a manual dimmer that you flip to make it darker (dim). Does it have a little tab on the bottom of the mirror?

It does, yeah. I thought I had it flipped the right way, but maybe not. I'll try it the other way and see. Thanks!

 

[Flash]

I have an addendum. #7 Brake hold. I learned about this from this very thread. I never really understood what it was until I tried it out the last few days. I absolutely love it. It makes me enjoy a stoplight.

I've set up a geofence in my iPhone to remind me to turn it off when I go into an automated car wash.

 

[mizzoubronco]

I've never had a 'knob' to select gear with and yesterday I stopped (parking space) and pushed the button to turn off--without putting gear into park. Imagine my surprise when the gear knob rotated itself back to P! What sorcery is this?? Get home, stop and get out to get the mail (left Bronco running) while in Park and when I get back in, the parking brake is engaged. Thinking of starting to call this one Christine...not sure what she's doing when I'm not driving!

Yep, my salesman showed me this feature (the auto-shifting to park) when we bought it. He was also very excited about it ?

 

[mrsrebel]

How do I keep locking myself out? Stopped at a quick shop with some friends and they stayed in the Bronco with the a/c running. When I came back to get in, door was locked and they didn't do it. Now, I was able to unlock with the code but still--that's the second time now. I did not have the key fob, it was still inside the car.

 

[jason202]

5. I don't like rear window tint, or the inside mirror. I don't know which is to blame, but I feel like I can't even see out of the back window through the mirror. It seems like a day/night mirror stuck on dark. Am I alone on this?

I've noticed this too, and I have the automatic dimming mirror. I assume it's just the heavy tint on the rear glass.

Sponsored