The Car Connection Expert Review
Likes
- Hybrid mpg
- Just-right utility, for most
- Ride quality
- Not huge
Dislikes
- Not truly compact, either
- Small bed
- Chintzy interior details
- Price keeps climbing
Buying tip
features & specs
If you like the idea of a pickup but don’t need a heavy hauler, the Ford Maverick is tops.
What kind of vehicle is the 2024 Ford Maverick? What does it compare to?
The Maverick pickup truck offers room for four passengers, with a snug spot for a fifth, and a cargo bed ready to be filled with mulch, sandy beach chairs, or camping gear. Rivals include the bigger Ford Ranger, Chevy Colorado, and Toyota Tacoma, but the most direct competitor comes from Hyundai, with the Santa Cruz.
Is the 2024 Ford Maverick a good truck?
It doesn’t tow much, but otherwise the Maverick’s a thrifty, useful truck. We give it a TCC Rating of 6.5 out of 10. (Read more about how we rate cars.)
What's new for the 2024 Ford Maverick?
Ford’s raised the ante on hybrid Mavericks: the more powerful turbo-4 drivetrain now comes standard, and the high-efficiency powertrain costs more.
The now-optional hybrid powertrain remains our pick of the Maverick litter. Its 191-hp inline-4 pairs with an electric motor and a CVT for EPA-rated combined fuel economy of 37 mpg. If you need all-wheel drive and towing, though, the base 2.0-liter turbo-4’s required. It snorts out 250 hp via an 8-speed automatic gearbox, and can be spec’d to lug 4,000 pounds. More than that and Ford will gladly sell you a Ranger.
Underneath, the Maverick is basically a stretched Ford Escape. Its longer wheelbase means it takes bumps in stride, and a fully independent suspension and quick-witted steering translate to terrific pickup handling. It’s almost sporty.
The Maverick comes in just a single crew-cab configuration with a short 4.5-foot bed. Truth be told, it neither excels for comfort nor utility, but it blends the two well enough to earn our admiration. The cabin boasts imaginative design that helps mask downright cheap plastics and fabrics. The front seat has good space; row two will be tight for taller passengers. The 8.0-inch touchscreen is par for the course, even if its display is a bit dim.
The Maverick hasn’t performed as well as we’d hoped in crash tests, with a subpar four-star NHTSA rating. All models have automatic emergency braking, while adaptive cruise control and blind-spot monitors can be ordered.
How much does the 2024 Ford Maverick cost?
It’s $25,410 for the Maverick XL this year, which is a lot more than the roughly $20,000 Ford wanted when the Maverick debuted a few years ago. The hybrid system pushes that to $26,910. We like the $29,410 Maverick XLT hybrid, with another $650 for blind-spot monitors. A loaded Maverick flies past $40,000, a price that we’d rather pay for a full-size F-150.
Where is the 2024 Ford Maverick made?
In Mexico.
2024 Ford Maverick Styling
The Maverick stands out for its real-simple style.
Is the Ford Maverick a good-looking car?
Will it stop traffic? No, but the Ford Maverick avoids big-truck cliches and wraps its succinct style around a cabin that’s so cheerful, we don’t think of it as cheap.
Ford drew just one body for the Maverick. It’s a crew cab with a short bed that’s in tidy proportion. If you asked a child to draw a truck, they’d probably draw this one—and that’s a great virtue given the cartoonish grilles and earth-punishing wheels and tires on larger trucks. The look masks the Maverick’s size—it’s solidly midsize, though smaller than any other new truck on the market. Squared-off corners and flat body sides amp up the purposeful style. It’s only a little busy across the front end, where big lights and lots of chrome claim a genetic relationship to the larger Ranger and F-150.
Inside, the Maverick’s Cozy Coupe-grade plastics would be off-putting if they weren’t so frank about their presence. The truck puts function over form in an almost relentless fashion, and Ford smartly picked colors to accentuate the positive. The Maverick feels airy and bright, and places its trim cutlines where they make sense and little impact. A big touchscreen on the dash doesn’t hurt, either.
2024 Ford Maverick Performance
The Maverick drives like a car, because it’s related to cars.
The Maverick doesn’t have the usual body-on-frame truck design. Instead of spinning it off from bigger trucks, Ford adapted its compact-crossover-SUV Escape and Bronco Sport for this task. That gives the Maverick nimble handling more like that of a car than a truck. With a point for that ride/handling tune, it’s a 6 here.
Is the Ford Maverick 4WD?
Only the turbo-4 Maverick can be fitted with all-wheel drive. On the Tremor edition, Ford lifts the truck and fits off-road shocks, and gives the driver control over the locking rear differential.
How fast is the Ford Maverick?
Base Mavericks now tote a 2.0-liter turbo-4 with 250 hp and 277 lb-ft of torque, with front- or available all-wheel drive. It’s an eager power unit with corner-scrabbling power, but the 8-speed automatic connected to it gets flustered by requests for quick shifts at low speeds.
We like quick, but we like the Maverick’s slower, costlier, but far more efficient hybrid powertrain better. It melds a 2.5-liter inline-4 with a battery pack and an electric motor to stream out 191 hp and 155 lb-ft of torque through a CVT to the front wheels. This powertrain has smooth if unexceptional power delivery, and it’s quiet, too. The EPA pegs it at 37 mpg combined, stellar figures for a utility vehicle with a bed.
Ford lets drivers choose a few drive modes in the Maverick, ranging from those to handle snow and slop to normal conditions.
Alas, to tow anything with serious weight, the turbo-4’s almost a requirement. Hybrids can lug up to 2,000 pounds, but the turbo Maverick can pull 4,000 pounds. Either powertrain enables a 1,500-pound payload capacity.
One spin in the Maverick and you’ll understand why the bigger Ranger feels like a rough-handling handful. The Maverick reacts quickly to steering inputs, and that doesn’t upset its softly tuned suspension. It can snake its way through a winding valley or knife through traffic with the responses of a car smaller than its 3,600-pound curb weight, no matter which suspension setup it sports. Front-drive Mavericks have a prosaic twist-beam rear end, while turbo-4 editions get a multi-link rear setup. With either the Maverick damps out bumps with confidence and with zero slop.
2024 Ford Maverick Comfort & Quality
The Maverick’s a can-do kind of pickup.
Small for a truck, the 200-inch-long Ford Maverick carves out genuinely useful space, inside and out, and fits it with a myriad of conveniences and thoughtful touches that elevate it above bigger rivals. We give it a point for those useful bits and one for the pickup bed, for a 7 here.
Base Mavericks could stand better seats with more padding, but they’re wide and flat and fit a wide range of body types. XLT editions adopt power-adjustable front seats with added lumbar cushioning, well worth the price we think.
The rear seat in the hybrid Maverick has 34.9 inches of legroom, enough for most people, but non-hybrids pick up an additional inch. The truck’s wide doors grant easy access to the cabin, but two passengers in each row fit best; a third in back won’t be happy or popular.
Where the Maverick mounts its coup is in storage, all around the cabin. Ford has fitted all kinds of slots, bins, and cubbies to accommodate smartphones, keys, thermal-insulated cups—and even prompts owners to find more uses, with 3D printing instructions for a range of add-ons.
As for the abbreviated 54.4-inch pickup bed, it forces the question: how much bed length do you really need? It lacks segment-busting length, but has up to 10 tie-downs and two covered bins, as well as interior rails and a power outlet. The tailgate can be angled to allow up to 400 pounds of plywood sheeting to lean against it.
2024 Ford Maverick Safety
The Maverick’s NHTSA score comes in low.
Despite great outward vision and standard safety equipment, the Maverick hasn’t crash-tested well. It’s a 6 here.
How safe is the Ford Maverick?
The mixed scores from the NHTSA aren’t welcome, to be frank. The Maverick earns mostly five-star scores in subtests, but a four-star front-passenger protection rating brings the overall score down to four stars.
The IIHS hasn't weighed in with full tests yet, but Acceptable ratings for moderate-overlap front-impact protection and headlights don’t augur particularly well.
Every Maverick gets automatic emergency braking as well as automatic high-beam headlights. Blind-spot monitors, adaptive cruise control, and rear parking sensors are available (or standard on Lariat), but not the BlueCruise driver-assist feature that allows limited hands-free driving.
2024 Ford Maverick Features
Despite the price boosts, the little Maverick’s still a big deal.
With only minor changes to equipment, but bigger price increases across the board, the Maverick still offers great value to go with good infotainment and standard features. It’s an 8 here.
The $25,410 Maverick XL ($26,910 for hybrids) gets power features, an 8.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and 17-inch steel wheels, as well as a basic 3-year/36,000-mile warranty. All-wheel costs $2,220 for turbo-4 trucks only; it’s not available with the hybrid.
Which Ford Maverick should I buy?
Skip ahead to the $27,910 Maverick XLT, but count on spending $29,410 for the hybrid. The XLT model gets more bed tie-downs, alloy wheels, and better interior trim. We’d also spend $650 for active lane control, blind-spot monitors, and a sliding rear window. The $2,275 Luxury Package tops things off with a power driver’s seat, remote start, heated front seats and steering wheel, a drop-in bedliner, and a trailer hitch.
How much is a fully loaded Ford Maverick?
We’re fans of the Maverick but a Lariat AWD with synthetic leather trim, heated front seats, a trailering kit, a roll-up tonneau cover, and a few other accessories seems a bit much at more than $40,000.
2024 Ford Maverick Fuel Economy
The Maverick Hybrid offers a new pickup virtue: frugality.
Is the Ford Maverick good on gas?
Hybrid versions get great gas mileage. The EPA scores them at 42 mpg city, 33 highway, 37 combined, and we’ve seen even better.
For the turbo-4 truck, expect 23/30/26 mpg in FWD versions and 22/29/25 mpg with AWD. Tremor trucks drink more: they’re rated at 20/24/21 mpg.
