Australia's Explorer

I don't think "giving" is exactly the right word. In Australia, a basic Explorer XLT costs $52,980 AUD, which is approximately $38,500 USD. A lot of the things you like probably are unimportant to US buyers. I personally don't care for the repeater lights (Australian legal requirement, but not a US requirement), or the taillights (also an Australian requirement?), or the floor shift (for an Automatic, a floor shift seems stupid to me). I do like the nicer mud flaps. I wonder if you could order those for a US model as an after market part?

Ed

I am aware of the Australian requirement for repeater lights (although Mercury is starting to use them on all of their cars). They also do NOT require side reflectors, front or back (???), but the amber turn signals just look too cool---and they're made by Visteon (in Ohio), right next to the ones made for the US market. It would seem to me that maintaining ONE set of lights and wiring harnesses would be cheaper than several, but then I'm not a $400,000/year "cost analyst" (firing the cost analyst would be more cost-effective :)...

The Australian headlight also has an extra bulb above the high-beam, just as a marker (probably their version of a burned-out-headlight marker). Of course, we don't get that, either.

Personally, I don't understand why Ford chose to go back to the simple one-bulb taillight. I don't buy the "trailer connector" argument. The wiring for the standard trailer is already there, as it was in the older Explorers that had amber signals.

And, although I can't tolerate even LOOKING at the last of the Oldsmobile Bravadas (which will now live on as the butt-ugly Buick Rainier), they did have one thing that really stood out---their taillights.

PS...in looking through the wiring manual for the 2002-up 4-door Explorer, I found that ALL of the wiring for tri-color signals is already there, right up to the connector (a few inches in front of the grommet behind each taillight) for the small harness that connects to each taillight. The US Explorers simply don't use the separate signal-only lead, or the stop-only lead (except for the CHMSL).

So all that wiring is there for no reason? Dumb.

Oh, and since the splash guards are made by the same company that makes the Ford factory molded splash guards, which you can buy at most Ford dealers, I would imagine you can find the Australian ones if you looked hard enough...

It saves two light sockets and two light bulbs per explorer. Probly $10 in parts per vehicle. But after you make 100,000 of them it adds up. Same as how they did away with the dual sun visors in the 2002 and up models.

Yeah, I miss the dual visors, too (I had a '99 XLT and now an '02 EB). But slicing away things that make up STYLE is not the way to cut costs---and nobody at Ford is losing money with the Explorer. The old Explorer had THREE turn signal bulbs in each front lamp when they only needed one. If GMC can put four bulbs per side in the back of the Envoy (reverse, stop/tail, tail-only, turn), there's no reason Ford can't---and the Envoy's tailllights just plain look better (but that's about ALL that looks better :)...

And, while I'm having fun complaining, where are the front cornering lights? They're even available on the Windstar/Freestar (and the Envoy). And how about rear fog lamps, like most Range Rovers (and even the Aurora) have.

Jeez, make this stuff available in OPTION PACKAGES if money is so important.

But I will post back if I can get a pair of the Aussie lamps from someone at Visteon.