2025 Ford Maverick One-Year Road Test Verdict: Did Our Top Rated Winner Lose Its Charm?

• What's new: We owned a $36,990 Ford Maverick Hybrid for a full year of testing.
• Why it matters: The Maverick won Edmunds Top Rated Truck for 2026. Its mix of efficiency, affordability and practicality is hard to beat.
• Edmunds says: We aren't quite as enamored with the Maverick as we used to be after living with it for a year, but make no mistake, this is still a great truck.

Good interior design, but a few annoyances stand out

"Such a charming interior in this thing. Different textile patterns, a fun blue theme that carries throughout the plastics, and some exposed riveting to make it feel tough and ready for work show that an inexpensive interior doesn't have to feel cheap or sacrifice design." — Duncan Brady

"There's one element inside the Maverick that upsets me every time: The little control panel in the center stack. There's space there for a full set of climate buttons, but Ford moved all those controls into the touchscreen. So instead you get track skip, a power button for the touchscreen that doesn't actually turn the screen off, and a couple of other things that I just don't use much. Other automakers, when they take away buttons, at least add an extra little cubby or something. But instead we just got ... less useful buttons? And they're not even nice to use. It's ugly! And lame!" — Will Kaufman

"I'm 6 feet, 2 inches tall, so sometimes interior dimensions bother me that may not bother others. I found a decent seating position in the Maverick, but not one where I could use the rearview mirror normally. I had to flip it up, like you would at night to block the headlights of cars behind you." — Mike Schmidt

"The base six-speaker setup in the Maverick is disappointing. It can't produce strong bass and sounds like a very generic system. Like, you're not going to be able to crank up your favorite music in this thing and be able to notice a lot of nuanced detail." — Brent Romans

"There's an unfortunate and persistent rattle behind the dash. I like the way Ford has made this inexpensive interior feel interesting, but I hope this isn't an indicator of poor long-term durability." — Duncan Brady

The powertrain is loud and unrefined

"The hybrid powertrain is really smooth around town. It's not very powerful, and at freeway speeds or when you accelerate hard, it makes a ton of awful noise for not much speed. But if you're cruising or if you're just driving around town, it's actually pretty nice." — Will Kaufman

"This might be the loudest-idling vehicle I've ever driven. When the gas engine kicks on, it does so with a big vibration and lots of sound. Yeesh." — Steven Ewing

"The engine is not powerful. But this is masked wonderfully by the boost it gets from the hybrid system at low speeds. I found it made for a really nice and smooth driving experience." — Mike Schmidt

But at least the fuel economy is good ... sometimes

"I had the pleasure of driving this little truck all over Southern California for the Fourth of July weekend. Through traffic, freeways, city streets and while blasting the air conditioning to stay cool, I averaged between 35-40 mpg." — David Lucio

"I drove our Maverick about 1,000 miles over the past few weeks. I checked our fuel logs and I got approximately 35 mpg from my gas fill-ups over that time. A lot of my driving was on the highway, and the EPA gives the truck (with AWD) a 34-mpg highway estimate. It's good to see we're matching the EPA's numbers." — Brent Romans

"I wish the anecdotal fuel economy from my colleagues painted an accurate picture of our year with the Maverick. We should've averaged 37 mpg. We only averaged less than 32 mpg. Sure, it's easy to see good economy every once in a while, but over the long haul, this little truck fell short. Bummer." — Steven Ewing

It's a good overall value

"The Maverick seems to have the perfect mix of everything you need and nothing you don't." — David Lucio

"By today's prices, this is a pretty incredible cheap-and-cheerful truck. It's comfortable, it's useful, it's got a big screen, it's pretty fuel-efficient and it drives smoothly. I was trying to think about any must-haves that this thing is missing for the money. I like cooled seats and premium audio, but I don't need them. I'm impressed with what you get for the price." — Will Kaufman

"I recently drove the electric Slate Truck and was ... not impressed. Why would you get some bare-bones electric truck when you could pick up a Maverick for not much more? Or, better still, a slightly used Maverick that's full of features and costs the same as the electric Slate?" — Steven Ewing

Would we rather have an SUV?

"After spending more than 1,000 miles behind the wheel of our Eruption Green Maverick, could I make a logical, fact-based argument to my wife that we should dump our Kia Niro and go for the Ford? No. But it was close." — Jake Sundstrom

"Ford should really make a Maverick-based SUV. 'But Will, you fool!' I hear you say. 'The Maverick is an SUV-based truck!' To which I say, 'It is! But the SUVs it's related to [the Bronco Sport and Escape] just aren't great.' They both sit low in their segments in our rankings, and we just generally don't have a lot of nice things to say about either. But we love the Maverick. Slap a roof over the bed, carpet that sucker, and call it a day. You can have that one for free, Ford." — Will Kaufman