We have always been huge fans of the Ford Maverick around here, and for 2025, the Maverick has been carefully updated with a few key upgrades to stay competitive. I was invited to a first drive event of this refreshed trucklette, and my most memorable moment of the whole event was guiding a 2025 Ford Maverick Tremor off a steep, off-angle, muddy, three-story drop. This was the big finale moment of an off-road course that Ford curated to display the little Mav’s big prowess in the rough stuff, and now I’ve been afforded the chance to spend a week with it.
What’s new?
For 2025, the Tremor is no longer an option package, but its own standalone and top-of-the-line trim of the Maverick. All Tremors come more or less loaded to the gills, with leather, power adjustable driver’s seat, heated seats and steering wheel, powered rear window, Bang & Olufsen audio, and adaptive cruise control with lane keep assist. There isn’t much in the way of options as they’re already all ticked off, save for the Eruption Green metallic paint and power moonroof of our tester, which rings in at $49,300.
Power comes from Ford’s well-established 2.0-litre turbocharged “EcoBoost” four cylinder engine, which has been quietly tweaked this year with a redesigned cylinder head for better response and emissions. Power figures ring in at 250 horsepower and 277 foot-pounds of torque, and when mated to its slick 8-speed automatic transmission, delivers brisk acceleration, able to scoot to 100 km/h in six seconds.
In the pursuit of making the little Mav not feel so little, it also sounds significantly more authoritative than I recall of last year’s Maverick Tremor, with a much more pronounced mechanical roar on hard acceleration, and even a tuner-esque choof from the turbo waste gate. It’s not gimmicky, it doesn’t feel fake, it just adds a healthy dose of toughness to the toughest Maverick.
But it is actually tough?
For tough off-road hardware, the Tremor comes stacked with slightly taller and stiffer suspenders, a heavy-duty transmission cooler, locking rear differential, Goodyear Territory RT all-terrain tires, and as an update for this year, a much larger, substantially more stout skid plate to protect the trucklette’s vital organs.
Software additions include an obvious off-road mode that locks the all wheel drive, a rear locker button, a trail camera that helps you place see and place the front wheels in tricky situations like I mentioned above, trail control that acts as an incremental cruise control down or uphill, and a unique one-pedal-drive function that ties the throttle to the brakes, and honestly works a lot better than you might expect.
Not too tough, right?
Also better than you might expect: on-road performance. It’s plenty quick enough, sure, but it also handles itself admirably with good steering feedback and decent chassis balance for what is supposed to be an off-road truck. When you’re not trying to have fun, the knobby off-road rubber doesn’t add enough noise penalty to pierce the well insulated cabin, and the ride comfort is excellent; taut and well-judged, on top of being free of body-on-frame shudders.
What about inside?
For 2025, all Mavericks receive a new infotainment system with a larger 13.2-inch screen, and a slicker layout with vastly improved response. It’s familiar to existing Ford owners but generally easier to use, and is hugely aided by Google-powered voice recognition and navigation, so inputting destinations to wherever you might want to go is no longer a chore. It also features full-speed adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist, traffic sign recognition, blind spot monitoring, surround-view cameras, and everything else you’d expect to see on a well equipped, well thought-out modern vehicle.
Beyond that, it’s largely the same space we already liked, with great visibility, lots of storage, and plenty of space for front and rear passengers – even more so than its bigger brother Ranger. Fit and finish is very good, the seats are comfortable, and everything feels and functions as you’d hope. Ford has infamously been hit and miss with quality control on some vehicles, and the Maverick seems firmly fixed in the ‘hit’ camp, as seen up close and personal in several vehicles now.
Wrap it up
The only downside I can point to is the inability to fit the max towing package to the Tremor, thereby capping towing capacity at 2,000 lbs. This is largely due to the more aggressive front bumper that enables better approach angles by being smaller, which limits the ability to spec a larger radiator. Payload comes in at 1,200 lbs, which is a slight reduction as well, but it should be still enough for most, and let’s face it, if you’re regularly loading the bed like that, you’re probably not buying a Maverick – but it can do it.
That’s the theme of the 2025 Ford Maverick Tremor: it can do it. For the overwhelming majority of real use cases, it can do it, it can be the hard working truck you need it to be, and it can get dirty and fool around in the muck as well as “real” trucks that are far bigger. Instead of carrying around a huge frame that shudders and is a bear to park, you instead get car-like ride quality and handling, thrifty fuel economy (9.8L/100km observed), excellent performance, and a fantastic value proposition that’s hard to argue with. No, it’s not a “real” truck, but it can handle nearly all of the real truck things big and small, on-road or off, without any of the big penalties that come with them.
