If you're familiar with older Explorers, you'll find the current models new yet familiar. The Eddie Bauer model comes with the traditional beige steering wheel and pinhole leather seating material. Handsome gray wood accents lend a luxurious appearance. Light-colored trim on the inside A-pillars and grab handle add to a light, airy atmosphere. It's a successful execution, though the mouse-fur roof liner is nothing to write home about. The leather upholstery is attractive, and you might think that Ford could have stitched it all the way around to the inside edge of the seat bottom. We found the cloth seats in the XLT comfortable, firm and supportive, with lots of adjustments.

Adjustable pedals, a telescoping steering wheel and long seat travel help the Explorer fit a wide variety of body types. Big coat hooks accommodate thick hangers and big loads of dry cleaning, something few manufacturers get right. Nicely designed cubby holes with rubber mats provide space for wallet, sunglasses, a pen, cans, and bottles. A relatively large center console keep odds and ends in check. Interior door handles seem a bit awkward at first, but that went away with familiarization. Map pockets on the insides of the doors are handy and swell at the end to hold water bottles, but wouldn't accommodate my one-liter bottle from Poland Springs. The front power outlet was positioned well for a cell phone, but like most, was a bit of a reach for a radar detector. The trip computer came in handy, calculating the distance to an empty fuel tank.

The front seats are comfortable. They are wider and offer more fore-and-aft travel than before. Seat heaters are part of the Eddie Bauer way of living. They keep you warm while the truck is still heating up. But the buttons that control them are mounted on the sides of seats, which is a bit awkward. Reaching down to the side of the driver's seat, the left hand is confronted with an array of seat adjusters; finding and pressing the seat-heater button is a challenge. When you succeed, however, a small indicator lights up on the climate-control display. Your passenger will fumble around a bit the first time he or she tries to turn it on, also. Likewise, it isn't always easy to find the height adjuster. But rake is easy to adjust, and there's a knob on the up-level seats for cranking in some lumbar support.

The second row of seats, the row we recommend for those who didn't get to drive or sit up front, is quite comfortable. Sliding your feet under the front seats increases legroom.

The decision to add a third row of seating drove much of the design and engineering of the current Explorer. As a result, Ford has done an excellent job of making the third row as roomy as possible, while making it flip quickly out of the way when it isn't needed. The third row offers as much headroom as the second row, but legroom, shoulder room and hip room are significantly compromised. After flipping the second-row seat neatly out of the way, you can climb back there, fold the second-row seat back into position and slide your feet underneath, which provides somewhat tolerable legroom. It isn't comfortable for an adult, however. There's little shoulder room, and the seat itself is a bit hard on the outboard edge; it pushes you away from the outboard side toward the center. It'll work okay for small children, but if you need to carry six or seven adults on a regular basis, you may want to consider a Windstar or an Expedition.

When loading cargo, there's not much room in back for groceries or other items when the third row is in place. Fortunately, the third row folds easily when cargo space is needed. Simply squeeze a lever and lightly push the seat forward. With some practice, it's possible to unlock the rear hatch, open it, and flip the third row out of the way with one hand, important when juggling an armload of groceries. The third-row bench folds neatly into the foot well, leaving a nice, fairly flat cargo area.

More cargo space is available by folding down the second row and sliding a panel forward to bridge the gap between rows. This leaves a floor that slopes toward the rear. It's not an ideal cargo floor, but works fine for most hauling tasks. Though we haven't seen one, five-passenger models are supposed to offer a flatter cargo floor, a bit more cargo capacity, and some useful storage below the floor. Seven-passenger models provide 81.7 cubic feet of cargo space, while five-passenger models offer 88 cubic feet.

The cargo floor is 7 inches lower at the rear than in the previous Explorer, and significantly lower than the load floor of a Dodge Durango. That lower load height makes a big difference when hauling even moderately heavy objects in or out. Pressing a button on the rear hatch opens the rear glass separately. The lower edge of the rear window is very low, so it's not too difficult to lift smaller objects up and through the window. A grab handle on the inside of the hatch makes it easy for the height-challenged to pull it down before closing.