Maverick

Make
Ford
Segment
Sports Car

The new Ford Maverick pickup has been a storming success, and has proven once and for all that the US does in fact have an appetite for smaller trucks. The Hybrid version has been blowing minds with its excellent fuel economy, and Ford is already planning a massive future for this new pickup franchise. New owners are also discovering that there are more benefits to owning a Maverick than meets the eye: thanks to Ford's massive parts bin, some owners are starting to swap in parts from the Mavericks sibling, the Ford Escape, including the Escape's fully digital gauge cluster, and the steering wheel out of an Explorer.

Ford has already hinted that the Maverick might be sharing parts with its bigger brother, the Ford F-150, in the near future, but Ford fans have already started pioneering their own cross-platform mods, and this super-cool digital gauge swap has been pioneered by Maverick Truck Club forum user Tyvemattis. The ingenious Maverick owner told his fellow forum users that he ordered a 2020 Escape Titanium full digital gauge cluster and plugged it into his Maverick without any major issues.

"It worked instantly," he said. "No need to do any programming to get it working, however, I'm getting a ton of fault codes from not having a lot of things that the top model Escape has vs my XL Maverick."

Since the cluster swap, Tyvemattis has been able to access call logs, the trip/fuel economy feature, seat belt warnings, and music functions. Unfortunately, he still can't toggle through drive modes, the calm screen doesn't work, and cruise only switches on when the vehicle is fully stationary. Worst of all is that the fuel gauge doesn't give accurate readings. The fit and finish of the install aren't the greatest either: the cluster fits in the empty space of the original unit, but it's got some awkward gaps left in the corners of the cluster housing. The Explorer steering wheel has also proven to come with some annoying niggles: this wheel uses a different airbag to the Maverick, so the car is currently running without one. With some further software fiddling, we're sure we'll be seeing more of these OEM plus tweaks in the near future.