2025 Lincoln Navigator First Test: Bigger Screen, Bigger Swag—and, Somehow, More Athletic

Motor Trend

7 hours ago

Pros Burly powertrain
Stylish interior
Slick big screen Cons No air suspension—and feels like it
So-so interior quality
Odd rear-end look
New for 2025, the Lincoln Navigator appears great on paper—it has the brand's sweeping 48-inch dashboard display that not only looks incredible but is genuinely easy to use and shows useful information, and the rest of the interior is stylish, too. If you're a fan of big wheels, the Lincoln's available 22- and 24-inch rims are class-standard—size-wise, at least—but the way designers perch the Navigator's newly larger body high atop those wheels make them seem bigger with a trick the rival Cadillac Escalade and Jeep Grand Wagoneer can't match. And Navigator costs huge money now, so it should convey to onlookers that the driver is doing well.
The 2025 Lincoln Navigator features a new 48-inch display and stylish design, while maintaining the same 440-hp V-6 engine. It's quicker and more athletic but lacks air springs, which affects the ride quality. Interior quality varies, with some hard plastics and wrinkled leather present.
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Beneath the 2025 Lincoln Navigator's slick new wrapper, though, it's not that much different from before. It's once again powered by a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6, making the same 440 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque as last year's model and uses the same 10-speed automatic transmission. However, Lincoln engineers somehow pulled nearly 60 pounds out of this range-topping 2025 Navigator Black Label model relative to the last version we tested (a 2022) despite adding a more complicated power-folding clamshell-style split tailgate, the huge display, and a host of other niceties. First, the Numbers
Color us surprised the new Navigator so thoroughly outperformed its predecessor, despite using pretty much the same bits underneath. This Navigator chopped a full 0.7 second off the 2022 Navigator Black Label's 0–60-mph acceleration time, dropping it to a swift 5.1 seconds. The quarter mile took only 13.7 seconds, down from 14.4 seconds previously, and the big Lincoln positively surges forward with each prod of the accelerator pedal.
The Navigator isn't merely quicker, either. It stopped better, halting from 60 mph in only 119 feet, compared to 135 feet before—that stop is nearly one full Navigator length (17.5 feet) shorter. Around our skidpad, the new Black Label's included 22-inch tires hung on for 0.79 g average, up from 0.76 g, and the new SUV also quickened its figure-eight lap time by 0.3 second and upped its average lateral acceleration during that handling test from 0.63 g average to 0.67 g.
Those figures land the Lincoln pretty much between the Jeep Grand Wagoneer and Cadillac Escalade in terms of acceleration, while the Navigator's grip number is way ahead of both. The Cadillac feels sportier to drive, despite its (mostly stability control–limited) objective test figures falling behind the Lincoln's; the Jeep is notably more comfortable and cushier while seeming about as athletic in real-world driving as the Lincoln. But How Does It Feel Producing Those Numbers?
That's a great question. In a large body-on-frame vehicle like this, hard performance numbers are one thing—how the truck drives in the real world might be another. The 2025 Lincoln Navigator drives nearly as well as its numbers suggest, but only if the road is relatively smooth.
Turning the Lincoln's unique squared-off steering wheel rim (it's more of a 'squircle' shape) at first initiates strong response from the front tires, and the body takes a set quickly with minimal lean and no sensation of heaving onto the outside front tire; ultimately, it carves a smooth line around the bend. However, any bumps or undulations in the road surface easily upset the Navigator's suspension. It's as if once loaded up in a corner, the springs can't absorb anything else thrown their way. This leads to some pogoing—bouncy vertical body motions—and squirming from the tires, requiring corrective inputs at the wheel.
Partly, this could be due to the Lincoln's curious lack of air springs, something its key competitors all offer (including the Escalade and Grand Wagoneer). With multiple air chambers, air springs can leave some cushion in reserve even when loaded up slightly; the Lincoln enjoys no such bandwidth. The ride quality is therefore good until it isn't—generally comfortable, the Navigator can come off as firmly tuned over washboard surfaces and sharper impacts, which can introduce some untoward wheel motions not felt in, say, an Escalade (which also skews firm in its suspension tuning) or the Grand Wagoneer (which is ultra-plush).
Lincoln does fit the Navigator with electronically adjustable suspension dampers, but they seem overmatched here. We also noticed more jiggles in the Lincoln's structure than in its competitors'. And keep in mind, our test vehicle came with the standard-fitment 22-inch wheels; Black Label models such as this one offer 24-inchers as an option, which surely would be flintier-riding still.
We have no complaints about the Navigator's straight-line performance, which is accompanied by a bawdy, just-loud-enough faux soundtrack piped into the cabin via the audio speakers. We can't really place the fake engine note—it's not simply a re-creation of, say, a Ford V-8—but whatever it's trying to mimic, it sounds good. While bystanders and other traffic will hear the Navigator's whooshing turbochargers whistling loudly, Navigator occupants are treated to a guttural, strong sound that's much, much better.
There are drive modes, too, but they're buried somewhat in the central touchscreen and don't seem to affect the Navigator's behavior much. There are also a ton of them, and not all of them are labeled in a straightforward way. A (Mostly) Jaw-Dropping Style Overhaul
While few Navigator pilots are likely to probe deeply enough into their full-size luxury SUVs' handling performance to notice the kind of tuning nuances we do, everyone can appreciate the Lincoln's new look. From nearly every angle, it's nicely reserved and classy.
It seems Lincoln and Ford alike struggled with the tail's appearance; here, as on the mechanically related Ford Expedition, the butt is just … strange. The Navigator has a fairly plain, boxlike shape, so the odd indent below the full-width taillight—filled by an even odder smoked-plastic panel wearing a subtle pattern—looks out of place, like the cutout for a water dispenser on a refrigerator. The sharp upward angle of the taillight corners isn't matched by any other body line, making it look out of place.
Perhaps this was Lincoln's way of dressing up the new split tailgate, which features a lower section that swings down in addition to the upper section that swings up. There's even an attachment that turns the lower tailgate portion into a sort of picnic table. We think people either like this tailgate setup, or they don't—it's also included on other luxury SUVs such as BMW's X5 and Land Rover's Range Rover. It works well and prevents loose items from rolling out immediately, but you may have to lean over the lower section to reach items deeper in the cargo area.
The interior is likewise very nearly a home run. We dig the new dashboard layout, with the large screen wrapping around the windshield base, up in your field of vision. Pushbutton shifter controls are a matter of preference, but their horizontal layout means smaller drivers might find the buttons require a long reach from the pilot's seat.
We've certainly lauded the 48-inch display, controlled via steering-wheel buttons, and the smaller central touchscreen—it flat works while looking incredible. (It helped the smaller Lincoln Nautilus win our 2025 SUV of the Year award.) We do wish, as in the Nautilus, the touchscreen controlling the bigger display was positioned higher, closer to the driver's line of sight. We found ourselves taking long glances away from the road to operate it, long enough to earn scolding beeps from the BlueCruise hands-free driving system to pay attention to the road ahead. … Now for the 'But'
The newest Navigator is a great step forward for the vehicle that put America front and center in the full-size luxury SUV space. It's quicker, more eye-catching, and stuffed with excellent new tech. There are just a few things that, if you look closely enough, drag it behind its direct competition. For starters, the phenomenal-looking interior is only praiseworthy from each passenger's hips up—below that point, there are a lot of hard, mediocre plastics we recognize from Ford's F-150 pickup truck, a distant relative of this Navigator. Same goes for the back of the Navigator; by the third row, things you touch get less and less soft.
The Navigator we tested also suffered from wrinkled leather at elbow points on the door pulls and dashboard—basically, concave leather-covered surfaces looked like the back of an elderly person's knee. Some of our staff thought this added a touch of hand-crafted authenticity to the material, but others wondered whether some Botox or filler might tighten this stuff up. Lincoln also relies more heavily on piano-black plastics in areas that see higher fingerprint traffic than some competitors. The Escalade and Grand Wagoneer cabins are more thoroughly slathered in higher-end materials.
Individually, none of the 2025 Lincoln Navigator's sins is particularly damning, but this range-topping Black Label trim starts at a higher price than ever before: $118,490. A $2,000 package with copper-tinged trim and special 22-inch wheels brought the total to $120,490. For this much money, no one should see or feel hard plastics anywhere—and this American luxury SUV should absolutely ride on an air suspension, too. Put up against the also updated-for-2025 Cadillac Escalade and heretofore class-leading Jeep Grand Wagoneer, there isn't room for such misses.