The front seats are decently bolstered, with adequate thigh support. However, the lower back and rear bottom portions didn't offer enough support on a drive from Milwaukee along primarily rural roads down the western shore of Lake Michigan to Chicago.
The Freestyle offers roomy accommodations for passengers in the second row, especially with the available twin bucket seats in the second row. The second-row seats tend more toward utilitarian than coddling, with flat seat bottoms and backs. With the second-row bench alternative, the center seat bottom and back cushions are above grade, but there's even less lateral support than what's provided by the bucket seats.
Ford says the third-row seat was designed to comfortably accommodate a 6-foot, 1-inch male. Indeed, headroom back there is commendable, thanks to a roofline that's several inches higher over the rear seats than at the windshield, a styling feat deftly masked by the angular C-pillar and roof rack. But tall third-row passengers will find their legs quite a bit more articulated and their knees closer to their chests than elsewhere in the Freestyle's cabin.
The Freestyle offers great versatility with split-folding third-row seats, an available 60/40 second-row bench seat and a fold-flat front passenger seatback. That fold-flat front passenger seat allows hauling objects up to 10 feet long, like a surf board or a ladder, depending on the weekend's activities, while hauling passengers on the left side.
Freestyle offers lots of cargo space. Fold the seats down and the Freestyle offers 85.2 cubic feet of cargo room, more than a Grand Cherokee (67.4) or a six-passenger Pacifica (79.5), though a five-passenger Pacifica offers slightly more space (92.7). Caesar the 170-pound mastiff discovered he had more headroom in the Freestyle than he had in a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and getting in and out was easier.
Storage is plentiful, including as many as a dozen cup holders, map pockets on all four doors and rear quarter panels, magazine pouches on the back side of the front seatbacks, the usual center console and a modest glove box. There's a deep well behind the third row of seats, which the seats occupy when collapsed. And there's a sunglasses holder incorporated into the overhead console. That overhead unit also houses the conversation mirror, a.k.a. the kid spy glass, although this combo feature gets displaced by the optional moonroof. Second- and third-row seats get reading lights.
The dash design is quiet and uncluttered, assembled from few bits and pieces, promising minimal squeaks and rattles as the Freestyle ages. Framed by the steering wheel are large, round, easy-to-scan, white-on-black (the Limited gets black-on-white) tachometer and speedometer, between which are the fuel and engine water temperature gauges and, on the SEL and Limited, a digital information display, all beneath a hood shading them from midday glare. At the far ends of the dash are two round air conditioning registers, identical to two atop the center stack. Although all four vents look as if they rotate in their receptacles, they don't, adjusting only side-to-side and up-and-down, and only the two outboard registers close completely. To the left of the steering column are the headlight and dash light controls, and when ordered the rocker switch for the adjustable pedals. The high-beam, turn indicator and windshield/backlight wiper/washer levers sprout from the left and right side of the column, respectively.
At finger-tip level in the center stack is the stereo control head, for the most part ergonomic, except for the tuning function, which requires either enduring an interminable scan/seek process or depressing one or the other end of a smallish bar until the desired station is reached. Beneath this is a delightfully legible and manageable climate control panel, and below that are switches for the emergency hazard flasher and, when ordered, the traction control; a receptacle that can be converted to an ash tray if necessary; and one of three power points (another is in the center console, the lip of which is notched to allow a power cord to pass beneath the latched cover, the other in the cargo area). On the SE and SEL, the center stack surround is a pleasant, satin-finish metallic, on the Limited, a burl-grain applique. Above the glove box on the passenger side a towel bar-like hand grip is recessed into the dash. Door panels are gracefully uncluttered, with high-mounted opening levers and child-friendly power window switches embedded in the tops of wide arm rests.
The rear park-assist system works well, an audible beeper increasing in frequency as you back closer to objects behind, useful for parallel parking and for alerting the driver to objects (or children) that can't be easily seen. The radio mutes when the park-assist beeps, a nice feature. Another nice touch is the subdued, wood-like, turn indicator click/click sound apparently borrowed from Jaguar.
