What about the 2013 Ford Escape?

I am surprised about all the knocks on Ford here as I have owned quite a few Fords and they have all been good cars except one. The one I currently own; a 2008 Ford Ranger. It has had 3 fairly expensive repairs in the first 50,000 miles. I sent them a nasty note on Ford's website and the only response I got was to see if the truck was under warranty. It wasn't so they said too bad. So I am not high on rewarding Ford with another purchase. I do like everything I hear about he Mazda and it is at the top of my list.
 
In the UK now, Ford cars are often given good ratings by motoring journalists. A definite improvement over the last 5 years. They do very well for handling/ride quality and in-cabin quality is good. Perhaps the European models have different suspension set-ups and equipment. If I hadn't gone for a CX5, I would definitely be looking at the Escape - or Kuga over here when it arrives in December or January. They will have some advanced electronic niceties.
 
Here in US many auto magazines are reporting tests/reviews with good results shown for Escape. Most of those tests are posted at mazdas247.com. The concern about reliability is still tbd...
 
ADVWannabe said:
I am surprised about all the knocks on Ford here as I have owned quite a few Fords and they have all been good cars except one. The one I currently own; a 2008 Ford Ranger. It has had 3 fairly expensive repairs in the first 50,000 miles. I sent them a nasty note on Ford's website and the only response I got was to see if the truck was under warranty. It wasn't so they said too bad. So I am not high on rewarding Ford with another purchase. I do like everything I hear about he Mazda and it is at the top of my list.
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You shouldn't knock them for not repairing a part thats out of warranty, as many, if not all manufactures would probably tell you the same thing. What you should knock them on is, producing a car that needed an expensive repair at only 50k miles.

I'll go a step further and say that their interiors just suck. I don't know how many fords I've been in where the drivers seat was broken down to where you are almost sitting at a 45 degree angle. Even the new mustangs feel like garbage. The automatic shifter feels like its going to snap off in your hands.
 
CX-SV said:
Here in US many auto magazines are reporting tests/reviews with good results shown for Escape. Most of those tests are posted at mazdas247.com. The concern about reliability is still tbd...
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That doesn't say much IMO. I've seen them point out "good things" about seabrings, contours, cavaliers, ect and we all know how great those things are. I wish the editors in those mags would just say "this car is a total s*** box. Please don't waste your money on it", instead of trying to be "fair" in their reviews. It would really help weed out the crappy ones from the true good cars.

Im not saying the new escape is on par with a seabring, but its just hard to trust a magazine article anymore.
 
EricF said:
That doesn't say much IMO. I've seen them point out "good things" about seabrings, contours, cavaliers, ect and we all know how great those things are. I wish the editors in those mags would just say "this car is a total s*** box. Please don't waste your money on it", instead of trying to be "fair" in their reviews. It would really help weed out the crappy ones from the true good cars.

Im not saying the new escape is on par with a seabring, but its just hard to trust a magazine article anymore.
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Most of these magazines steer clear of discussions about reliability, so therefore they don't say much on that matter. Regardless, the buyer must use own expertise in making automotive choices. The only magazine that collects this kind of data and later reports on it is CR.
 
I wouldn't want to be caught dead in a Ford
Ford's overall reliability is also not as good along with its resale value

The new Escape is essentially the EU's Kuga
IMO, the interior of the Ford is severely over-styled
 
CX-SV said:
Most of these magazines steer clear of discussions about reliability, so therefore they don't say much on that matter. Regardless, the buyer must use own expertise in making automotive choices. The only magazine that collects this kind of data and later reports on it is CR.
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I'm just talking about the cars, not reliability. The driving dynamics and build quality of some cars are just garbage. Mags should just say that.
 
EricF said:
Yeah, they just rolled that out here. I thought about getting a 59 day "rental" ZR1, but knowing how shady dealers are, they'll probably find some way into not taking back the car. The last time they did this, only ONE person returned their car.. they took back a vette with a 6speed and got an automatic. I can't believe that one one else tried to return their car under that program.
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Just got back from a Chev car show and sat in a 7.0L Camaro ZL1. Soooooo tempted.

SLPZL1-4.jpg
 
EricF said:
That doesn't say much IMO. I've seen them point out "good things" about seabrings, contours, cavaliers, ect and we all know how great those things are. I wish the editors in those mags would just say "this car is a total s*** box. Please don't waste your money on it", instead of trying to be "fair" in their reviews. It would really help weed out the crappy ones from the true good cars.

Im not saying the new escape is on par with a seabring, but its just hard to trust a magazine article anymore.
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I've own a mystique which is pretty much a contour and it was more realiable then my protege's both of them. I tried killing that engine 3 times and it finally spun a bearing at 100mph due to my cusin not puttin in the drain plug properly and falling out going down the highway. The only bad thing about the 4 banger is for some reason they used a water pump with a plastic impeller... you change that out and you have a car thats damn near in possible to kill. It was my first car. I got that thing with 30ish k on it... drove it to 130k without changing the trans fluid, god only knows how many neutral drops I put that trans through... I finally totaled the car out around 170k on the engine and nothing was wrong with the trans.


Edit: In general a car is only as realiable as the person thats driving it wants it to be. You can make any car unrealiable if a complete dumbass is running it. I personally know of a few people that have has 3 trans in less then 100k on their toyotas, people that blew motors on their hondas in less then 30k. Also their is one guy thats on his 3rd motor i think on his protege in a few months.
 
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StealthWyvern said:
I've own a mystique which is pretty much a contour and it was more realiable then my protege's both of them. I tried killing that engine 3 times and it finally spun a bearing at 100mph due to my cusin not puttin in the drain plug properly and falling out going down the highway. The only bad thing about the 4 banger is for some reason they used a water pump with a plastic impeller... you change that out and you have a car thats damn near in possible to kill. It was my first car. I got that thing with 30ish k on it... drove it to 130k without changing the trans fluid, god only knows how many neutral drops I put that trans through... I finally totaled the car out around 170k on the engine and nothing was wrong with the trans.


Edit: In general a car is only as realiable as the person thats driving it wants it to be. You can make any car unrealiable if a complete dumbass is running it. I personally know of a few people that have has 3 trans in less then 100k on their toyotas, people that blew motors on their hondas in less then 30k. Also their is one guy thats on his 3rd motor i think on his protege in a few months.
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Again, I'm not talking about JUST reliability. I'm talking about the build quality, materials used, fit and finish ect. And yes taking care of a car makes it last longer, but some cars are just built so bad that no matter how good you take care of them, they will punish you. My dad had a stratus that was a total pos! And he's crazy about taking care of his stuff.
 
EricF said:
I'm just talking about the cars, not reliability. The driving dynamics and build quality of some cars are just garbage. Mags should just say that.
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Today (not 20 years ago) some like C & D and R & T do exactly that.
 
EricF said:
Again, I'm not talking about JUST reliability. I'm talking about the build quality, materials used, fit and finish ect. And yes taking care of a car makes it last longer, but some cars are just built so bad that no matter how good you take care of them, they will punish you. My dad had a stratus that was a total pos! And he's crazy about taking care of his stuff.
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I think when your compareing cars build quality over all you gotta keep them in he same era. Take a look at a camery from the 90's door handles brake off of those cars so much its pretty much a requirement you make when looking at those cars, my mysitque I had never had a issue with the dash or anything like that. Then again look at the contour. The dash on those things pealed up for some reason. Pontiac has the same issue with the grand am. Honda has had electrical issues out the ass and same goes with chevy. Every car maker is going to have its fair share of issues. A lot of the stuff you will never know about tell years after they are first made.

Even the cars that are designed poorly car be realiable. Its a matter of knowing the car. Take for example the protege, in NA form is pretty rock solid but if you turbo charge it (the MSP) they can pop fairly easy or can take a lot of abuse. Now that depends on the owner if he/she knows the down falls of the car and addresses them or knows how to address smaller issues before they become a big issue. However with all that said their are some things you just can't prevent. Perfect example would be the MSP LSD... poor design and they tend to break randomly without abuse but sooner with abuse.
 
^ Exactly the point, not looking back decades. We are talking about 2 model year 2013 SUVs on this thread, btw. We don't care if MT chose the Citation as car of the year back in the day.
 
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StealthWyvern said:
wrongly positioned carpet padding... sounds like human error to me and not a build quality issue whenit comes to type of material that was used. If anything is installed improperly it can cause issues.
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Toyota/Lexus dealt with this. Better mat/mat fastener designs such as Mercedes design are less prone to this problem.
 
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