We are currently doing research and are pretty much convinced that the Toyota RAV4 is the best choice for a young girl, in my opinion. We will continue this story as we progress buying the replacement vehicle.
Please visit this site again to see how this turns out.
Within a span of one week the Escape was in for repair three times. Without making any comments to my daughter about how I felt about the Escape, I asked her how she felt about the car. She said she had lost confidence in it. She reminded me that she had planned trips to other cities and the mountains but she was now fearful that the car would break down. I then told her that I felt the same way. We were going to get rid of the Escape. We would never buy another Ford. This was getting to be similar to my Volkswagen bus experience. I would never buy a Volkswagen ever again because my bus had a Porsche pancake engine with sodium valves which separated about every fifty thousand miles, requiring an engine rebuild. When I determine that a product engineering team and/or assembly workers can make such bone headed mistakes I immediately dismiss them from future consideration. I would be stupid to be twice burned.
I have AAA Premium so I had the Ford Escape towed to the dealership at no cost to me after I lost power steering. AAA even offered my a free rental car if I needed it but I declined. The way things were going with this Ford vehicle, I might really need it at a later date. When the tow truck driver arrived, I explained the problems I was having with this Escape and asked him what vehicle he recommended. He said purchase a Japanese car. He then told me to buy a Toyota RAV4. I asked why. He replied that the Japanese workers have pride in the cars they build. They believe it is their car that they are building. He then described the US worker has no self pride in their product. I then asked him how can I determine that I am getting a Japanese car? He walked me over to the Escape and opened the drive door and pointed to the sticker on the door frame. He said take note of the first letter or number. That tells you which country it is made. The Escape had the number “1” as the first digit which indicates the United States. He then told me to buy a car the has a “J” which means it is made in Japan. I asked him why he liked the RAV4. His reply was a bit remarkable. He told me that he has never had to tow one.
I get Consumer Reports and as soon as the tow truck driver left with our Escape, I went inside the house and found the Consumer Reports Buying Guide 2014. I looked up “Used Cars: The Most Reliable Models &* The Ones To Avoid”, page 180 and 181. Under the “Best of the Best” was listed Toyota RAV 4 and it was listed twice! On the facing page was The “Worst of the Worst” and not one Japanese car was on that list but mainly US vehicles and a couple from Europe.
January 2014 during a routine maintenance McCoy Mills found an oil leak that was covered on an extended warrantee that I purchased. It would take two days to repair. I asked how much it would cost if I did not have the warrantee and was told well over a thousand dollars. The car took close to four days because approval had to be made by Ford and that approval did not arrive right away. When I picked up the car and drove it, it seemed like it had a new engine. It was noticeably more quiet and smooth. It seemed like we had a new engine.
The next night I had to pick my daughter up from work. She said she might get out at 10:15pm. I waited and waited. It was quite cold outside so I turned on the engine and ran the heater. About 15 minutes later I started to hear what sounded like a child mimicking a siren sound. It would start up and then stop. This kept on going for over five minutes and then got a bit louder. The parking lot in front of the store had only a few cars, probably owned by the employees that would soon leave work. I opened my driver window and determined that the siren sound was coming from our car. I then looked at the dash and noticed that the engine maintenance light was lit. I turned the car off and waited another 15 minutes for my daughter to leave work. We got the car home safely but there was this siren sound again during the drive and the engine maintenance light was still on.
Next day, I drove the Escape back to the dealership. They would inspect the car for free. Within two hours it was ready. They found a vacuum leak.
The very next day I used the Escape to go to the gym and work out. I then went to Albertson’s to get my daughter and me a Starbucks drink. On the way home, about a mile distance, while making a left turn, I heard something in the engine compartment break and I lost power steering. I had the car towed to McCoy Mills. They called me about 4 pm to tell me that the power steering pump had busted and it was covered; no cost to me.
The car worked quite well for a number of years. But, some small issues did crop up quite soon that were very telling to me that allegedly that Ford engineering was flawed.. I tried to adjust one of the passenger air vents. There was a small knob that you could sort of rotate up or down to direct the vents. As soon as I pressed against the knob to roll, it fell apart. The side vents have a lever that can move vents back and forth. The lever is utterly useless. They were so poorly designed that you have to use a stick device to move them.
The air conditioning would not cool the cab and I had to have that serviced.
The cruise control died.
When you wash the car and spray water into the wheels an incredible amount of black rust like material pours out of the wheels soiling the driveway. Our Toyotas never have this problem.