The wife's 01 3.0 XLT needs replacing...120k miles, squeaks, rattles and noises abound, tires & brakes need replacing, check engine light for a small vaccuum leak is on, needs new shokcs all the way around, etc...

Question: Should I take the 0% financing\$2000 cash offer for the 2008 3.0 XLT model or risk waiting for a 2009 with the new engine & transmission? The new vehicle is going to get driven like there's no tomorrow just like the 2001, but I am betting the 2009 will increase in price and is a few MPG worth losing the financing deal/$2000 cash ?

BTW we will finance less than $17k on a 2008 equipped the way we want it...would rather put the extra $$ on the mortgage principal.

Discuss....

 

I'd take the 0% interest on the 2008.

 

Is the 0% and $2000 cash a both or one or the other? If you pay $2000 to get a 0% interest loan, you may be overpaying. I would calculate it all out first.

At any rate, I would probably go ahead with the '08.

 

Tough call. If you drive it a lot of miles, the extra mpg with the '09 might offset a small portion of the higher cost. Its difficult to know what Ford will charge for the '09 and what incentives might be available. With a slow economy and the small SUV market being very competitive I expect there to be some kind of incentive, though less than with the '08s. I am in the same boat with my wife's 2002 Tribute. With 140,000+ miles it drives and runs quite good but I really should replace the hoses and belts and maybe the struts. I am holding out for an '09 because I at least want an upgraded drivetrain since I use the vehicle for towing.

 

Well, I am no longer an Escape owner....test drove a Limited and a Mariner...both 3.0s were sapped of power in comparison to my 01 with 120k miles on the ticker.....way to go Ford, and the 4 cyl was downright abissmal.

Ended up buying a Nissan Rogue...yes it is a 4cyl, but I don't need the 6 cyl for my day-to-day driver, still have a p/u truck for hauling stuff. Nissan's 4 cyl with CVT is a ballsy little beast getting better MPG than the escape.

All in all, I still had a good experience with the escape, it was just time to taste a different flavor of vehicle. I'll check Ford out again in 2013 when I need to replace the Nissan...

 

Thanks for the update. Sorry to hear that the Escape didn't meet your expectations. I guess all that extra standard safety equipment made the 08 Escape weigh more than your 01, slowing it down a bit. How did you like the improved interior materials/dash layout compared to your 01? Was that better?

 

The interior was nice, although the console shifter ate up some of the convenient storage cubbies in the column shift models, but I don't think most people will mind. My wife hated the column shift, I didn't mind it. It felt like the same fit as the 01, just updated. I didn't notice in the 08, but in the 01 my knees almost touched the dash and I'm only 5'10". It worried me that my knees would get crunched in a front end collision, I have pretty bad knees to begin with and that would not help any. The stereo and ventilation controls were much more passenger accessible, I didnt have to reach far to get at anything from either front seat.

I ended up getting the Nissan fully loaded for less than a similarly equipped Escape (with the 6 cyl), but as I said, I don't need the 3.0 and MPG is more of a necessity right now.

Let the Nissan bashing begin.....

 

I appreciate you taking the time to provide your comments on the interior. I must say I would take a column shifter any day over a console shifter. Why take up all that super-handy storage space right at your fingertips? A column shifter is not that hard to use for crying out loud. That's kind of a pet peeve of mine. However I am still considering a 5-speed manual 08, which takes up that space anyway with the stick.

edit:
I walked past a parked Versa near my neighborhood, and it looked like a great little vehicle.

 

You know the old saying? "A bird in hand is worth two in the bush."

Nissan?

 

My saying : A bird in hand leads to bird **** in your palm.

I do what's best for me, Ford will survive even though I didn't buy their inferior Ute.

 

Nissans are traditionally very expensive to repair, a big reason being lack of aftermarket parts. Just about anything is a 'dealer-only' item, and very, very expensive. A sensor that it typically $50 for a Ford will cost upwards of $600-700 on a Nissan. I run into this time and time again at my work.

We have one customer with an Sentra who has opted to two-foot it because her Idle control motor will cost her almost a thousand dollars! The poor girl just purchased the car used six months ago, and is so upside down on the loan to even think about getting rid of it, and she doesn't have the money to fix it. We've even tried cleaning it, and some 'backyard' fixes (manually bumping up the idle almost got her in an accident). Anyway.. this is just one example of many I've seen personally.

Don't get me wrong.. Nissan's aren't bad vehicles.. just expect a lot more repair costs once it's out of warranty.

However I noticed on your original post all of the BAD stuff going on with your Escape, but seriously.. 90% of it looks like normal maintenance kind of stuff. Do you think any vehicle with 120k on the clock isn't going to need brakes, tires.. or shocks? Do you think any vehicle isn't going to rattle and squeak after that amount of wear?

I'm not trying to bash Nissan here, but you might want to think about you're usage of the word 'inferior', as it seems like you could have fixed the Escape for a fraction of the cost of what your new Rogue set you back.

 

Oops, just noticed that I thought Pejeeper got a Versa, when it was a Rogue. My mistake.

 

Extended warranty, lifetime powertrain warranty. What car doesn't cost a fortune to fix nowadays?

The Escape would have needed a serious cash infusion to fix/upgrade the items needing it. And then I'd still have a 120k+ truck. With 2 cars over 100K in my garage, one of them had to go seeing as how my aging parents live 300 miles away and in-laws live over 700 miles away.
Bottom line: We can afford a new car, we wanted a new car and the 08 Escape fell short of our expectations compared to our 01.
Maybe I'll get burned, maybe not. The 01 was a great vehicle that no longer met our needs/wants.

 

What your saying here is the same as what my Brother-in-law is living with. They have a Tribute and an Xterra. Both are 04 MY trucks. His wife's Tribbie has cost almost $1K to keep on the road the last 90K miles. His Xterra was less, till last week. Mostly little things bugging him so he took it in to have them fixed. When the dealer called with a $2500 estimate to fix all these squeeks, rattles, misfunctioning wiper-washer switch, cooling fan always on roaring away nonesense. He said forget about it. Paid his $129 shop fee and took it home. He has loved his Nissan, but now is ready to burn it at 63K miles. Sad.