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You do know that the found him?
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D.B. Cooper FOUND in a cave on the site of Spirit Lake lodge
Mount St. Helens playing cards with Harry R. Truman and Sasquatch.
Rumor has it that they were waiting on James Hoffa to bring in more coffee.
Good morning! Well, this thread has been a little decaffeinated for a while.
So, sitting here sipping a nice brew, I'm looking for a used vehicle for the wife. She likes the Explorers and Expeditions. She always loved the older Escapes. (one brand she will not look at is anything GM) We need SUV vehicle. So, with that in mind, what have you folks owned or liked.
I’ve liked the Escapes/Mountaineers of that vintage too. I bought a 2003 Escape for our granddaughter years back, something I didn’t want for her as a first car, but it was her target and our son also pushed. It’s too high of a center of gravity and short wheelbase for a first car, no matter how safe the driver as they don’t have the experience encountering new situations. She rolled it on a wet road.
Now that I got my shadow off my back, they are a fun, good vehicle. Good survivability from our family experience, but a little light in mass in the driving world. I had to do some repairs which for me wasn’t that hard and much easier then the similar work I’ve done on the MDX, and cheaper. I’d take one in a minute.
Explorers are on my Wife’s radar and we had exceptional durability with them in our test fleet. But those were the full frame versions. The newer platform I have no experience with but there appear to be some details you need to research for on certain model years.
Expeditions again we’re in our fleet, another strong vehicle mirroring the F-150 plaftform. We had no issues with any of them. For my wife it’s a little too large. She refuses to drive my F-350 for reference so I don’t do any dangerous things when that is the only vehicle nearby. Much more secure feel in driving then either of the other two, but the mpg should be considered.
The Mountaineer looks like a nice package.
The problem for me is having so many platforms in our test fleet that they are all good tools with purpose, a kid in a candy store.
Thanks Jack. Appreciate the info. I think you are right on size of the Expeditions. She doesn't like the size of the F350! (Of course, a little big for her)
I don't feel like I provided much. Just about all the Fords in our fleet had good durability for what we did to them. I had fun with just about all, but as written, I saw each with a purpose.
Right now my wife loves the MDX, but I dislike it for repairs and construction. When I was proving out the Escape I had a ball with it. At work they were all loaded for bear so a different feel.
2007 Tahoe getting scaled out for testing, driver bags to simulate him. Most ran weighted like this for 90% of the work, so full family heading to McDs.
Trying to figure out what the hell is next to it. I think that was one of the Explorers.
It's hard to do with used models, but I'm always tried to get family members a feel for the car with by bringing one home for the weekend (no sandbags) or renting one for a week. The short test drives just can't give a person a good feel for all the nuances. It's how my wife stayed with the Lincoln LS.
If you go for early Excapes/Mountaineers look no earlier the '03 in case you find a low mileage version. The initial launch had so many faults that resulted in recalls and TSBs. In the fleet we had around the 25th vehicle off the line and we kept getting faxes from Dearborn to take it to the dealer for updates. It was there for one and before it ever left we go two more faxes, we couldn't believe it. And for things that never should have been. But '03 that got cleared out, and I don't remember any real issues with the 2006 model we had.
Good morning! Well, this thread has been a little decaffeinated for a while.
So, sitting here sipping a nice brew, I'm looking for a used vehicle for the wife. She likes the Explorers and Expeditions. She always loved the older Escapes. (one brand she will not look at is anything GM) We need SUV vehicle. So, with that in mind, what have you folks owned or liked.
Open to all thoughts.
Sean: What are some of the requirements you guys have, like must be 4wd, going to tow X, etc.?
My wife is comfortable driving a 33' Class A motor home towing a 3 horse trailer - I think we measured her total length at around 57 feet...
She absolutely loves the Expedition. But we have that towing requirement and it is almost 100% of the time hooked up to the horse trailer when she isn't on a trip in the MH. There is a thread up in the Expy section here on FTE that is "how many miles do you have on your..." - You'd be surprised how far those modulars are going! I prefer the 2V version as it makes its torque lower. I think when they went to the 3V motor is also when they went to IRS and I recall there were some problems with the early ones (If memory serves me, that was around 2003). We have the air suspension and love it -- lots of folks swap them out for springs. We had one Tee fitting fail early on (factory improved that part), we replaced the air compressor once (it was still working, but the rubber mounts had failed and it made a heck of a racket), and I bought rear bags from Arnotts and Monroe front air shocks and had all those components swapped.
It runs like a clock, have put 2 alternators in, but found that the 1st replacement was the wrong size (small) so it might have been overworked. None of the alts actually stopped working -- they have an interesting failure mode: the brushes start floating? at high RPMs and that's when the batt light comes on. Ours is outside all the time and the paint still shines (some of the black trim is flaking). Trans is a beast - I do drain and fills every 10 to 15K and fluid comes out like the stuff going in. The active transfer case needs fluid changed more often - I did it at 50K interval and it was really black, so I'm dropping to a shorter interval and think I'll try a synthetic next time. Oh yeah: the oil filter on the 5.4 with AWD is a beeeeatch to get to...
I'd buy another one in a heartbeat - they go for a song used...
Next door neighbor has an Escape Hybrid - no towing and no problems either I think he said he gets about 30mpg on trips. Not sure what year it is, but I believe the Hybrid system is licensed from Toyota (why reinvent the wheel). They have over 100K on it.
Friend has a 5.0 Mountaineer with the same active transfer case as our Expy (not sure of year, but they've had it a long time) - never has had trans fluid or transfer case fluid changed and I think it has about 150K on it. He even ran a turbo on it for awhile. His son now has it (they have a young family) and I think they've done a water pump and it has a leak in the AC - they just dump Freon in now and then. Otherwise they just drive it...
I like the looks of the one you found on CL, if a smaller one will work, it looks nice. Go check out the respective forums here on FTE and see what folks experiences are with the ones you are considering...
Oh yeah: another friend has an Edge that's like a few years old -- I really like the looks, ride, pretty much everything about it -- it was the top of the line model (Limited?). He's had zero problems with it and is around 60K now. It has a bigger V6 I think, AWD, and he says the mileage isn't too great (like 24mpg) - but then again he drives 80MPH on the fwy... If we didn't tow, I'd seriously look at one of those myself...
With all of our Ford SUVs we could take them to 100k under those load conditions and not have an issue. Jeeps to 25k, Chryslers would make it to about 50-60k, GM to 75-80k.
Not saying all Fords are BadgerProof, they have issues too. But we did well.
AS far as the class of vehicle, it depends how much mass you are comfortable driving, AND PARKING.
11-10-2017, 02:56 PM
