Well pleased to say that first of all, as of a month ago, my girl is a Ford girl, and is dead set on getting a used Ford Expedition for her first vehicle (college commuter). Living in Indiana, so she wants 4x4, and the biggest V6 in it. It will see some utilitarian use. I'm gonna help her get the truck. We're gonna buy used, but we want it to last at least 4 years with her with some decent mileage (20,000 miles a year possibly) so we're definitely going to up the cash ratio to buy a bit newer of a used vehicle with lower miles.

So here's the deal. Embarrassingly I know hardly anything about these vehicles other than I considered one before settling on the beast of an Expedition I have. We want a good year with known reliability. Hows their 4x4's? Interior quality? Power? MPG? ect ect, you get the point.

One other upgrade is we're both into heavy metal like Marilyn Manson, Disturbed, Slipknot, and Nightwish, along with lots of rap, so we're going to upgrade the audio nearly immediately. Any good upgrade paths on that?

Thank you very much .

 

I assume that you mean an Escape and not an Expedition. That being said, unless you're girlfriend is expecting some soft off roading you might be better off with FWD instead of 4WD as I know snow is pretty rare in south Georgia. You will get a bit better mileage and have one less thing to go wrong. There is not a lot of difference in reliability through the years of Escape production. Essentially it has a good reliability record. There was a mild redesign I believe in 2005 so I don't think you want to go older than that. With basic maintenance there are plenty of users on this forum who are well past 100,000 miles without major repair. My '02 is at 154,000 miles and it is my wife's daily driver. I have an '09. These vehicles are very popular with women because they have great outward visibility and are super easy to drive in parking lots, etc.

 

If you are going used you might want to look for a Certified Pre-Owned through a dealer. They often come with additional warranty.

 

Well the thing errored and never took my reply lol.

As I was saying, yes I meant she wants an escape. We're long distance, she lives in Indiana right now, and I'm hoping to move up there to live with her in another year or so. Soon to be fiance . (i hope i hope i hope). Anyways we want 4x4 because she lives in Indiana.

Glad to hear their all reliable. This probably won't be bought till late this year or early next year, but we like to do homework on vehicles. She shares my desire to buy cars near new and run them 200,000 miles +. So that's why I was wondering how these trucks do.

Looking forward to more replies Thanks for you input tcesni, feel free to add more. Hows that 09, and how did you equip it, because if we wait a year, a used 09 might be our aim.

 

I have a 07 and live in ft wayne indiana. Mine is only a FWD and does fine. I know the 4wd is better in the snow, but my FWD escape did better than my 97 dakota 4wd(company truck). As far as mileage i have had my escape for 2 years and 3 weeks, and have put over 57K miles on it, and have never had any kind of major problems. Only problem I had is a week after I bought it the AC stopped because they forgot an oring at factory. Being I lived in FL when I bought it, it was a big deal at the time. It gets in the 80s down there in jan and feb sometimes. Anyway, I've bought mine with 7 miles on it, and have been very satisfied. One other issues I have had was with the tires. See my post from yesterday about leaky stock tires. But I think I could have just gotten a bad set of tires. I personally think the audio sounds pretty good for being just a normal stock vehicle. I personally think Ford does way better on their sound systems than any other Mfgs.

 

I can understand the desire for 4WD in Indiana (spent 5 years in W. Lafayette) although the FWD will do surprisingly well in the snow. I went with 4WD in my 09 because I use it for work and have to do some mild off road driving through orchards and I wanted better traction when pulling my boat up the ramps. FWD tends to spin in that situation although putting the gear selector in 2 will alleviate that problem. That being said, our 02 has never failed us in the snow in PA. My 09 is an XLT V6 4WD with the tow package and sync voice activated system and Sirius radio (I really love that!). I like the new 6-speed and 240 hp engine - very snappy. It gets 1-2 better mpg than the 02 FWD with better acceleration and is quieter on the road. Everything else is pretty much standard. HIghway mpg depends on how fast you drive. If you can keep a steady 65 mph 25 is pretty easy and 26 is not impossible by any means on relatively flat roads.

 

Thanks alot for the info so far guys. Interesting reading yalls uses. It would be used for mild towing (about 2,500lbs at the most).

 

I tow a boat weighing about 2200 lbs.

 

I was considering an Escape so I asked the service advisor at the Ford Dealership that I deal with. He drives an Escape FWD and he said he made his decision on the reliability of the Escapes - both FWD & 4WD. He said they are very reliable ! Hope this helps - and good luck finding your Escape !

 

As I see it, Marilyn Manson, Disturbed, Slipknot, and Nightwish are OK (although Manson is pushing it a bit), but the "lots of rap" thing would be a deal breaker.

Sorry that I have no other helpful information.

 

That's the problem, they're so reliable we can't find them anywhere up there. But we'll find it .

Lol I made here a rap lover, she used to not be able to stand it. Flo-Rida, TI, Chamillionaire, there's some decent ones out there.

Breaking Benjamin, Collective Soul, Nickelback, Evanescence. There's more good ones out there. There's a whole lot of good rock, but we sample the entire pool. We're both very open with our music, always searching for that next one that will give us chills.

Elton John, ABBA, Faith Hill, Eric Clapton, Utada Hikaru, ICP, Interpol. We're both big fans of Maximum the Hormone (Japanese Rock), N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys,. List goes on and on. Too much music out there to limit yourself to one genre.