Hi all,

I just took a new job about 45 miles 1 way from home. For practicality, the mrs. now gets to drive the 04 FX4 F150, and I get the Escape. Our escape has 52,000 miles, is the V6 3.0 4x4 Model. Maintenance has been performed well, including 2 tranny flushes so far, and oil changes every 3 or 4000 miles.

How about belts/radiator hoses, recommended change interval???

Think the escape is reliable enough to do this 90 mile commute daily? It's mostly highway driving.

Thanks

-Marc

 

The wife has used her 03 Tribute to commute 34 miles each way in a lot of stop and go traffic since it was new. A little over 60k on it now and no problems so far- other than getting rear ended of Xmas eve last year.

We did change the Continentals with some Yokohama Geolanders after one of the Contis failed around 35,000 miles and after the first commute she was really happy with the improved ride and handling.

 

I have an '02 with 63,000 on it. I took a look at the belts and hoses and they seem to be in good shape. I have put 20,000 on it in a year and change the oil every 3,000 and regularly change the air filter and fuel filter. It has given no problems yet except for an idle air control valve. Seems to be holding up well. Good luck and hopefully it will be fine. If it is any consolation my father-in-law has a 93 Ranger with a 3.0 v6 and it has 315,000 on it. He has done minimal work to it. The 3.0 litre v6 seems to be as tough as they come.

 

The 3.0 OHV V6 in the Ranger has no relation to the 3.0 OHC V6 in the Escape. That being said, my wife commutes 38 miles daily in an '02 Tribute V6 that has served us well with nothing other than regular maintenance (new tires at 75k). It will turn over 100,000 miles in the next week. The hoses and belts are original and thus far look fine. Since we drive this at least 25k per year I expect to drive it at least to 150k before looking for a replacement.

 

I did a quick check on ebay and of 69 Escapes for sale at least 5 have in excess of 100,000 miles. The most was 121k on a 2004 model. That's some serious road time!!

 

thanks to all for the replies. We are very happy with the Escape so far, if gas wasn't $3.15 here I would drive the FX4, but the Escape is pretty comfortable, and I feel safe in it. Hopefully we'll get at least 150,000 out of it, but I hope more.

 

I've seen gas the past 2 weeks for as little as $2.61 (Alabama) to as high as $3.35 for regular (Pennsylvania). Lots of variability.

 

gas has been $2.58 here this week(kentucky)

 

We have an 03 escape, 3.0 4X4. My wife uses it for commuting about 90 miles /day and it just turned 77K miles. There was a horrible noise last week that got progressively louder. It was so bad when I took it in that it sounded like I was in a helicopter, and on the way to take it in the trans started slipping. The noise turned out to be a bad front axle (actually a bad bearing). My friend took it to a trans shop that looked at it and said some internal parts were leaking and a band didn't look good, and that they would have to pull the trans to inspect further. They said that it was so labor intensive to pull it out, that the entire trans should be gone through and some updates were to be done. They also found a cracked drum that they said is a hard part that doesn't normally go bad. The other parts that normally go bad with these didn't look bad. I can't imagine what this bill is going to be (add the set of tires I just bought for it)...I am figuring about 3K. The truck has never towed anything or been offroad.

Up until now we have not had any problems with it. The oil gets changed every 3K, the trans fluid and coolant have been changed twice, and fuel filters every 15-20K or so.

 

Ever change the tranny fluid?

 

My 02 Escape V6 was totaled in Jan 2005 with 85k miles. My 05 Escape I4 is 17 months old and has 45k+ miles. 4.5k oil changes and I drain the tranny pan (1 gallon) every other oil change. I commute 120 highway miles. My belts/hoses usually last well beyond 100k miles but I check anyway.

 

My trans fluid was changed at 30K and again at 60K. Just got it back this morning. The trans guy said a valve inside the trans stuck (possible line mod valve?) which increased pressure inside the trans. This cracked the drum and took out the torque converter. The guy said it is a common problem (the valve) and that if I would have waited another week, then the trans would have grenaded. He said I would have been stuck somewhere and the internal parts of the trans would have been a mess, with metal all over.

He gave me a break on the bill, which came out to $796 for parts (I added a shift kit), and $1188 for labor.

Sorry to hijack the thread.

My buddy charged me $400 for mnt & bal. 4 tires, 1 axel shaft, and another hub & wheel bearing.

Anybody else going through wheel bearings? This is the third time for us, and it's not like we live in a dusty environment (NJ).

All in all, I would buy another Escape for this commute once this one reached end of life which hopefully won't be for awhile. My wife loves it.

 

Not personally but there have been a few unlucky owners burn through bearings. They seem to go out before 30k miles if you're going to have problems. I don't know if dust has anything to do with it, I wouldn't consider my area dusty but we haven't seen rain since April. Could it be the winter crap they put on the roads in NJ?

 

The first set of wheel bearings (both fronts) were replaced when the truck was a week old. The second set of both fronts lasted until around 16K. I got lucky this time that it was only the front right and I didn't have to do the left. Hub and bearing cost $173. Besides that the truck has been good to us. Maybe they are just heating up for some reason. They look pretty beefy though.