@frogger Thanks for posting, I have to say I agree with so much that is in this video. One point is that this will sell to the Redneck loyal crowd who will overlook all the cheap shortcuts. Clearly while it has truck roots, it is clearly not Fords Best. For sure I would not want this first year model.

I've seen a few new Explorers (and PIs) around, maybe only a couple Aviators so far...the Aviator is a handsome SUV.

Agreed about avoiding first year models.  Like back in the day, I didn't get a '99 GC (first year of the WJ), I waited and got an '00 (late in the model year, just before the '01s came out).    I am kind of leery of how the first year (2021 WL?) of the new GC designed by FCA on an Alfa platform will be... I figure when I'm ready to trade my '14 WK2 I'll look for a '20 WK2 as a CPO... (not doing the 17yr/170k thing again). 

1 hour ago, dfelt said:

@frogger Thanks for posting, I have to say I agree with so much that is in this video. One point is that this will sell to the Redneck loyal crowd who will overlook all the cheap shortcuts. Clearly while it has truck roots, it is clearly not Fords Best. For sure I would not want this first year model.

There are waaaaaaay more than just rednecks who buy Explorers. That's an awful generalization. 

5 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

There are waaaaaaay more than just rednecks who buy Explorers. That's an awful generalization. 

Yeah, it's been a very popular SUV/CUV with a wide audience forever...a lot of suburban soccer moms and others.

30 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

There are waaaaaaay more than just rednecks who buy Explorers. That's an awful generalization. 

For lack of a better generalization, rednecks have tended to stick to a single brand for life and we have them on Ford, GM, RAM, etc. Please offer a better die hard loyalist buyer than what that term imply's as I agree with you and @Robert Hall that there is a broad group of buyers. With that said, the video shows they have lots of issues and it will still be the hard core loyal buyers that buy the first year.

3 minutes ago, dfelt said:

For lack of a better generalization, rednecks have tended to stick to a single brand for life and we have them on Ford, GM, RAM, etc.  

Like the guys that buy Ford pickups because their pappy drove Ford pickups and their grand pappy did...narrow focus consumers. 'closed-minded'?   I've always been pretty open-minded about vehicle brands..though my first few vehicles were Fords (my folks bought Ford/Lincoln/Mercury products for 60 years), I've tried many brands over the years...

7 minutes ago, dfelt said:

For lack of a better generalization, rednecks have tended to stick to a single brand for life and we have them on Ford, GM, RAM, etc. Please offer a better die hard loyalist buyer than what that term imply's as I agree with you and @Robert Hall that there is a broad group of buyers. With that said, the video shows they have lots of issues and it will still be the hard core loyal buyers that buy the first year.

Toyota and Honda buyers are very brand loyal as well. You probably wouldn't classify them as rednecks though.. because of the brand. 

2 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

Toyota and Honda buyers are very brand loyal as well. You probably wouldn't classify them as rednecks though.. because of the brand. 

Yeah, I'm a loyal Jeep buyer after 20 years of GCs, and I'm definitely not down with any 'redneck' demographic..

22 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

Toyota and Honda buyers are very brand loyal as well. You probably wouldn't classify them as rednecks though.. because of the brand. 

Naw those are ultra conservative white collars that are too afraid to venture outside a horse with blinders life style.  😛 

Raptors freak them out as would a proper SS.  

19 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

Yeah, I'm a loyal Jeep buyer after 20 years of GCs, and I'm definitely not down with any 'redneck' demographic..

LOL, Jeeps are no longer considered redneck, they are High Tech nerds who want the ability to go into the woods but never really do.  

56 minutes ago, dfelt said:

 

LOL, Jeeps are no longer considered redneck, they are High Tech nerds who want the ability to go into the woods but never really do.  

That's me... but I took my WJ into the woods in Colorado and AZ quite a bit... I've had my WK2 into the woods here in Ohio on some gravel trails and parked at trail heads when hiking to waterfalls... a bit of light offloading.  I don't need to traverse the Rubicon Trail or go rock crawling at Moab.  

We'll Seems Ford is continuing to build questionable auto's. 

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30514411/2020-ford-escape-by-the-numbers/

Interesting read, seems the 3 banger motor is less than you would enjoy compared to the cheaper competition with 4 banger motors.

31 minutes ago, dfelt said:

We'll Seems Ford is continuing to build questionable auto's. 

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30514411/2020-ford-escape-by-the-numbers/

Interesting read, seems the 3 banger motor is less than you would enjoy compared to the cheaper competition with 4 banger motors.

"It's the smallest engine in the lineup, but the 1.5 is plenty potent. The turbo three moves this 3494-pound ute to 60 mph in 7.7 seconds, putting it near the top of its class. That time makes the Ford quicker than base-engine versions of the Hyundai Tucson, Mazda CX-5, Nissan Rogue, Subaru Forester, Toyota RAV4, and Volkswagen Tiguan. A Honda CR-V with a turbocharged 1.5-liter four is quicker, but not by much. But no CR-V can come close to an Escape packing the turbocharged 2.0-liter four; it hits 60 mph in only 5.7 seconds."

They might have not liked the interior but they praised the 3 banger outside of the noises it made.

12 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

"It's the smallest engine in the lineup, but the 1.5 is plenty potent. The turbo three moves this 3494-pound ute to 60 mph in 7.7 seconds, putting it near the top of its class. That time makes the Ford quicker than base-engine versions of the Hyundai Tucson, Mazda CX-5, Nissan Rogue, Subaru Forester, Toyota RAV4, and Volkswagen Tiguan. A Honda CR-V with a turbocharged 1.5-liter four is quicker, but not by much. But no CR-V can come close to an Escape packing the turbocharged 2.0-liter four; it hits 60 mph in only 5.7 seconds."

They might have not liked the interior but they praised the 3 banger outside of the noises it made.

Do not forget that they also said it was terrible when it went into cylinder deactivation and shut down 1 to go to only 2 cylinders working.

Yes there are positives, but the negatives are glaring and the price making other options much better.

Escape as with this Explorer and the Aviator seem to have been released before they were ready. Or just lazy QA work on behalf of the engineers.

23 minutes ago, dfelt said:

Do not forget that they also said it was terrible when it went into cylinder deactivation and shut down 1 to go to only 2 cylinders working.

Yes there are positives, but the negatives are glaring and the price making other options much better.

Escape as with this Explorer and the Aviator seem to have been released before they were ready. Or just lazy QA work on behalf of the engineers.

They didn't like the noises/vibration. They didn't say it drove poorly when it went into 2 cylinder mode. 

32 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

They didn't like the noises/vibration. They didn't say it drove poorly when it went into 2 cylinder mode. 

Lets be real clear as many people will consider this terrible.

Quote: We caught the transmission hunting between second, third, and fourth gears 

Quote: the 75 decibels measured at full throttle might not be high, but the quality of the sound isn't pleasing. We also uncovered a bad vibration below 1250 rpm, and when Ford's cylinder-deactivation technology took the engine from three cylinders to two, a low boom reverberated through the cabin and could be felt in the floorpan.

How Does this not seem terrible? These issues are NOT acceptable for an auto costing $30,485 equalling as they posted a $530 a month auto payment requiring a yearly income above $63,000.

This is Pathetic!

Ended up buying  a Corsair.  The wife thought the Aviator was unnecessarily big.  The Corsair is built in Louisville so maybe better Q/C.

About the redneck comments, if rednecks were people of color, you would be a racist for stereotyping.  I buy domestics mostly which makes me loyal to both GM and Ford.  Nothing wrong with product loyalty.  That's what manufactures of all products (not just cars) try to achieve.

15 hours ago, dfelt said:

Lets be real clear as many people will consider this terrible.

Quote: We caught the transmission hunting between second, third, and fourth gears 

Quote: the 75 decibels measured at full throttle might not be high, but the quality of the sound isn't pleasing. We also uncovered a bad vibration below 1250 rpm, and when Ford's cylinder-deactivation technology took the engine from three cylinders to two, a low boom reverberated through the cabin and could be felt in the floorpan.

How Does this not seem terrible? These issues are NOT acceptable for an auto costing $30,485 equalling as they posted a $530 a month auto payment requiring a yearly income above $63,000.

This is Pathetic!

I noticed you conveniently left out the "We caught the transmission hunting between second, third, and fourth gears while creeping through a traffic jam."

Like I said, the sound. Also, engines almost never spend time under 1250rpm. That's not a good thing to hear, but that's about as common as people putting their foot to the floor, it happens but not often. 

FWIW, at that price you could get the 2.0T or the hybrid for under 30k. You're not forced to spend 30k for the 1.5T. 

1 hour ago, ccap41 said:

I noticed you conveniently left out the "We caught the transmission hunting between second, third, and fourth gears while creeping through a traffic jam."

Like I said, the sound. Also, engines almost never spend time under 1250rpm. That's not a good thing to hear, but that's about as common as people putting their foot to the floor, it happens but not often. 

FWIW, at that price you could get the 2.0T or the hybrid for under 30k. You're not forced to spend 30k for the 1.5T. 

We all Cherry pick the info that sticks out!  Still major issues to me for an auto at that price. Released before it was ready IMHO.

8 minutes ago, dfelt said:

We all Cherry pick the info that sticks out!  Still major issues to me for an auto at that price. Released before it was ready IMHO.

Ford seems to have really foobared the QA cycle of recent releases...

In all fairness, this was a pre-production vehicle. I'm not excusing these issues with the drive-train but it was pre-production so there is/was still room for software tweaks. 

On 1/27/2020 at 12:44 PM, dfelt said:

For lack of a better generalization, rednecks have tended to stick to a single brand for life and we have them on Ford, GM, RAM, etc. Please offer a better die hard loyalist buyer than what that term imply's as I agree with you and @Robert Hall that there is a broad group of buyers. With that said, the video shows they have lots of issues and it will still be the hard core loyal buyers that buy the first year.

Not good to have so many build quality issues right out of the gate with an all new update on a very important SUV for Ford. There's a reason many call them the Ford "Exploder".

My Mom, brother and sister have had Explorers, '98-99 vintage..my sister had a '99 Eddie Bauer 4dr, dark red w/ tan, my Mom had a '98 Explorer Sport 2dr, and my brother a '99 Limited w/ V8.  I drove my sister's '99 a few times back in the day, didn't think it drove as nicely as my '00 Grand Cherokee.  She drove the Grand Cherokee and agreed.    I did like that her Explorer had a column shift.   She only kept it about 3 years..   my brothers' '99 has 200k, he bought it used w/ about 100k.  No rust that I saw last time I saw it, which for NE Ohio is good. 

I like the looks of the new Explorer, but I wouldn't buy one over a WK2 GC.