YW1,
I think you will like your Escape bunches. I have driven the wife's about 3 times now, in fact have it today, and the more I drive it the more I like it. We traded a '98 Honda CR-V in on it and they are porbably the benchmark for the cute utes. Time will tell if they have the same quality as Honda but I like the Escape more. This is the same vehicle as the Mazda Tribute and I am thinking the design must be Mazda's, seems to have a lot of Japanese desing cues.
Bottom line is plenty of power and room, good heater, quiet engine (the CR-V's was pretty noisy), good fit and finish (minimal orangepeel) and very comfortable seats with the same power adjustments as the TBird's.
One major complaint is the moon roof. I has an auto-open like the driver side window but it is very difficult to stop in the correct spot when closing. It tends to pass the closed position and move into the vent position where the rear of the glass pops up. I'll have to go over the users manual and see if there is something we are missing about closing the roof. Other than that we love it.
Oh, one other thing, it sure is RED.
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