Ford EscapeThe Ford Escape has been thoroughly updated, reinforcing the character and appeal that have made it America's perennial best-selling small sport-utility vehicle. The improvements nearly cover the spectrum, and inject a new level of refinement. We'd call the Escape a little truck among small SUVs. Its new styling deliberately invokes Ford's larger, truck-based SUVs.
Because existing sources of auto reliability information left much to be desired, in late 2005 I started conducting my own reliability research at TrueDelta.com. TrueDelta reports absolute stats like "trips to the shop" that make the differences between cars much clearer. Results are updated four times a year, so any significant changes in a model's reliability become apparent quickly.
About 180 owners of the Escape, Mariner, and Tribute have signed up so far. Which is a good start, but not enough to provide a result for many model years.
Participants simply report repairs the month after they occur on a one-page survey. When there are no repairs, they simply report an approximate odometer reading four times a year, at the end of each quarter.
To encourage participation, panel members receive full access to the results for free.
For the details, and to help get your model year into future results:
One or two model years will be in the May results, and a few others are close. In all cases we're close to the minimums, so additional participants would make a real difference.
Those results have been posted, and the 2006 and 2008 made it. The repair rate appears to be about average in both cases. But both results are also asterisked, for small sample sizes.
I'd like to get rid of those asterisks and report on additional model years in the next update, in August. Need owners' help to make this happen.
For the full set of results, and sign up to help (if you haven't already):
Those results have been posted for the Escape. Two asterisked results, for the 2005 and 2006, are only visible to members on the site. The 2005 result appears to be inaccurate--very few repairs reported for that year. An average repair rate has been reported for the 2006 and 2008, with the former maybe a bit worse than average and the new Escape maybe a bit better than average.
Need more participants to provide precise results for all years.
I have been buying Ford vehicles for a lot of years and once again I am thinking of buying a Ford. I am looking at a 2007 ford escape V6 and would like your thoughts on the over all reliability and honest fuel milage I can expect. We have 2001 Tarus and get around 29 miles to the gal. so hope it comes in close to that.
I wish I had found this before, it might have saved me some time researching (though probably not, I over do it in this regard usually). But seriously, this is a great idea. Looking at my 2005 Escape FWD V6, the fuel economy is basically right on so far, though I've only had it for a month or so.
The latest Car Reliability Survey results were recently posted. The reported number of repair trips per 100 cars per year for the Ford Escape:
2008: 50, about average
2006: 41, better than average
2005: 26, better than average
2003: 65, about average
A big thanks to everyone who has been helping. We'll have further updates in May, August, and November. The sameples sizes for all but the 2008 were small, even very small, so additional participants would certainly be helpful.
We now have a separate results page for each model. The ones for the Mustang:
Shopping for new Ford can be a stressful experience especially if you don't have the right information. Our new car research center at CarEverything.com can help relieve this stress and bring the joy back to new car buying!
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Ford Escape reliability 
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