When I test drove the year and model Ford Escape I felt like it was a nice, tight drive compared to many of the other (used) vehicles I had test driven. The leather seats were nice, the ability to plug in my phone and sync it was nice (though a pain to accomplish), it has a sunroof which I have never had before. However, after driving it for about 25000 miles (when it had about 55,000 miles on it) it began stalling intermittently for no apparent reason when idling or close to idling. I had to take it to the Ford dealership 3 times before it was properly repaired. Also, it had issues with the back door lock not releasing, and I owned a Ford once before that had these types of (expensive) electrical issues. And then the phone to radio communication stopped working and the dealership had a lot of trouble downloading the needed software to fix this issue. So while these problems are not catastrophic in nature, they are irritating in a car that had relatively few (40K I think) miles on it when I bought it. The interior is nice and the space is better than some other vehicles in it's size/class (the Rav4 for example, is awfully small inside).

First I must say I had no immediate plans to purchase a vehicle! Well I just loved everything I saw and had to test drive it. It drove so smoothly, it has a quiet engine. It was very low in mileage, was just 3 years old when I bought it. It was a previous leased vehicle, so it was very well maintained.