If you must get the 2024 Escape, I'd suggest you look at the 2.0 Ecoboost for more power, or the hybrid for fuel economy. If reliability is your priority, the RAV4 is your best choice.
I’m really perplexed as to why people state side constantly bring up the reliability of Fords - I’m now on my 4th Ford Focus, I bought my first one in 1998, that’s 26 years of owning Fords. They have been rock solid, absolutely no issues…the only thing I’ve had was a couple of bad sensors on the current car that were replaced in a day and cost me £126 fitted….thats it, in 26 years. I look after my cars, service them properly, and they’ve paid me back with reliable motoring.
@rufdymond I think one of the major reasons is their choice of powertrains in North America. In 2011 when they released the third generation Focus, the automatic transmission they used was a dry DCT which had several cases of transmission failures. Unfortunately that was the more popular transmission because Americans generally hardly buy cars with manual transmissions. The early years of their Ecoboost engines were also quite unreliable as well. I'd assume that many of the issues of those engines have been fixed by now, since they've been in production for more than a decade now (I still hear people say avoid the 1.0 and 1.5 3 cylinder Ecoboost engines though).
One thing to consider with the hybrid Escape is that the hybrid system is functionally similar to the RAV4 due to Ford sharing patents with Toyota years ago. Uses a similar planetary gear system and all.
Compact (and subcompact) crossovers hardly come from the factory with manual transmissions these days, at least in North America. People just don't see the need for manual transmissions in family cars anymore.
Even if it did have a manual, would you buy one? Some people want manual transmissions but won’t buy any vehicle that has it. Manufacturers know this so it makes no sense to build them.
