Ford Escape ZD (2008-2012)

A real sports utility vehicle – I bought the Escape ZD in 2010 and have driven 170,000km so far and have no plans to replace it because of the cars utility and reliability. I live in Far North Queensland and camp with the family during school holidays on the Cape and occasional 2000km drive to Brisbane. We tow a trailer with all the camping and kayaks together with the roof rack. The car has scheduled servicing with attention on the fluids. There has been no faults. The mechanical on-demand AWD simply works, especially in the monsoon season. Off-road, the differential can be locked and the overdrive turned off to give more power. The Escape then drives like a tractor. The suspension is biased towards on road, and is not forgiving on dirt tracks and rougher conditions so I usually reduce speed. This is noticeable when driving with Discos and Land-cruisers. However, the light weight Escape can handle some conditions much better than heavier 4WDs. All terrain tyres significantly increase the Escape's capability off-road (have used BFG, Michelin Latitude Cross, Dunlop AT5 - changing every 50,000kms due to monsoon season).

Feels great to drive, looks amazing, a bit of a fuel guzzler, needs bluetooth – We bought this vehicle second hand in Oct 2017. It had 9100 kays on the clock and still had a new car smell. We were told that an elderly couple owned it and had just driven it to the shops and church. We had a 1.8L stationwagon previous and were really surprised at how much more fuel it uses. It's meant to run at 10.5c/L but can run at 12c/L if using aircon and cruise control. It does hit the 10.5c/L if country driving - def not around the city. Vehicle feels great to drive. We paid $1100 and installed a bluetooth Apple Car Play system. There was a basic stereo in there which really minimised the luxury feel of the car. Reasonable boot space but smaller than a wagon. We also got the windows tinted so it's quite a nice ride after our minimal upgrades. Oh, that's right, the rear left hand door keeps jamming. It wouldn't open from the inside or the outside so that mechanic had an interesting time in fixing it. This first happened two months into ownership. And again at 5 months. This is a safety hazard.

Ugly, cheap and reliable – The car is ugly and slightly under-powered as nearly all SUVs with 2.0-2.5L naturally aspirated engines. I bought it new in 2011 for $27 000 which offset a 10 years old design. 4wd SUV developed by Mazda-Ford (they shared platforms in 1985-2005) for $27 000 was a good deal. Just remember that it was produced since 2000 and it was not a cheap car in 2001-2005 so the design is pretty rugged as it had to compete with RAV4 and CR-V in 2001-2006 and was a best selling small SUV in the USA for the first two years of production until Toyota and Honda updated their range.

Mine has done 85 000 km with zero problems, except a discharged battery which was mostly my fault, if you start the engine and the heater "forget" the last settings and blows a warm air on the windscreen - the battery is going to die, change it.

The Ford Duratec / Mazda L4 engine is one of the most reliable in the industry and cheap to service, runs on any fuel, all you need is to change oil every 10 000 kms and replace spark plugs every 70 000 km. You can service engine yourself, nothing hard. I never heard this engine had excessive oil burning, mine doesn't require to top oil between changes.

The weak point is the old 4 gears transmission. This is the old Mazda transmission you can find on Mazda 626. It probably develops some problems after 150 000 kms and is unlikely to survive beyond 250 000 kms.

Spare parts are cheap and you can opt to Mazda Tribute spare parts.

To sum up. Taking the price into account this is the best choice for small unassuming SUV if you don't need to be an envy of your neighbors - you get a roomy interior, a reliable engine and good old Mazda-Ford design for a reasonable money. If you are buying a car that has done more than 100 000 kms check the transmission as the transmission problems are likely to develop after 150 000.

Good – my wife and i have owned this car for 4 mths,it does have some flaws but overall we r very happy.we just returned from a trip to dunns swamp and climbed up to gospers mountain,following a 2004 nissan x-trail.some of the climbs were very steep and rocky but the escape tackled every thing with ease with vertually no tyre spin. the x-xtrail even though fitted with real off road tyres,did do it tougher on the climbs but of course left the escape for dead in the wet clay.the owner of the x-trail had his doubts, but after seeing the escape climb hills he was very impressed especially considering the tyres.for the price it hard to go past the escape, u can get better but you will pay for it.the escape is one of the best suv`s in it`s price range on the market. Good on fuel,very comfortable inside,high equipment level as standard,great off road capabilities,high ground clearance,very affordable,handles ok on bituman. headlights lack penetration,foglamps should be yellow,slightly underpowered,the cars sills are vunerable to stonechips and lack proper protection(i fitted side steps),tyres offer zero traction on wet clay surfaces,