Any newer Ford Edge/Explorer owners? Looking to buy one...

YNOT

YNOT

Poorboys Rules!
Here's the deal. My wife and I bought a Mercury Mariner back in 2006 and we love it. Problem is, my wife has a second job now and it's requiring her to do a lot of highway driving/traveling around the Missouri/Illinois area. So we're considering a new Ford Edge or Explorer. We want something larger than the Escape/Mariner, and my wife likes to sit up high...otherwise I'd be pushing her towards the Fusion which is what I'd like to have.

Anyone here have any experience with the newer Edges/Explorers? Thoughts?...likes?...dislikes?

And don't waste your time suggesting other brands...because I get an A-plan discount, so I can get much more car for my money by sticking with Ford. Besides...Fords just rock!

Any help or suggestions you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
 
I test drove a new one and hated it. I've got an 06 Eddie Bauer Explorer now, and it blows the new ones away. The new ones are small, under powered with that silly V6, and the user interface on the nav/heater controls is borderline dangerous. just my opinion of course. I don't like the look either, but thats just a personal taste kinda thing.
 
I haven't been in either, but I like the looks of the Ford Edge sport, and the Explorer as well(not as much as the Edge sport though). As for the Flex, it seems to be a popular mom car at my son's school. I don't know much about Fords though, I'm not really a big Ford guy even though they have some nice vehicles.
 
Just remember that gas prices are on the way up and get what is needed for her commuted between jobs.
 
Thanks for the input so far everyone.

C. Charles Hahn said:
What about a Flex, Tony? Just my opinion, those blow the other two away.
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Yeah...I do like those...but since this is going to be more of the wife's car, it's more up to her. She likes sitting up higher...says she feels safer, so she wants a taller SUV. She likes the Edge, Explorer and of course the crew cab F150's...but after she sat in that and loved it, she decided it was just too large.


zoomzoom mazda5 said:
Just remember that gas prices are on the way up and get what is needed for her commuted between jobs.
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Yeah...I understand that. If it was me traveling, I'd probably go with a smaller, gas friendly car. But since it's my wife and she'll be doing many over-the-road trips up through central Illinois, I want her to have something safe. Plus...I often go with her so we want something we can both ride in comfortably.

I know this may sound corny, but since we've both been doing more traveling in our Mariner, the cup holders and space for cell phones, paperwork/maps is so limited. We want something that has a bit more "personal space" up front which is truly hard to find. I mean, seriously...in our Mariner, you can't fit two "large" drinks in the cup holders because they're too close together.

When I was younger, all I cared about was did the car "look cool"...but after spending more and more time "inside" the car, as I've aged, the inside needs to be accommodating. I still want it to "look cool", but the inside space is equally important now.:rofl
 
Tony, I don't own one but my 80 year old father does. Living next door to him, I haul him around a lot. I end up behind the wheel of an Edge several times a week. At the point I'm at in my life right now I would own one of these in a heart beat. Reasonably good power, fuel economy and comfort. In fact, for my old bones this is the easiest vehicle to get in and out of that I ever been in.

Oddly enough, he also has a 2012 F-150 SuperCrew EcoBoost. I'm not sure which V6 was being spoken poorly about earlier but I can't believe it would be the V6 EcoBoost. It makes 50 more horse power than the old 5.4 did in stock form. It also makes more horse power than the current generation coyote motor 5.0 liter and the torque curve is as broad as the Great Plains. It makes it's torque down around 2500 r.p.m.'s and the 6.2 is up around 4800 r.p.m.'s I was dead set against him buying it and tried to steer him towards the 6.2 Liter. He was interested in fuel economy and there is no arguing the torque curve associated with the twin turbo engines. It moves that truck much better than a 5.4 engines ever did and we've had a dozen of these between us. The fuel economy is pretty darn good for a 6,000 lb. truck. Now if they would slip that twin turbo engine in the Edge, they'd have a real monster.

As has been mentioned it takes a couple weeks worth of fiddling to get really comfortable with the digital interface but you'll find out that there are manual controls for every function and it's not much different than getting used to a new cell phone. I would say give one a test drive.
 
I like the looks of the Edge Sport. I haven't been in one but it looks really nice. 2 people I work with have one and they love them.

If I didn't always have problems out of the Fords we have owned I would get a Fusion Hybrid
 
Thanks Mark, for your insight.

Rocket...sorry you've had issues with Fords. My dad raised my bro and I on GM products, but once my brother started working on the Ford assembly line and hooked us up with their A-plan deal, we started buying them and have had great luck thus far. I'm still partial to my 92 GMC truck though. ;)

My bro is now with Subaru, but they don't offer good discounts like Ford does...and he still gets the A-plan with Ford (for life I believe)...so I'll continue to support Ford due to the great quality and savings.
 
I think anything with the new Ecoboost V6 engine is going to be very good and get better gas mileage, less emissions, etc., as well.
I just read an article about it, and the magazine raved about it too. I dont remember reading the braking distance was bad, but that can be so subjective too - maybe it had the smallest tires, or the wrong tires for the test, etc.. I have only had a couple new Ford trucks, a new Lightning and a new F150 Harley Davidson, and both were awesome for what they were.
I personally think the Ford EcoBoost engine is a great idea and is going to be very successful wherever they company puts it. I really like the idea of having the power if I need it, but not using it all the time whethere I need it or not, like with a Supercharger (Ford Lightning), etc..

My own list of things I would want in a future vehicle are direct injection, turbo, smaller displacement engine air to air cooling, air to water cooling, bigger more efficient exhaust, just to start.. :)

Good luck, you are going to end up with a really nice vehicle at super pricing !!

Dan F
 
The wife and I finally test drove an Explorer and an Edge. The Explorer "looks" cool, but it's way too big for us. We don't have kids...just want something a bit bigger and newer than what we have. The Edge was great...decent size, but neither of us were so excited that we couldn't live without it.

So we opted to hold out until April and test drive the "new" Escape and see what we think. We'll likely end up in an Edge unless this new Escape just totally kicks ass. I like the looks of it, but the roominess of the interior is what will be the deciding factor.
 
You may want to consider the Edge's cousin dressed as a Lincoln. My in-laws just bought the Lincoln version for nearly the Limited $$$ after the rebates on Z-Plan. And yes, gotta love A/Z-Plans.
 
Not sure about the Escape but if you were buying an Explorer I would tell you to keep a few thousand handy in the bank in case the transmission fails. One of my best friends, his father has them come into his shop constantly with trans issues between 60-80k on them. My wife has an 06 eddie bauer with 80k on it and the trans is on its way out.
 
I thought I'd dig this one back up...

We had been waiting on the new 2013 Escapes to come in, thinking we'd probably end up with one of those. Yeah...not so much. The new Escape 'looks' really cool, but we really didn't like the inside at all. Not comfortable, the back seemed to have less leg room than the previous model, just seemed to be 'clunky' and cramped. For as cool looking on the outside that it is...the inside gets a 2-thumbs down from both of us.

In fact, a couple weeks ago we test drove a Chevy Equinox for xxxxs-n-grins and honestly we really liked it. The thing drove great, roomy...overall very nice. But...considering I get the A-plan discount on Ford's...we gravitated back there.

So I think the wife and I decided on the Edge "Sport". In fact, our salesman is trying to locate us one right now. There's a silver one in Tennessee that he is checking on to see if it's still available. If not, we'll see what he finds. I told him silver, white or blue was our color preferences.

I'm excited! I can't wait to have a new car to detail. Especially one that is NOT black! I still had not had time to detail our black Mariner this spring so I spent all day Sunday cleaning it up to trade it in.

Wish me luck. Hopefully I'll be sharing pics of our new ride here in the next couple weeks.
 
I don't know if a 2008 Edge qualifies as a "newer" Edge, but we have one , we like it alright BUT the ride on a concrete highway is terrible! Lots of road noise and it hits the highway seams hard. After putting a new set of tires on it it didn't ride any better. I went to our dealer and drove another 2008 and a 2010 and both of them rode the same. Supposedly the new Explorer rides better? Haven't driven one but my advise would be to drive both, back to back, out on a concrete highway, feel the ride and listen for how much road noise there is. I like the style of both and would look real hard at the Explorer but the Edge is paid for, it's her car AND she likes it! You might go to the Ford forum site and get some opinions there.
 
jlineman said:
I don't know if a 2008 Edge qualifies as a "newer" Edge, but we have one , we like it alright BUT the ride on a concrete highway is terrible! Lots of road noise and it hits the highway seams hard. After putting a new set of tires on it it didn't ride any better. I went to our dealer and drove another 2008 and a 2010 and both of them rode the same. Supposedly the new Explorer rides better? Haven't driven one but my advise would be to drive both, back to back, out on a concrete highway, feel the ride and listen for how much road noise there is. I like the style of both and would look real hard at the Explorer but the Edge is paid for, it's her car AND she likes it! You might go to the Ford forum site and get some opinions there.
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As I indicated previously, though I don't own an Edge I find myself driving one several times a week. Actually two different model years, 2010 and 2011. These vehicles were identical for all practical purposes, color and all. Neither of these Edges had a ride that was by any means objectionable. It is a short wheel base, that said, I would consider the ride better than virtually any vehicle I've been in of comparable size. As was mentioned, there are a number of things that affect ride quality and sometimes it is the shock used from the factory. More often than not the choice of tires and the inflation are the primary cause of poor rides. I don't doubt what jlineman has said. I merely wish to indicate that my experience hasn't been the same.
 
As an owner of a 2008 Edge and a current 2011, I can say with confidence there are some differences between the two.

a) HVAC: One of the issues with the 1st Gen Edge was the A/C's output. Some people have cleaned out the cabin air filter or (strangely enough) rode around with the glove compartment open for more optimal airflow. The 2nd gen doesn't have that issue.

b) Dimensions: The first gen Edge is slightly narrower than the second gen. Legroom is pretty decent (especially for a big guy like me) in either one but some people complain about the center console cutting in on legroom. I have not found that to be problematic.

c) Sync/MFT: I can only tell you this solely based on my 2011. The interface does take some getting used to and it can be a bit on the frustrating side at times. However, once you get the hang of it (and make sure you are at the current version), no problems unless you have a phone that does not work well with it.

d) Drivetrain: There is a 20 hp difference between the first gen and second gen Edges. The 2011-up has 285 while the 2007-10 has 265. The transmission seems to be geared slightly different in the 2nd gen toward fuel economy. Some owners do complain of a sloppy shift between 1st and 2nd, but that can be fixed with a flash.

For more information: Ford Edge Forum
 
Thanks for responding PrinzII. We actually did buy an Edge...2012 Sport Edition in early June. The car itself rocks! The Microsoft SYNC is a huge piece of useless xxxx.


PrinzII said:
c) Sync/MFT: I can only tell you this solely based on my 2011. The interface does take some getting used to and it can be a bit on the frustrating side at times. However, once you get the hang of it (and make sure you are at the current version), no problems unless you have a phone that does not work well with it.
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That's my biggest beef with ours. The interface is not bad...I like it, but we've had the SYNC serviced now 7 times I think and still the SYNC doesn't work. My wife primarily drives this car, so she's been the one suffering with the issue the most.

Ford tried to blame my wife's iPhone 4 for the reason it didn't work. Claimed that the phone had a virus and that was what caused the issue...although my phone never worked in it either so that's not a logical answer to me. Since my wife was waiting on an iPhone 5 after the last 'service' they asked us to wait until we got the new phone before trying to use the SYNC...which we did. The wife and I both have brand new iPhone 5's and guess what??? The ****ing SYNC still doesn't work! You ask it to call 'Marsha' and it'll respond with "calling China King"...not even a close voice command. Every name you ask it to call it calls something not even remotely close to the same name. However...the Sirius radio station commands seem to work for the most part. I don't get it.

We've been so busy we've not had any time to get the car back in, but it's due for an oil change soon so they'll get an earful again about the SYNC and we'll try this for an 8th time. If it doesn't work after that I'm not sure what we'll do. I can keep taking the car back, but eventually that's going to get old...so we'll see what happens.

Let me say that we've been driving FORD's since the late 90's after my bro started working on the assembly line and I love them. All 7 of our Ford's have been great cars and I'll likely continue to buy them...but I will NOT buy anymore with this jacked up SYNC bull**** unless they can get their head out of their ass and figure out how to make it work properly.


PrinzII said:
d) Drivetrain: There is a 20 hp difference between the first gen and second gen Edges. The 2011-up has 285 while the 2007-10 has 265.
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We have the Sport Edition so it's got the 3.7L...305 HP I think it is. And let me tell you, it'll lay ya back in the seat when ya step on it...awesome power for this car! Coming from our 2006 Mariner with a tiny 4 banger, this car is a huge improvement in the power department. Averages about 18.5 MPG which isn't great...but it is better than the 13-ish I get in my 92 Sierra. hehe.
 
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