Are they holding up OK? What are the big issues?
Are they holding up OK? What are the big issues?
I seem to recall issues with the hybrid controller? Nobody was repairing them & new replacements were scarce and something like $5k. Old neighbors had the Mercury version & got rid of it pretty quickly.
Close friend of mine ran one until 2 years ago when the dealer told him it needed the hybrid battery replaced. Neighborhood of $5k and he just traded it in to a BMW dealer on a X5 without revealing the fault. This was a relatively low mileage car, primarily city use.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
Holy crap, on Summit's website, a (gack) Dorman battery pack is almost $4k.
That's the first time I've seen a reman battery over $2k.
The first gen Escapes had severe rust issues in the rear strut towers. The kind that can total them pretty easily. The second gen that you're considering is a little better, but still the same platform and they're known to have rust issues as well. Just take a really good look all around the rear wheel wells, particularly the passenger side.
In reply to STM317 :
That section is really not bad to fix. I've done a couple for six hours of labor and a couple hundred in materials, about six-eight years ago. The shock mount itself is a separate, thicker stamping from the wheelwell, the part that rusts out is more for stability and keeping the outside out.
The rust that kills these vehicles is the area where the front subframe attaches. It just crumbles, and no easy way to just patch it. By the time they get to this point, the jacking points/rockers are long gone.
I had a LOL's '10 Escape in last week, 59k miles and only driven to the drugstore once a week, had the lovely experience of having to explain that the vehicle was getting to be unsafe. I figure it had two or three more lifts left in the chassis before the chassis rails simply collapsed. The rear wheelwells were still solid, though 
I've only seen wheelwell rust on premium V6 models with the speakers.
As far as the hybrid models go, I seem to remember an issue with the ABS system on these vehicles. Something about the ABS and the regenerative braking mechanism just freaks out Ford dealer service techs to the point that many refuse to work on Escape Hybrids with braking problems.
My little sister has a non-hybrid Escape, a 2nd generation model. I haven't seen her since before the pandemic, so I can't say how it is holding up. She lives in Pennsylvania, and 2 years ago her Escape had no detectable rust. That may have changed in the interim.
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