Gadgetory

once in a while a car just totally changes like this one all together now that's an escape yep let's drive the 2013 titanium Edition and check the tech if Ford set out to escape the look of the old escape they did it this is a bad as different from the previous rolling brick as they could have gotten this is their kinetic design you recognize the lines and especially the face from the new fusion and the redesigned focus now the first thing I notice on the inside of the new Escape is it looks uncannily like the outside of the new escape look at the shape of the dash in this Lord bolster now look at the outside kind of the same part isn't it do they just put a dash on the front and paint it blue anyway here's where the real design has to be questioned it's what's going on with my Ford touch and Ford Sync now my Ford touches this interface they have on this central unit they've taken a bit of a beating from various sources us included about the earlier incarnations of this let's see how they've cleaned it up I like these much bigger transport buttons and generally larger buttons all around if I go to my sound settings things get a little more dense I'm starting to get a little nervous here but everything's still pretty touchable and readable if I go down here to the information screen oh dear God it's like reading a phone book that's not clean enough little slow to transition between modes you see but generally I'm pleased with how this screen looks in terms of its various zones I'm not so pleased with how its implemented in this vehicle with this this this and this you've got four physical bumpers all around the screen look what I got to do I got to navigate over this plastic Ridge and find this tiny thing at the bottom same thing goes for hitting the nav I've got to work around this eyebrow it's just too tightly surrounded in this plastic Canyon and it's kind of far away I've got monkey arms and it's not hard to reach this thing and of course you may never touch this thing if you use the voice command let's see how it's working - 35 second Street San Francisco California sorry please say the address and city say each digit individually like 1 2 3 4 - 35 second Street San Francisco asking what can I say well two times earlier today I gave that same address that's 235 and it got it I gave it here in single digits and it didn't get it however you get things going there's a lot of good sources here as you can see you've got your RCA jacks SD card two USB slots and of course am/fm HD satellite radio everything's in here except a hard drive no hard drivers solid-state drive to rip music - and I don't miss that a bit see now here the system is stuck on AV jacks I don't even have anything plugged in - this is all I think part of a central need for more processing power or more software streamlining on this car navigation by the way is optioned into this car by getting the SD card that has the navigation on it it's not something you have to buy necessarily until later as you own the car go get the card stick it in there and it graphs that functionality on I like the way for it does that rear camera technology is pretty good on this vehicle you've got trajectory you've got distance you've got sensors all around the car front and rear part of a parking package and you've also got active Park Assist this guy will park itself and does it quite well now I think the first self parking system I ever demoed was in an O 7 Lexus LS and it was a disaster I mean you had to do a CAD cam drawing on the center screen first and then allocate most of an hour for the car to do its thing and it still left the nose hanging out cut him some slack it was early days today's system works really well quick thorough simple and requires about as many new ingredients as leftovers for dinner so here's a scenario you just came out of Costco or somewhere bought a whole bunch of stuff saw some jackass on the TV screens and they get to put your things in the back but your hands are full you don't dare put them down because there's a steaming pile of the homeless guy left behind your car so what do you do Ford's got an answer you just wag your foot over here and the tailgate opens all by itself now of course this is a two row vehicle there's no room for a third row but when I show you the second row you wouldn't be blamed for looking at that flat thin backseat and saying no it's okay I'll take the waterboarding option but it's actually not a bad seat in spite of its looks got some good dense foam and some good sculpting by the way Ford's big on the fact that these foam pads are made of soybeans and the carpets recycled water bottles and the key here is you've got one hand fold flat let's say I got the groceries again I just pull this lever and the whole thing goes flat with no other screwing around now this engine is more than just the engine of the new escape this may become Ford's new bread-and-butter maybe come to the future what the 302 the five leader was in the past this is the 2-liter turbocharged direct-injection four it's an EcoBoost motor that's what Ford calls it when they put DI and turbo together but then I have a patent on that 240 horsepower 270 foot-pounds of torque it's a Torquay little beast because that's how they've decided to use the turbo charging among other things zero to 60 happens in about 6.8 seconds on this vehicle which weighs 3,500 pounds your mileage is going to be 20 to 30 front wheel drive if you go all-wheel drive you shave a few off down the 21:28 and it all goes out through one transmission on all escapes a 6-speed automatic that has a sport mode but unfortunately no paddles on the wheel one of those lame little rockers on the left side I'm not as crazy about those well let's go see how it works on the road it comes together a little better than the sum of its parts if you will that engine may seem very small the power is quite good the build quality in this vehicle is real good and in general you've got this feeling of high style and good quality inside this vehicle if you like the looks you like them if you don't that obviously won't get you very far but most people have shown it to really liked it inside and out okay let's price this guy 2013 escape titanium top trim is about 31 with destination ad 1754 all wheel drive and take a 2 mpg hit on your highway mileage as well navigation the system is still slow and bulky but it's a pretty good bargain at 795 and the one that I really love is that parking package sensors camera and the self parking logic that's like magic 4 9 95 you