It’s late fall here in Colorado, and I’m thinking of escaping to the mountains for a long weekend. I’m trying to find a place to stay that isn’t over the top and really expensive; I’m looking for something that’s kind of like the restyled 2009 Ford Escape. Ford’s Escape is more like a getaway to a clean, pared-down cabin. It’s not an overdone luxury home; there aren’t giant vaulted ceilings or an abundance of antler chandeliers and horsehair ottomans. And this year’s Escape is quieter than ever before, something I like in any getaway.
The 2009 Escape is a tidy, simple SUV with few amenities. It knows you’re going elsewhere for the fun but that you need a way to get there. It doesn’t try to be a resort on wheels or your family room incognito, and it does its job just fine.
IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT COUNT
Storage Compartments (Puny, Fair, Ample, Galore): Fair Cargo/Trunk Space (Puny, Fair, Ample, Galore): Ample
SENSE AND STYLE
Family Friendly (Not Really, Fair, Great, Excellent): Great Fun-Factor (None, Some, Good Times, Groove-On): Some
FAMILY LIFESTAGE
In Diapers: A rear-facing child-safety seat would fit fine in here, but there might be a little squishing if there’s a tall person in the front seat. In School: Kids in school will fit well, but there aren’t a lot of compartments for their gear. Teens: I think teens would like riding in and eventually driving the Escape.
The hot red paint color, Torch Red, on the Escape I tested was so much fun I felt like I was driving a little fire engine. And the color drew looks when Escapes of other colors wouldn’t. Along with the new styling comes a chrome grille that adds some more flash and spices up the formerly mild exterior.
Do you want to know the funny thing, though? I kept calling the Escape a Jeep. I know I should definitely know better. But the Escape’s newer, boxier styling just kept reminding me of that other four-letter word.
I liked driving the Escape. There was some perkiness to it, and it was easy to park and maneuver. In the suburbs where I live, it’s the Land Of Ginormous SUVs. I liked that the Escape is a smaller package, but it wasn’t completely dwarfed when I parked between two gigantic SUVs. I still had some height and visibility.
It was easy for my kids to get into and out of the Escape. This might not be the case if yours are young or still a bit petite. Anyway, the doors weren’t too heavy, and they weren’t tinny or cheap-feeling. The tailgate was easy to open and close. Overall, the Escape was easy to manage, much like that quick three-day weekend getaway.
The first thing I noticed about the Escape when I got in was its clean, organized center stack and console. Yes, there are a lot of buttons, but their layout is organized and uncluttered, which really works for me. And the center console and cupholders were easy to use. A little shelf inside the console housed smaller gadgets or writing utensils. Underneath the shelf, Ford provided slots for those of us in the Dark Ages who still tote around CDs.
But otherwise, the interior storage situation left a lot to be desired. I didn’t really think there needed to be more; it just needed to be better organized. The map pockets in the doors were impractical; I couldn’t fit my hand in there to dig stuff out very easily. They would hold maps, magazines and coloring books fine, but don’t you dare drop a pencil down there! It should also be said that many other cars I’ve tested have storage in the doors that can fit a water bottle. When there’s no armrest with cupholders for the rear seat, a water bottle stashed in the rear-door pocket would be much easier for kids to reach than the Escape’s backseat cupholders that are housed in the backside of the front center console.
The Escape has a good-sized cargo space for your huge strollers, and you can fold the seats down by using a latch on the top of the backseat. The hassle is that-and Ford isn’t the only perpetrator of this kind of cargo issue – in order to completely fold the seats down, you must remove the head restraints on the backseat. I hate that. Whenever I fold the seats down, I wind up trying to skip taking the head restraints out of the backseat. I’m left trying to manage a cargo-space slope that I think will be fine for carrying my flat of flowers from the nursery or whatever. But ultimately it just peeves me because it’s enough of a slope that everything slides down and gets mushed.
I do want to take a moment here and highlight something new in the Escape. The seats are made from 100 percent post-industrial waste, and they’re comfortable, too. According to Cars.com, “While post-industrial doesn’t have quite as big an impact as post-consumer waste, Ford says the new source will conserve, annually, 600,000 gallons of water, the equivalent of 1.8 million pounds of carbon dioxide and more than 7 million kilowatt hours of electricity.” Nice! Maybe if more seats were made of this fabric, my mountain getaway (and yours, too, wherever it is) will stay pristine.
The Ford Escape has its Latch connectors right out in the open; they’re easy to find and use. There are front- and side-impact airbags to protect the driver and front passenger, as well as side curtain airbags to keep the rear passengers safe, too. The Escape also has antilock brakes and stability and traction control.
The 2009 Escape’s crash-test ratings from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have improved to Good, the IIHS’ highest rating. Nice! Ford Escapes from the 2005-08 model years only received Acceptable crash-test ratings. The 2009 Escape scored well in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s crash-test rating. It received five stars, the highest score, in frontal and side crashes. But it only got a three-star rating for its rollover resistance.
