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Ford’s Escape wasn’t the best-selling compact crossover in June, but it only needed to cruise to an easy victory as the best selling compact crossover in the first half of 2010. Honda and Toyota’s offerings are still over 10k units behind the mighty Escape on the half, with the Equinox claiming fourth place, and Rogue and Forester neck-and-neck for fifth.
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And the 2nd place goes to GM (27K Terrains + 67K Equinoxes = 94K GM CUVs)
And Escape’s 98,900 plus Mariner’s 15,100 puts Ford at 114k!
I read that Ford’s Escape was the best selling small SUV right now. I couldn’t believe it cause I don’t see em as much here anymore, but that’s fantastic for them.
Here’s what I want to know. How do Terrain sales compare to Torrent sales? That’s the only thing my local Buick/lost Pontiac/GMC dealer will care about.
The Compass is really the only “no good reason to buy” stinker in the group.
Is there any other segment out there right now that has this many competitive players in it? Maybe the CamCords…
Add the Mariner to the total and FoMoCo has a pretty healthy sales lead with perhaps the most out of date product.
Kind of puts a light on why automakers rarely bring their best vehicles to the USA.
But when will the last Mariner be sold with the death of Mercury?
When they runout. Quite honestly, I think the Mercury front end is better looking…I guess I like the matte aluminum finish better.
What was going on with Mazda’s CX7? Did they really have that abysmal of a year that just the month of June sales eclipsed YTD sales? Mazda’s marketing needs to get its act together.
There’s a data error for Mazda – YTD for CX-7 should be 12,882.
Fixed, with apologies.
Fleet vehicle sales? Lots of Escape Hybrid taxis in NYC.
I think the regular Escape gets a lot of fleet sales, but not so much the hybrids; Ford always seem to under produce them (either because they are not profitable to sell, or less profitable to sell than the conventional Escape). Putting a bunch of hybrid Escapes in NYC seems to be a publicity/brand-awareness stunt.
Who buys the Escape? Women with dogs. Actually, the same can be said for the CRV.
Conslaw …. i had to laugh when i read your post…. Who buys the Escape? Women with dogs. Actually, the same can be said for the CRV.
My mom is wanting to buy a Escape for just that reason , her dogs . Not to mention the dog food , cat food ,and bags of bird seed she buys and feeds her pets and half the animals in the neighborhood with .
I think it would be a great vehicle for her and much easier getting everything out of the back of instead of having to lift it up out of the trunk of her car .
I’m guessing a lot of the Escape is fleet (govt, taxi, rental)…decent vehicle but outdated (with the exception of the drivetrain). Kudos to the Equinox – it’s a great package overall. CR-V and RAV4 are very impressive, since I imagine the vast majority of sales are retail.
Personally I love the style and utility of the CR-V….
The Escape is one of the biggest sellers retail on the lot. Yes, some go to fleets, but not as many as you would imagine.
People seem to forget that the Escape received a very thorough refresh/overhaul in ’08/’09. Technology-wise the Escape has things that none of the competitors do, like Sync, self-parking ability, and electric power steering, and mechanically has 6 speed transmissions on two DOHC engines with variable valve timing. It’s a completely modern vehicle using a platform that has been solidly developed over ten years. Not a ten year old vehicle design by any means.
“I’m guessing a lot of the Escape is fleet (govt, taxi, rental)…decent vehicle but outdated (with the exception of the drivetrain).”
Of course it’s fleet heavy. That’s the only way to explain the numbers.
It’s certainly not very good, severely dated, and outclassed by just about everything in the class.
I sat in a new one at the dealer and the overall feel of the Escape in 2010 is the exact same as a family members 2001…and that is cheap and flimsy.
Funny…..the exact same thing could be said for the Focus too…
Z71, I had the same feeling when I sat in a ’10 model Escape. I initially liked it as it was similar in size to my learners-permit age Explorer that I am looking to replace. It felt actually cheaper than the ’95 XLT I have and didn’t really ride any better despite IRS and coil springs vs. my ancient leaf springs and torsion bars and a flex-a-lot frame. It also wasn’t really any quieter than said ancient vehicle, and on par with road noise with my dearly departed ’00 Contour which doesn’t really surpise me since it shared a lot of parts with the Escape.
The Terrain/Equinox is a great vehicle, as the 4 seems livelier than the 4 in the Escape. Granted both 4 bangers have more horsepower than the ancient pushrod 4.0 V6 in mine and both accelerate faster to 60 as well. I do like the design of the Mariner though, I just hate the design of the center stack and it felt claustrphobic.
My best friend’s parents bought a new Escape a couple of months ago, a red XLT front-drive 4-cylinder model. My friend and I and his future step kids took it on a day trip to Toledo. At first I was kind of like, meh, but after a while the little wagon started to grow on me. It was roomy, the A/C blew very cold, and we averaged 29 mpg during the whole trip, which included a fair amount of city driving. I couldn’t believe it when a week later I found myself test driving one. I still wasn’t “in love” with it, but I could see myself parking one in my garage at a later date.
The new Equinox is incredible, but, and this is just me, I found it to be a bit too nice for me. I guess if I had a family it would be the way to go, but seeing how it’s just me, I don’t need all that flash…
Now, back to the Escape. It seems that here in Michigan that they are easy to get into, as Ford is always offering lease deals, and, everybody and their brother qualifies for A/Z Plan pricing, so they are everywhere.
I was actually a bit meh about the Escape when I first started at the dealership as well. Granted, the 2009 and later models are a huge improvement with the new powertrains, but even the previous models have grown on me.
Some vehicles in the segment have more polish, but once you spend more time in an Escape all of the little design details that maximize utility and usability start to make themselves known. Aside from F-150 buyers, I’d say that we have more Escape customers than anything else who come out of an older one and want to get right into a new one without even looking at anything else.
Brilliant. The Ford Escape: America’s best selling SUV, because the Chevy is too nice for you.
Like another poster noted, add up the Equinox and Terrain sales, and you’ve got a new #2 sales leader.
You just about trip over all of ‘Noxes around here. I wonder how long the ‘Nox will stay in fourth place, it seems like it’s gaining steam every week.
I personally like the styling of it better than anything else, but I haven’t really inspected one to see if it would work for me. Maybe in a few years, when one of my cockroach cars dies.
It’s especially impressive that the Escape is the best-selling compact CUV because Ford insists on calling it an SUV! (What the heck? It’s not on a RWD body-on-frame platform.)
Nullo Modo, I suggest your salespeople take prospects for a drive in an Escape with parking assist. Our car has it, and until we happened to need to parallel-park in San Antonio, we hadn’t seen it at work. The Escape parked itself so deftly we were gobsmacked.
But I do hope the I4 drinks less gas after it gets a few thousand miles under its belt.
They’re taking advantage of people unable to tell the difference. Too many people go by style rather than drivetrain and BOF vs. unibody.
Hell, even one writer on here didn’t understand the difference between CUVs and SUVs!
I wouldn’t call it taking advantage of someone. I don’t think anyone buys the Escape with serious intentions of towing a big load or rock crawling with the thing, I know none of the customers I’ve had on them have wanted to do that. For towing a little boat or a small utility trailer, or driving out onto the beach or down some unpaved roads and trails though, it works fine. Ford calling it an SUV on the website had to be due to some marketing survey where they found more people would be interested if they thought it was an SUV regardless of what they plan on doing with it.
The lines between SUVs and CUVs have been blurred a lot lately as well. While it used to be easy – RWD BOF = SUV, FWD unibody = CUV, now there is a lot of play in the middle. The Grand Cherokee is unibody, but still great offroad. The BMW X5 is RWD, but useless off road. The upcoming new Explorer will be unibody and FWD biased, but is still being designed to be able to handle at least moderate off-roading, probably a lot more than the Cayenne or X5 can do anyway.
You make some good points, and “taking advantage of” was a very poor choice of words on my part.
But though there are exceptions, in general SUV=BOF, off-road capable, RWD-bias, poor fuel economy, while CUV=FWD bias, unibody, poor off-road ability, better fuel economy.
Perhaps a better way of putting it is that if your vehicle has 3 out of 4 of those characteristics one way or the other, it belongs in that category. I can’t think of any off the top of my head that are 2/4, I guess those would be “MUVs” (Middle-Utility Vehicles)? Sort of like how the Astro and Aerostar were nick-named “midi-vans”.
…but is still being designed to be able to handle at least moderate off-roading, probably a lot more than the Cayenne or X5 can do anyway.
The Cayenne is actually pretty good offroad.
I could have sworn I read something about them removing pretty much any trace of off-road ability for the new one in favor of more road-based performance, I could be wrong though.
The Cayenne is the Porsche Cayenne, right? And it’s pretty good off road? The Cayenne goes off road? You’ve got be kidding…
@SomeDude:
No, it’s true.
Do some online searches or check out the TTAC review:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2008-porsche-cayenne-review/
(You might be interested in googling the Trans Siberia Rally. A posse of modified Cayenne’s battling a couple of Grand Vitaras and a few privateers.)
I can, well, one can modify the wee FWD hatch I’m driving, to float. Does not make it a speed boat by default. The rally is one thing, but have you seen any Cayennes (or Grand Vitaras) in the countryside lately? Any Cayennes up North?
Just because they can prep a 911 to run Paris-Dakar does not mean it’s a solid offroader right off the dealership floor.
It’s not too tough to figure out the Escape/Mariner/Tribute’s allure – value. Compared to the nicer (but more expensive) RAV4 and CRV, I’m sure the Escape undercuts the Japanese competitor’s street price by a couple thousand bucks.
For that kind of savings, the Escape (and its twins) is built well enough and the gas mileage and performance is good enough to keep it on top in terms of sales. Personally, I would choose the RAV4 before the Escape, but I wouldn’t begrudge anyone on a budget that went with the Escape, instead.
Is the Escape the only vehicle in the class that is available with a manual transmission (besides the bottom-feeder Patroit/Compass)?
I own a 09 Ford Escape XLT. I love it. I test drove everything on the market in this segment. The 09 with all of its upgrades to me was the clear winner over all in terms of value and utility. I bought the 4 cyl. Gas mileage is good, the car is comfortable and roomy, it is built well and has lots of space and cargo room. I think Ford really hit the sweet spot with this one. It is easy to drive and the power steering is very forgiving and agile to handle. The new sway bars make the vehicle corner very well. As we all know people buy cars not just based on tech aspects but on emotion as well. I beleive this car taps into something uniquely American with its uncomplicated lines and straight forward design. To me it has the simplist design since the old Jeep Cherokee. THat car did well because it was well built and simple. Just like the Escape. For better or worse the Escape hits an emotional and an intuitive button for many Americans. In addition I liked the idea of buying from an American company. I had purchased all overseas makers until this one. I live in Northern Va and see the Escape everywhere. I would buy another one in a heartbeat.
Too bad we still get the wretched four-speed tranny in our Escapes over here.
Despite that tranny, the Escape has always struck me as a not-bad car. It certainly rides better than a CR-V, handles decently, and has a good set of engines (with the new 2.5, the less said about the old, woeful 3 liter six, the better).
Nice to see that the good old 626 platform soldiers on into the new millenium. Not many people bought the car when it was new, but baby, look at her now…
Only thing is… have they fixed that small water-fording issue with the current US Escape?
The 4 cylinder escape has a 5 speed manual or 6 speed automatic; V6 models have a 6 speed automatic.
http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/escape/specifications/engine/
Who would have thought one of the most recalled vehicles in history (First generation) would eventually claim the top spot in sales.
I’d rather go for the RAV4 V6 which is a quick (270hp?), nimble and fun little buggy that will still return mid to high 20’s mileage but kudos to the Escape as well. It’s certainly got the technological gizmos that none of the competitors offer.
“Who would have thought one of the most recalled vehicles in history (first generation) would eventually claim the top spot in sales?”
The X5 is considered a compact CUV? I knew they were small inside…
+1 to women with dogs.
CUVs are great. All the space of a compact car, plus 10x the rollover potential, a nice jittery ride, and 2/3 the mpg, all for only 20-50% more money. What’s not to love?
Oh yeah..I do get to sit up higher. That makes me feel safer. And my feelings are all that matter…except for my dogs, of course.
Exactly the point i’m trying to make around here! Marketing got to the brain of the womens and told them they NEED a little truck…All your point are valid, and it’s a shame…pay more, spend more gas, block the view of the other car all around your Stupid Unusefull Vehicule…i’m really tired of that and sometime i wish gas price would skyrocket so people would be more reasonnable, i would love to see those womens on the news crying about how it’s costly to fill their car…
@GrandCharles: Yes, marketing can convince people to buy ANYTHING… (end sarcasm)
I actually agree with Truckducken, but living in a household of women drivers, I can understand the appeal of the capability to see above other vehicles, the extra traction in bad weather conditions and the security of a vehicle that can get out of many situations that would strand a conventional car.
You may not like their choices, but it doesn’t mean that their concerns are not valid, and also, that they have been co-opted by marketing and advertising.
Personally, I’d be a lot happier with fewer SUVs on the roads, but I realize it ain’t gonna happen. I’m over it.
A friend of mine was in the market for a small sedan to replace her woebegone Saturn SL2. She ended up with a used Escape and loves it to pieces, despite being firmly anti-SUV prior to buying it. Of course, it’s not an SUV, it just looks like one…it’s just an ’02 Mazda 626 on stilts!
Where’s the Tribute? Is it behind even the Outlander in 6-month sales? Yikes.
Also, I’m guessing the CX-7 is on this compact list due to its 4-cylinder motor, while its V6 cousin, the Ford Edge is on a list of bigger CUVs.
On the eastern seaboard, I see quite a few escapes. However, even though there are so many, most seem to be fleet vehicles. I see lots of them owned by the gas company. I also see a lot of fusion and escapes with white US government plates. I work close to a government parking lot, and it is filled with a sea of brand new escapes and fusions with government plates. Many taxis are also escapes. I do see some escapes with private plates …. usually older folks.
Our roads are full of CRV and Rav4 being driven by women. I see a few at every stop light. I like the CRV and Rav4 a lot, but refuse to buy one because it has become a womans car.