Ron,
I don’t mean to be picking on the Escape. After your reply I did a search and the first place that I saw had over 200 reviews on the Escape, which were all over the place, but far from a majority were glowing.
http://www.carreview.com/SUV/Ford/PRD_49254_1524crx.aspx#reviews
I’m not sure what you imply by ”professional” reviewers, but folk that live with a vehicle seem to have a better perspective of their steed than the folks that use them for a short period and pick up a check for their efforts.
My own biased opinion is that there is no hope that American car manufacturers will rival the quality of the Asians and Germans, not that the Germans are exactly hallmarks of excellence in engineering anymore......
fahrgewehr2 My sister’s Escape was bought all of 2 years ago and sold last year. Do you think Ford has improved their "job 1" recently?