Fizzboy7

I would still point to the Highlander if reliability is tops on your list. The MDX is solid too. New Honda Pilot should debut in a few months and that could also be another consideration. Generally speaking, if reliability is on your short list, stick with the asian brands. Your Kia is also nice, and sometimes it's worth holding onto a car you like and driving the heck out of it. In fact, the more often you get a new car, the more money you are actually losing. This is even true with high mile driving. And the Kia has a very comforting warranty for such longterm usage.

weezer

UPDATE!

So after going to a number of dealerships, endless research, and advice from this forum I may be very close to a decision.

2014 Ford Explorer Limited. MSRP 47,825 Sell price $44,400 then rebates of 3500 total $40,900. I'm very happy with the deal. Drove nice, and love all the extra features. This would be a loan, not a lease so I will not have to keep playing the mileage game. I have never owned a Ford, that would probably be my biggest reservation.

Any feedback?

Fizzboy7

Nice car! You'll enjoy the Explorer. It's a hot SUV right now here in CA. Even the police and highway patrol are getting in on the act.

pbm317

Explorers are nice, but nearing the end of their lifecycle. I just hated how the Explorer and Taurus, despite being massive on the outside, have relatively little interior space compared to other cars of similar external dimensions. But the American companies have always lagged in terms of packaging/spacing, so that's nothing new.

Congrats on getting to a decision.

Fizzboy7

Explorer was all new for 2011, but has yet to receive a facelift. Running behind schedule.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

explorer is great and GREAT deal!

FrankReynoldsCPA

Fords have always done right by me and mine.

mmarshall

Generally a good choice, though the current-generation, according to Consumer Reports, got off to a rocky start on reliability, and the SYNC/MYTouch systems have been a source of owner complaints. So, check those systems out and see if you have any problems with them. Reliability should be a little better now, though, after some of the initial teething problems were addressed.

weezer

Big update, and it's pretty crazy. I'll make the story as short as possible as it spanned over 5 days.

Even though I LOVED my Sorento SXL, I was feeling the mileage crunch. The only other vehicle that fit all my needs, and then some was the Ford Explorer.

Purchased the Explorer Tuxedo Black Limited with 302A. The basic signing of the paperwork happened on Thursday morning July 17th. Vehicle was located within 60 miles and it would arrive on Monday, but maybe Friday. I have always done "dealer swaps" as I usually like only certain color/package options. Truck arrived Friday, but they knew I have a very busy schedule and said I can pick up on Saturday. Saturday morning came, and they said now it won't be ready until Monday. Picked up the car Monday around 5 PM, I had to race off to a photo shoot and didn't spend much time with the vehicle(BIG MMARSHALL mistake, I know). In the finance office the numbers were different... interest was higher, term was longer, bank was different etc. This really bothered me, as it has never happened to me before and the sales manager from the original deal was away. Got the deal fix\ed to exactly what was negotiated and paperwork signed. VIN number was different then the original deal, but this was an identical spec vehicle, so I wasn't too concerned.

Spent about 6 hours with the vehicle that night, and woah sadly it was disappointment after disappointment. SYNC is one of the most poorly designed systems I have ever interacted with. I'm a tech guy, and was totally ok with it being complicated and a lot of button pushing. I love that stuff... that wasn't the problem. It feels everything was designed by a very good design team in regards to aesthetics, but it feels like Windows 98 is running the actual show. Took forever for maps to redraw, Nav system is AWFUL. Doing basic tasks, some not even related to navigation a "Disc not found" error would pop up constantly. I could go on and on about how awful SYNC is... bottom line is just that it is all gloss no substance. I thought I was buying infotainment light years ahead of everyone else, and the reality is that it tries to be great at so many things it fails at almost everything. Unfortunately until SYNC is made by blackberry, and major change happens I would never consider another Ford.

I also had many other non SYNC related disappointments.
-Heating steering wheel barely got 5 degrees warmer then when off.
-Cross traffic alert in reverse would CONSTANTLY go off when fixed objects were far away... like mail boxes and parked cars not even close. I've been in cars with this system before and generally speaking it only went off when objects were in motion.
-Build quality, what a let down. The roof area where you press the moonroof buttons... so flimsy. Barely a touch and the headliner gets pushed in. Buttons not flush, and the sunglass holder was so out of spec you had to close it 4 times for it to close. Even just the way the sunroof shade opened was very clunky.
-Sync and nav voice muffled, almost sounded like the speaker was blown.
-Blutooth... People could hear me fine, but I could barely hear them... again the volume was fine but very muffled.
-Blind spot warning. Almost no notice is given, the car is practically in your blind spot before it even lights up that someone is approaching. The Kia gives far more notice.

I could go on, but I didn't even get to the climax of the situation yet. Bottom line I am a research guy, and besides for researching the infotainment I thought I did my homework. Was under the impression that SYNC was sometimes slow and complicated, but never even thought it would be so bad from a tech standpoint. I don't even think the steering wheel had a dedicated bluetooth hang up button... many people thought we were disconnected but the call was still live until I toggled to a number of places.

The next morning I had serious buyers remorse. Packed all my gear for a full day of photoshoots. I used the button on the lift gate instead of the remote. I felt a blemish under the paint, then noticed another, then noticed two more. I was absolutely lived. I looked as though the rear lift gate was repainted. Afterwords I noticed there were a number of scuffs on the rear plastic bumper, and the left side wasn't "clicked into" the body properly. I immediately went to the dealership knowing I was stuck, but was going to do whatever I could. Always being a super calm and relaxed person was not going to help... but I have never had an experience like this before.

The first solution was body work at their body shop. I refused. Second option was to swap just the lift gate with a vehicle already on the lot(a sport with different badging and vin number). I also immediately refused. They then offered to let me have my kia back while they came up with a solution. I also said no way, just in case I was in an accident etc... I would own the ford and the kia and be in a real tough spot. I asked for a deal kill letter that was just short and to the point. Shockingly they agreed and said to just discuss what colors and options I would like for the replacement with my salesman in the afternoon to make everything right and have a new vehicle brought in. Totally blown away they killed the contract, gave me a full deposit refund, and did not put a condition that another vehicle must be selected. I never agreed to buy a new one, or accept another vehicle. I thought long and hard all day and decided against it. Could not have been more dissapointed in my experience, but I NEVER thought I would be out of the deal. My 14 Sorento and 12 Azera, as well as my 5 Solaras 99, 02, 04, 07, 99, and GS all blew the ford out of the water with build quality. I still can't believe Ford is not where the foreign companies have been for years. I know the old Kia quality was not there, but our 12 Optima and 14 Sorento are mind blowing in regards to build quality and value... not to mention they drive amazing.

Lesson learned and the new solution is waiting for the 16' redesign on the Sorento or the VOLVO XC90 16'. I'm leaning Sorento, but once I see how the reliability is on the Volvo that is ultimately where I would like to be. Once money is available I would have one 7 seater SUV and a hybrid sedan(maybe one day a Tesla if funds ever allowed, but most likely a accord hybrid or camry hybrid will be it).

Thanks again to this community. I am keeping the dealer info private. ASSUMING they did not know about the damage, or knew that the vehicle delivered had these issues I would give them a very high rating... but if they were aware and the VIN changed intentionally I would be very dissapointed to know that. At delivery the dust wasn't even removed from the dash or plastic. I was in such a rush to get back to the dealer, I never took a picture of the damage. I have the kill letter, and my refund back in full... so moving on from this. Keep doing your research, I even took an extra day to decided to give myself more time to make sure it all worked. Sometimes you just miss it.

FrankReynoldsCPA

That sucks to hear. . I've found the build quality in my Fusion to be excellent. It looks like Ford will be replacing Microsoft in the future. I've had a couple hiccups with Sync, but I don't have the touchscreen model, which I believe had most of the issues.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using IB AutoGroup

spwolf

Moral of the story - ask to have a car over the weekend before buying it :-). I am sure some dealers will accommodate that for $50k vehicles.

I would not trust or distrust any brand automatically but I would thoroughly check my choice, since you are going to be living with it for years.

weezer

@brettjack - I have heard that about the fusion as well. In fact I was super impressed with it at the auto show. That, and the Lincoln MKZ felt like some of the most impressively put together vehicles there. SYNC with the full touch screen I feel is absolutely the big part of the issue when coupled with NAV(the nav is worse then the old Kia system and the system from 2 generations ago in Toyota / Lexus.

At SPWOLF - That is a great idea. Never even thought to ask that. The Kia and Toyota dealerships have both offered me cars for a day in the past. That would be plenty of time for me to put it through it's paces.

This could all be rumor of course but I have interacted in the past with some very high level people at the Ford plants and I hear most of the problems are in their old plants and have been described to me as dungeons. I'm sure this would apply to all brands that sometimes the better cars come out of the newer and more updated facilities.

Overall I was really bummed because I have consistently been hearing such great things about Ford. Hopefully when they switch to Blackberry engineers for SYNC it will resolve a lot of issues. Someone really needs to eat some humble pie though and put some physical buttons back on the dash.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

The s[t]ync system is why my next vehicle won't be a ford or Lincoln. the nav/audio/etc on my 06 explorer though has been excellent. in fact i just got a new map upgrade and it's got a ton of map data and poi updates. it's still fast and pinpoint accurate. i added an easy install kit a while back to give me an ipod input which sounds excellent.

As for the damage that's just pathetic. I would have walked from the deal when I saw the Vin and money changes without explanation.

Anyway glad you got your money back.

Did you look at a Durango?
Top Citadel is very nice.

spwolf

hm, I don't think consistency has much to do with age of the plant... newer equipment will give you smaller panel gaps, but all of them should be consistent - it probably has to do more with inspection and fault tolerance. I may have been spoiled in my 8-9 years with Toyota but I have to say that I never saw differences between vehicles in build quality. If one vehicle had "larger gap" or "misaligned" panel, every single one had the same thing - thats something up to the equipment and $$$ of the vehicle.

mmarshall

Don't kick yourself or feel bad because of it. We all make mistakes...I bought several new domestic cars that turned out to be lemons.....especially back in the late 70s and early 80s when it was hard to avoid them. You have the enormous advantage of having learned from hindsight and your experience.....just as I did. You've got a lot of your life still ahead of you, and there will probably be many more opportunities for a purchase. Next time, just try and inspect the car a little more before you take delivery, that's all.

That's one reason why I don't like so-called "dealer swaps"...even if it makes it easier to get the color and options you want. Things can happen to the vehicle on the ride down from the other dealership......rock chips, dings/scratches, paint/trim damage, flat tires, etc.....