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Comments
I notice that the Freestyle packs four cruise control buttons together in the space where my Escape has two. Any owner care to comment regarding how easy (or not so easy) it is to navigate these buttons, say in the dark with gloves on?
I'm also interested in the preciseness of the cruise control. Press the accelerate button four times on my Escape and you accelerate 4mph. Not so with many of the competitors. How about the Freestyle?
about 65$, and they come in a pack of 4 so nothing for the last row.
Stylie
I've solved one problem - the hitch. Now, I need Splash Guards. Searched the forum, only one request for info in Dec.
Anyone able to find molded splash guards?
Chris Mullen
Fairfax, VA
Did not like the excessive engine noise. It was definitely too loud for my taste.
1) When will this car's engine noise problem get fixed? 2006? 2007 2008?
Otherwise it was a nice vehicle but I would never buy it because I found the engine noise annoying and worse than any car I have recently driven (Camry, Mazda6, Sable, Focus, Odyssey, Acccord/Acura).
2)My 2nd gripe is no ESC. It's static rollover ranking is similar to Pilot and XC90, but each of these offers ESC for extra control. Toyota offers ESC on many different velicles, while Honda equips all taller vehicles. How long will I have to wait for ESC? 2006? 2007? 2008?
3) That said the Freestyle is nice and I would buy it but for those 2 issues as I like the medium ride height; it is really unique in this regard - not too tall and not too small.
4) I heard something about a Mercury Freestyle:
Which comes first a 3.5L (hopefully quieter) Freestyle with ESC, or a Mercury Freestyle with 3.5L and ESC? When is either likely to happen?
5)I personally do no care about the extra horsepower a 3.5 would bring, but anything that would improve the sound of the 3.0 L would be welcome.
Supposedly, it will not come with the 18" wheels, only 17".
Interestingly, final order day for the 2005 FS is May 20th. Job 1 for the 2006 FS is scheduled
for July 18.
Why bother at this late stage for the FWD LTD?
It will be a model year old in three months!
You know you're right about losing value thru depreciation, so if that's the case might as well shoot for the '06 ASAP.Hopefully the price won't go up much and possibly include Stability Control.
Also wonder if they will give you a decent credit should you still decide to take a late '05 LTD/FWD with 17" wheels as an incentive.
Amazing how the lack of wind-noise makes you notice other noises more easily.
"It's static rollover ranking is similar to Pilot and XC90, but each of these offers ESC for extra control."
When's the last time you drove your car in a "static condition"?
I seem to recall reading a web page about the "rollover tests", and the conclusion was that the'r laughable. In fact, I believe it was pointed out that a car like the Corvette didn't do so hot on the static test. LOL.
1) Where is Ford getting this hideous paint scheme ? I don't want that tacky 2 tone GM theme of contrasting plastic stuck on as an afterthought. I drove a model that was silver with a darker contrasting theme around the wheelwells. It ruined what would have otherwise been a beautiful paint job. That is my nit-pick gripe.
2) MAJOR: GET ANOTHER ENGINE. This 3 liter engine does not have NEAR enough torque to handle this weight of vehicle. I shudder to think how it would behave with several people and a load aboard. This engine is also NOISY and drones under acceleration. IF Ford can ditch this engine and come up with the rumored 3.5 liter, with that sweet 6 speed auto ASAP, I would buy one of these in a heartbeat. As it looks now, I will probably buy a Honda Pilot.
They are not easy to find in our configuration, so we had to settle on a color that would normally be our first choise.
Still....highly recommended in this price range and segment.....we will not drive a mini van!!
Perceived lower Ford reliability doesn't help. True cost to own numbers for the Freestyle much higher than Pilot as well.
"A real purty Norsea Blue SEL with paper plates and a Watsonville dealership license plate holder."
Internet has been down all week because we just got a new roof on the house and my two way internet antenna was in the garage. That wasn't us you were parked next to in Cupertino. We still haven't seen another one, much less a Norsea Blue one. It is a nice color...we really like it. I'll have to see if we can make a trip over to HMB sometime soon to compare rides. We had friends over there (Ken, retired from UA, and Marcy). Ever hear of them?
Secondly, the space between the third row seat and the rear bumper in the Freestyle is greater than in the Pilot. Rear collisions are very common. I would feel safer in the rear of the Freebie.
Finally, this is just an observation, but on the safercar.gov site, the photo of the Freebie in a front end collision collapses with no histrionics at the rear of the car. The photo of the Pilot shows its rear wheels off the ground for the same collision, indicating it did not do as good a job of absorbing the force of a front end collision.
I can appreciate that the Freebie is not everyone's cup of tea, but it is easy to take a narrow view and not see the forest for the trees. Having had my Freestyle since December, there have been no surprises, nothing that my research did not bring out.
For all the SUVs that go flying by, weaving in and out of traffic and wondering why something a foot taller than a car rolls over, no warning sticker or ESC will save them - just make them feel more confident. The driver has the greatest effect on traffic safety...
Amen to that. I certainly don't drive the Freestyle like I drive my Taurus.
You wet your pants long before that.......
This is a good point, in all testing you will see how the car undramatically crunches into the wall/obstacle, without affecting other parts of the vehicle. NO front end dive, no rear-end lifting, etc. All the crash forces are absorbed and transfered around the vehicle which was the main goal of the platform engineering team.
The Territory is derived from the Falcon (yes, SAME Falcon we had in the U.S. decades ago). It's a RWD/AWD platformed vehicle.
The Freestyle is a N.A. only vehicle. It's a FWD/AWD Volvo derived platform.
Either way, verify that it somewhat fits onto the Freestyle.
Whew! We did our roof a few years ago--first and last one we ever do (I say "we:" I made the sandwiches, helped bandaid the blisters, etc.). Yuck.
Asked my hubbie about your friends--may know them on sight. At one point, there were thousands of people working on just the maintenance base alone--alas no longer but after 35 years, it's amazing how many we do know. Feel free to email me.
The Norsea Blue FS belongs to a staff member, so I'll find out who it is and tell them about our little online community.
Reverse sensor just totally became a must-have on all future vehicles for me (sort of like the keypad entry). I got in my car and fired it up and the reverse sensor was beeping. It beeps when I back out of the driveway, when I back up past my husband's truck, etc. So the beeping was going, I look around and didn't see anything. So I decided to get out and check and there was my young neighbor, 3 years old, crouched down behind the car hiding from her brother. We had a little chat about doing that. I hate to think what might have happened if I didn't have the reverse sensor. She didn't move when I fired up the car because I guess she was so focused on hiding--I mean--what the???? For all the people complaining about engine noise, it really isn't that noisy on the outside when you start it up (or anytime, for that matter, in my opinion). Scary, scary, scary.
"You must correct the following error(s) before proceeding:
Screen Name must be letters or numbers."
The screen doesn't really give me a place to correct it, and I think it's correct anyway. Help?
And, yes, like the Escape, you can accelerate a mph at a time, so 4 taps on the accelerate button results in a 4-mph acceleration. Hope this helps.
Please send feedback to us via the Contact us form and someone who can tweak the registration info will help you. Thanks,
Steve, Host
*************************************
March 7, 2005
Dearborn, Michigan. Ford Motor Company told dealers that 2005 Ford Freestyle vehicles with the 3.0L 4-valve engine and the continuously variable transmission (CVT) may exhibit intermittent drivability concerns on deceleration and/or during turning maneuvers.
To solve this drivability concern, Ford will reprogram the powertrain control module (PCM).
Owners who experience intermittent drivability concerns with their Freestyle should consult their Ford or Lincoln-Mercury to have the above mentioned service performed.
At this stage I'll wait to see what happens next and the worst case scenario is that the build date won't start before May 2nd... So if things don't look any rosier I'll place the earliest order for '06 and maybe get some small improvements at nominal increase in cost (I hope).
talked the dealer into throwing in the DVD player for free and they put in an aftermarket one instead of the oem one, but its an 8" screen instead of the 7" ford screen. Only drawback is it doesn't use the ford radio AUX in, it uses a powered FM Modulator that still sounds pretty decent.
Just had The front and second row windows tinted to 35% today
Oh since the DVD player isn't using my AUX button, has anyone figured out how to hook up an MP3 player to that yet?
Oh yeah... I LOVE the car...quite a step up from my Focus.
Steve, Host
RE: you're dealer sponsored discounts
Well, you're doing pretty good, I would say! That's worth more than my touch up paint, for sure. The marketing survey "you could win $500" if you filled it out was a hoot. I figured since not many people drive Freestyles, my chances of winning the money was better than winning the lottery (of course, if I ever actually bought a ticket, my chances might be a little better...) I went onto the website, put in my password, etc. After about 4 questions, a screen came up and said "We have completed marketing in your area. Goodbye." Well, thanks so much, lizard breath.
A previous post complained about that useless clothes hook in the back seats--oh yeah! I feel you there. Traveling with my nice clothes that kept ending up on the floor was not so nice; a serious redo is required on that little item! I was only using two hangars and the hook couldn't handle it. Weak.
I can say that my pretty new Freestyle CVT works very nicely. I certainly hope it continues to.
Odie
Had the same problem on the survey last week and I was ticked enough to send them a short Thank you so much email. Today I received the following so if you're still interested try again.
quote "The survey is now available. I apologize, as we experienced some problems with it over the past couple days. Be assured, that we are interested in what you have to share about your vehicle ownership experience".
PS I threw may card away last week so I don't know if it will work or not!
And completely off topic but perhaps of interest: I discovered a couple more interesting things the car does (I'm usually the last to figure things out, so feel free to laugh at me ;-)
1) the driver's window also goes automatically up--now that's cool! I'm sure I'm last to discover that.
2) you can't lock your keys inside if you've left the keys in the ignition, BUT if you close the door anyway (and ignore the "Yo scatterbrain!" chime) you can hit the keypad lock function and it will lock. Not a smart idea to leave the keys hanging out of your ignition I suppose but it just seemed interesting to me that the engineers didn't plan for that eventuality. They really need to talk to me because trust me, if there is a way to lock myself out, I will surely find it. Thanks heavens for the keypad (and remembering your code!).
We bought the president of the dealership's car. He had already driven it for 7,000 km so we figured that if he didn't have any problems by now, it's a somewhat safe bet. Not to mention, the engine must be well worked-in.
We got a decent deal because it was slightly used. So far, we are really pleased.
We're a family of four and we previously had 2 cars. We ditched our 2nd car (which sat in the garage for 60 days straight over the winter; what a waste of $) and we traded in our 2001 Focus wagon for the Freestyle. So far, we are very happy. We don't do a lot of milage (about 15000 km per year) but we do a lot of short trips.
We decided to get the SEL with all the trimmings because we felt it was time to spoil ourselves a bit. Power this, power that, leather seats, etc etc.
But, reading the boards, I'm starting to get the post-purchase jitters....1st year model, tranny problems, stuff like that. After 7200 km and no problems, should I be overly concerned.
With my 2001 focus se wagon I experienced 2 recalls, but apart from that, I had no complaints.
But, again, so far, I'm very happy. I've been getting a lot of "what the hell is that?" looks and that's cool on the ego. Apart from mine, and the two on the lot, I've only seen one other Freestyle....good or bad sign?
http://www.autos.com/autos/
The Freestyle comes under the Compact SUV Category.
This is supposed to be a very comprehensive analysis of all vehicles in each of their respective categories by INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS.They are ranked by Best In Class in various sub-categories.Some of the info is interesting but what blows my mind is the credibility of some of the discrete items... for example in the "cargo" section, the Freestyle is ranked 18th(???), way behind the Nissan Xterra and Hyundai Santa Fe, rated 1st and 2nd (???). Well look for yourself and be absolutely shocked.