My wife had same, first gen for about 3 weeks. I was reading owners manual and came to battery service section. Dash had to be removed to service the battery! Traded in for something else next day.
Just get rid of that oil bath air cleaner and vacuum-operated windshield wipers.
Talk about a pain, I had a 2017 Ford Escape. The wind shield cowl covers 75% of the battery. One needs to remove the air box and tubes to get to the front of it, then you need to carefully lift and slide the battery, The dealership wants $250 for the battery and $400 for the installation. Took me an hour and a half, not including returning the original battery. Escapes EAT batteries if you don't drive them every day. Replaced two myself and one under warranty.
I had a 1977 Indy Pace car (Delta 88).
Heater core began leaking and you had to take a lot of the ac box apart to get to it.
Not to mention taking the AC stuff apart.
I got to looking at it really good and I could cut a 7x2.5" piece of that ac box out right above the heater core under the hood of the car and slide it right up and out.
I had it replaced in less than 40 minutes and the top siliconed back down.
No reason to make stuff difficult to work on.
Heater core began leaking and you had to take a lot of the ac box apart to get to it.
Not to mention taking the AC stuff apart.
I got to looking at it really good and I could cut a 7x2.5" piece of that ac box out right above the heater core under the hood of the car and slide it right up and out.
I had it replaced in less than 40 minutes and the top siliconed back down.
No reason to make stuff difficult to work on.
My son is a Ford mechanic and probably works on Escapes more than anything else. From a design standpoint they leave quite a bit to be desired. Many of the issues on them require pulling the instrument panel and (if I remember correctly) that requires removal of both doors. He’s probably done a dash pull on around 30 of them and he convinced us to get rid of ours.
Had an 01 Intrepid, was the right front tire, and cover was in the front of the inner wheel well. really liked that car but working on left a lot to be desired plus motor was crap, was on 2nd motor with less than 125,000 miles on it
My Sister, Brother in law have 2017 Escapes. My brother in law's is loaded, AWD and the 2.0 liter ecoboost. No trouble in well over 100K miles (not even a new battery!). My sister's was passed to my nephew. At 70K miles developed a blown head gasket (1.5 liter 4 cylinder ecoboost, 2 wheel drive.) Fortunately for them there was a technical service bulletin on the issue and Ford replaced the engine free of charge on a 7 year old out of warranty vehicle. Point is, dig into issues, go to the dealership, repairs do get done free in some instances.
