Escape makes it easy to…escape the insecurity of winter storms
The opportunity to drive up to 100 new vehicles each year means road-testing so many varied cars and trucks that I don’t really care what’s coming next. Except for a couple of weeks ago, when it mattered a lot, and it turned out to be the ideal, extreme conditions with which to challenge the new Ford Escape.
After attending the media preview for the Chicago Auto Show, I then had to leave Chicago on Thursday and drive to Houghton, Mich., for a hockey series. There is a lot of hockey on the Upper Peninsula, but a lot more snow. It snows there virtually every day, and it can fall with enough force on any given part of the day or night that I didn’t want to be caught in the wrong vehicle while trying to return to Duluth around midnight on a Saturday night.
Ford’s corporate public relations officer had earlier told me that he wanted to get me another try in a new Ford Escape in the heart of winter. Two weeks ago in Houghton, Mich., it was the heart, and maybe the soul, of winter.
I’ve reported on the Escape at its introduction and again after a short test-term chance to road-test it. But I wanted the foul-weather perspective. The Escape is an all-new compact SUV, and I wanted to prove to myself that I had not made a mistake voting for it for Truck of the Year. It didn’t win, being beaten out by the considerably more expensive Acura MDX, which I ranked second and considered an excellent vehicle. But the Escape is a better mainstream choice, simply because of its $20,000-range price.
Those who don’t need the heft of a full-size SUV, and who basically use SUVs the way most people use station wagons or minivans, would be better off with more compact SUVs. The Escape is aimed at challenging compacts like the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V, with the Nissan Xterra, Subaru Forester and the smallest Jeep Cherokees also players in an ever-expanding segment. Designed by Mazda, the Escape is built by Ford, alongside the companion Mazda Tribute.
A bright yellow Escape got me out of Chicago around noon on a Thursday. Amazingly, heading north on I94 westbound, I could then continue north on Hwys. 141 and 41 in varying combinations, up the Wisconsin shoreline of Lake Michigan, all the way to Houghton. I estimated it would take eight hours. I didn’t estimate driving through all four seasons.
It was 48 degrees and foggy in Chicago when I left. As I drove north, the fog intensified, and it started drizzling rain on the way up I94 to Milwaukee. As I continued north toward Green Bay, the fog lifted but it got colder. Quite a bit colder, and the rain slowed to drizzle, then turned to freezing drizzle.
No problem. The Escape never flinched, with its front-wheel drive that makes it surprisingly stable even in 2WD setting and with higher-performance tires than a self-respecting “Yooper” might have mounted. It also entertained me well, with its firm bucket seats and its six-disc in-dash CD changer offering my random assortment that ranged from Mark Knopfler, to Emmylou Harris, to Bruce Springsteen, to the soundtrack from “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”, to the slick guitar blues of Guy Davis, to Sheryl Crow, all led off with a compilation of two early Gordon Lightfoot albums.
As the rain turned to sleet, though, I flipped the switch on the dash and engaged the 4-wheel drive, seamlessly even at 50 miles per hour.
Cutting inland a bit, it started to snow — that neat, post-card-style light powdery snow that is such a vibrant part of the ideal winters of our memory. As I crossed the border into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it didn’t take long before my memory of that light, pretty snow was pretty well erased. In its place was a heavy, pelting, driving snow — the kind that makes it worthless to flick on your high beams because the flashback gives you less visibility than the low beams. The Escape’s foglights helped at least to widen the arc of light from the very good low lights.
Driving got more and more treacherous, but the Escape breezed along, and I thoroughly enjoyed the drive, and the adrenaline high that comes with focusing in totally on the conditions at hand.
As the snow turned to whiteout conditions, I passed a snow plow at 45 or 50 on a wide stretch of road, and when I got by, I realized that there was no way to judge what lane I was in except to cast frequent glances at the plowed ridges — the very high, plowed ridges — on either side of the road. When a large truck approached, we’d both sort of lay claim to what we thought was our proper lane, and as we passed, I’d hang on until the blowing wake from the semi could settle down.
One time I inadvertently guessed a tad wrong, and the right-side wheel dropped off the edge of the pavement onto what I’m assuming was the shoulder. No problem, I just eased it back on and the Escape never missed a beat. That, again, is one of its key assets. In larger SUVs, and those with the rear wheels doing the driving, or as the predominant axle of a 4WD system, such a move can lead to a sudden correction, at which time the rear would really like to be passing up the front, and an overcorrection to straighten out can turn a serious situation into a more severe one. With the Escape’s front-wheel-drive
Stopping a couple times for gas and a hamburger, I rolled into Houghton at 9 p.m., with what had approached a kinship with my Escape. I mean, it wasn’t exactly an Antarctica crossing by ski or dogsled, but it helped visualize it.
Snow and ice chunks seemed permanently fused to the running-board rail and the crevices in the front, and the wheelwells, but the agility and secure handling of the Escape made the 20 mile-per-gallon fuel economy, on regular gas, more impressive.
It occurred to me that one of the easiest jobs in the world would be a weather forecaster in Houghton. Each night, you could peer into the camera and say: “Chance of snow tomorrow, 3-5 inches.” That would be pretty accurate, every day. And to get to work, the Ford Escape might be the ideal vehicle — truck of the year or not. Of course, I would mount Nokian Hakapeliitta tires on all four corners, and it would be even better, although I had no trouble with the stock tires, even on ice.
After two days of effortlessly climbing the steep avenues and briefly touring the Houghton area, my midnight drive back to Duluth was similarly a piece of cake — although, as with any piece of cake, the true appreciation is if you can handle the icing.
Tiny Kia Rio handles Mother Nature’s Revenge — once located
OK, OK, I’ll take the full blame. Sometimes, rational reasoning and logic simply doesn’t work, and you have to trust the convergence of stars, or the risk of something like the Sports Illustrated cover-story jinx. It’s along those lines that I am offering my apology for last weekend’s incredible snowstorm.
A week earlier, I wrote a column about how I wanted to be able to test a Ford Escape under the most extreme conditions, in a remote — some might call it desolate — area. So I went to Houghton, Mich., where I could be guaranteed a lot of snow and ice conditions.
In the same auto/motives section last weekend, I wrote about how, if you really were disappointed that we hadn’t had enough snow for skiing, snowmobiling, sliding and other such events, you could make a day-trip, or a weekend jaunt, to Houghton and see how people live with and celebrate heavy snow, and constant snowfalls, virtually by the day.
After writing that column and that travel feature, I was test-driving a new Kia Rio. At least, I think I was road-testing a Kia Rio, which is a new, little compact car built by Korean car-builder Kia. It is one of the least-expensive automobiles you can buy, with a base price of $8,595. It costs a bit more, but not much more, if you add some amenities to make it more pleasant to live with.
My plan was to write about how the Kia Rio is a basic, simple, unfancy car, but a viable option of a modern creation with some high-tech things and a 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty and a 5-year/60,000-mile basic warranty, as compared to a used car that might come with a lot of miles and complete with somebody else’s problems.
I remain unclear about actually driving the Kia Rio very much because last Saturday, when I went out to drive it, I stepped out the door of my home up on the hill in beautiful, downtown Lakewood, and was immediately taken by what a fabulous wonderland awaited me. Everything was covered by a thick, thick blanket of new snow, glistening whiter-than-white as it covered everything in my yard, and in my driveway.
My driveway! Where was it?
I was unsure, because this thick sea of snow was about two or three feet deep in the walkway, and in what used to be a bit of a turnaround area for cars at the end of my driveway. Way across, on the other side of where my driveway used to be, I noticed a neat, oval-shaped mound, where the snow was about eight feet high at its peak instead of only four feet above the ground.
It was right about over there that I could have sworn I’d left the Kia Rio, a 4-door sedan that measures 165.9 inches long, 65.9 inches wide, and 56.7 inches tall.
I threw the shovel over my shoulder and started walking toward the white mound. Except I couldn’t get there, without shoveling a path out thataway. Finally I got near it, and started a workout with that shovel that seemed endless, but finally showed some signs of success. I didn’t realize it, however, until suddenly I saw a flash of dark red in the white. There it was! The front bumper of the bright red Kia Rio, totally obscured under that mountain of snow.
Our neighbor, Greg, works hard and undoubtedly is extraordinarily successful at his job and tending to his family, secretly would rather be plowing things with his pickup truck. Actually, he has a second pickup, a new one, that he drives to work every day, but his favorite pickup — we could call it his backup pickup — is the old, weathered baby with the big plow on the front. He does his own two long driveways, and he does some of the neighbors’ driveways, too. Fortunately, we are among those, otherwise, a week later, I’d still be there shoveling.
He roared in and blasted that snow off the main driveway, which gave me new incentive, because the Kia Rio was only about 10 feet away from that cleared area.
The little Rio started right up, and its little 1.5-liter, dual-overhead-cam 4-cylinder with 96 horsepower and 98 foot-pounds of torque, whirred to life as soon as I shoveled enough to open the door. Actually, I misjudged its length on the first try, and after shoveling the door clear, I realized it was the rear door, so I had to do more to get rid of enough snow to get in the front and fire it up.
Naturally, it couldn’t just be moved. Kia doesn’t exactly mount the world’s greatest snowtires on the Rio, so I had to make sure it was shoveled clear ahead.
I also had to make sure I could see out the windshield, which meant very carefully shoveling several layers of snow off the hood, taking care not to get the shovel close enough to actual metal to scratch anything. I must say, that after many occasions on which I’ve had to shovel out cars, this was the first time I had to shovel off a car.
Once I got the Rio out, the actual height of 56.7 inches was more like 75 inches, with the crown of snow still on the roof. I left it there, knowing it would blow off when I started, and trying to imagine how neat this little red car with the big white slipstream must look like.
When we finally got out and drove downtown, I realized that last weekend’s issues of the Duluth Budgeteer, Superior Telegram and other Murphy McGinnis Newspapers were hitting the streets. I grabbed one, to check what was up. I turned to the auto/motives section to see how it all came out, and the realization hit me.
The high snowbanks, people shoveling enormous piles out of their driveways, and fir trees laden heavily with snow, seemed to have lost a little of their novelty factor in the Houghton travel story. And the Escape drive to the Upper Peninsula in quest to find extreme winter conditions also seemed a little superfluous. Mother Nature has a great sense of humor, otherwise I could have just parked the Escape in my driveway and waited a week for the extreme conditions.
So it was all my fault, that snow that fell and kept on falling. I can only apologize, and pat that little Kia Rio on the hood for keeping on chugging through the snow. As soon as I could find it and shovel it off.
Already excellent, new Passat improved top to bottom for 2001.5
The first trip I ever took to Europe was in 1989, and I still recall the thrill of driving in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and seeing so many fantastic cities, mountains, castles, and automobiles.
At the time I wrote about the 10 neatest cars you CAN’T buy in the U.S., for whatever reason. One of those was the Volkswagen Passat, which was a nicely styled, efficient family sedan, larger than the Jetta, but more compact than larger, bulkier sedans.
One year later, in 1990, that part of my premise was wiped out because Volkswagen decided to bring the Passat into the U.S., and it has been a solid vehicle in VW’s mix ever since. The car has been upgraded and revised several times, and the 1998 model was so impressive that a couple of months ago it was named the world’s best family sedan in the $20,000-$25,000 price range by Automobile magazine — ahead of numerous newer models.
A week ago, I got the chance to take a trip to Atlanta for the introduction of the all-new Passat, which is called the 2001.5 model, as a mid-year vehicle. I will resist the temptation to dwell on strolling down Peachtree Street in a golf shirt in 71 degree weather, after a long day of test-driving the new cars in the rolling hills outside Atlanta, knowing it was the same day it was 13 below in Duluth and much colder in the surrounding towns.
It is interesting that Volkswagen chose to introduce the new Passat right now, and is calling it a 2001.5 instead of simply capitalizing on the expanded model year by calling it a 2002 model. But there is no question VW has taken an exceptional family sedan and improved upon it. Passat, by the way, means the “prevailing wind of the Southern hemisphere.
“The current Passat is a great car, but we couldn’t afford to stand still,” said Frank Maguire, the vice president of sales and marketing for Volkswagen of America. “The previous Passat was a success because it offered some German automotive attributes that midsize buyers wanted, but never expected in a midsize car.
“We call it a family car with flair, and it gives buyers a logical step up from Jetta and Golf. Our marketing approach is to make sure the Passat offers refinement, design, performance, value, and a unique personality. We think it’s more ‘upper’ than ‘crusty.’ ”
Can you tell Maguire is into marketing?
Stefan Krebsfanger, a German engineer on the new Passat project, said the previous Passat delivered the best value when it was introduced, and stood out “among a sea of competent competitors.”
“The new Passat raises the bar even higher, with a total of 2,300 changes,” Krebsfanger said. “It improves on the previous Passat’s 5-star safety rating. We kept the strength of the previous design and elevated it. Only the doors and the roof are the same as on the old car.”
Current Passats, sold as 2001 models, have firm, taut bodies that allow a coordination of handling and steering that assures precise handling. The new one’s reinforced body is 10-percent improved in structural rigidity, and has enhanced flexibility resistance. That firms up handling even more, and also allows an already-legendary car for safety to improve its crash-resistance.
The 5-star crash-test rating is as high as the insurance institute gives, and the new car has six airbags, protecting against impacts from the front and side, where a newly designed full side curtain drops down to protect against side impact head injuries the entire width and length of all four side windows.
The car’s wind-cheating aerodynamics measure a mere 0.27 coefficient of drag, where anything under 0.32 is exceptional.
DRIVING A BARGAIN
At a distance, the new Passat may not look like a huge departure in styling, but it has a smoother nose, sleeker lines, and a couple of other interesting style touches. First, you might not notice right away, but there is a thin outline of chrome — chrome! — around the four side windows, and a bit more chrome on the grille, with a much larger VW insignia in the center of the grille.
The similarity to the Audi A4 and A6 becomes more noticeable, although engineers take issue with the frequent statements that the cars share platforms. The A4, A6 and Passat all have different wheelbases, they claim, and the more accurate term is that the cars have some common components, such as front and rear suspension pieces, heat and air venting, brakes, engines, and transmissions.
That is good news for Volkswagen, because Audi has been on a technical surge in the last several years, and the new Passat benefits from the suspension, transmission, and the engines.
Around Atlanta, I got to drive two different models, including a 4-cylinder Passat sedan with 5-speed manual shift, and a V6 with 5-speed automatic, including the Tiptronic clutchless manual.
The 4-cylinder is Audi’s gem of a 1.8-liter, with five valves per cylinder and a low-pressure turbo, which kicks out 170 horsepower, which is up from the current 150, and 166 foot-pounds of torque, up from 155, and now available at just under 2,000 RPMs.
The V6 is not Volkswagen’s own, and very impressive, VR6, but Audi’s very impressive 2.8-liter, 30-valve V6, with 190 horsepower.
After driving both, I’d say the 1.8 feels more flexible and might be more fun to drive, with the 2.8 V6 feeling, and sounding, much more powerful after you get it up to highway speed. The V6 might make sense if you were going to do some heavy towing, but the 4-cylinder provides more than normal drivers could ever want.
The GLS starts at $21,750, which is only $300 more than the current model. Adding options, and going for the V6 with automatic, and all-wheel drive, could boost the GLS to $27,075. Moving up to the flashier GLX boosts the price up to $31,000, although even that is less expensive than the Audi A4, similarly equipped. VW offers the Passat in a station wagon form too, with 4-Motion, which is VW’s term for Audi’s redoubtable quattro system.
The Passat handled twisting, winding roads in the mountains around Georgia, and the turbo, which delivers torque on a broad expanse up the RPM range. Yes, the 2.8 V6 has more power, especially if you get on the gas pedal hard, but the lighter 4-cylinder made the Passat feel as if it might handle better that way.
MARKET RESEARCH
After a daylong drive of the Passats, I was left with two questions. One is that VW officials showed a video of J.D. Power himself, running the most prestigious market research outfit in this country, visiting the Volkswagen plant and telling the German folks what his market research indicates their cars should be designed. I cringed when I heard that, because I like German engineering and styling, and the last thing I’d want would be for U.S. marketers to start telling Germans how to build cars for us.
No wonder there is more chrome on the grille and chrome outlines on the windows. No wonder the taillights have changed from a nice, solid block of red to an odd six-segment thing with the taillight being the top and bottom, the backup light inside on the middle, directional lights the outside of the middle, and two little round superimposed lenses for the actual brake lights. It works, of course, but it honestly looks more like something that might have been pulled from a Hyundai parts bin than from a German manufacturer.
Similarly, there are chrome rings around the new, round instruments, adding a sort of retro look to the gauges.
The other major question I had was why the car wasn’t called a 2002 model. Here’s the deal. To be legitimately labeled a certain year, only one January 1 date can exist in a car’s model year. And Volkswagen has been shipping Passats to dealerships since December, to ramp up their inventory, so Jan. 1 of 2001 already has passed since the Passats have been shipped. Why, I asked, didn’t VW stash their new cars in Mexico until about Jan. 15, then ship them to dealers?
That would have allowed VW to start selling the new Passat as an all-new 2002 model, and sell it from Jan. 15 on around the calendar and beyond, for the whole 2002 year. Instead, VW will sell the new Passat as a 2001.5 year model, but it seems that both the existing car and the 2002 Passat will take a hit when it comes to depreciation.
Apparently, when J.D. Powers was trying to convince VW to add chrome, he failed to explain to the folks at Wolfsburg, Germany, that in the U.S., people buy the cars, drive them hard, and trade them in, paying close attention to beat the depreciation of the U.S. market.
[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ Everything is smoother out on the redesigned 2001.5 Volkswagen Passat.
2. From the rear, the new body’s flaired wheelwells and the chrome trim around the wide windows were on diaply.
3. A herd of introductory Passats paused at an overlook above Chattahoochee Park’s overlook.
4. New Passat taillights are functional, but seem unusually busy.
DaimlerChrysler rolls concept vehicles out in Twin Cities show
The auto show whirl is as close as it gets with the Greater Minneapolis and St. Paul show currently running at the Minneapolis Convention Center. While the show is nowhere near the size of the nation’s big ones — in Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, among others — it does give prospective customers the chance to see all the new vehicles assembled in one place.
It also has an ever-increasing number of concept vehicles on display, headed by DaimlerChrysler, which is the one company that tends to bring those concepts to life.
At the Minneapolis show, DaimlerChrysler has rolled out the Dodge Super8Hemi, the Panel Cruiser, the Dodge Viper GTS, and the Liberty Sport.
All of those started as concepts, with the Panel Cruiser a closed-in body that turns the immensely successful PT Cruiser into a panel truck.
The Liberty Sport will be the new Jeep, replacing the base Cherokee in the next few months.
The Viper GTS is the coupe version of the Viper roadster, and is the street version of the LeMans racer that has dominated endurance GT racing under the hand of such drivers as Duluthian Tommy Archer.
The Super8Hemi is a bit more far-out than the others, but indicates the direction the company could go in pursuit of futuristic sports roadsters.
The auto show runs through Sunday night.
Toyota Highlander plugs into a previously unknown SUV niche
Toyota has done such a good job of figuring out what American car-buyers want that it now has moved ahead of the marketplace. You want economy cars? Toyota’s got ’em. You want luxury sedans? Toyota’s got those, too. You want SUVs? Toyota not only makes them, it makes more different varieties of SUVs than you may have known exist.
For example, you want a big and durable and historical sport-utility vehicle, you’ve got the Toyota Land Cruiser. If a more modest sized SUV is a better fit, the 4Runner is a solid piece of machinery. Smaller still? How about the RAV4? Then you can branch into Toyota’s Lexus line and get the giant LX470, or the compact and sleek-looking RX300.
That just about covers all the niches in the SUV world, but Toyota didn’t stop there. For 2001, along with completely redoing the RAV4, Toyota has come out with an entirely new Sequoia, which is a Toyota version of the Lexus LX470, and now it introduces the new Highlander.
I recently got a Highlander for a test, right during our last big snowfall. It was perfect timing, even though I was slightly confused when I first got it. From the proliferation of Toyota SUVs, I couldn’t remember whether the Highlander was a large or small, middle or crossover, expensive or moderately priced SUV. I was pleasantly surprised to learn it is a Toyota-version of the RX300, which is one of my favorite SUVs on the market.
The difference is that the Highlander is similarly based on the Camry platform, but while the RX300 is rounded front and rear, the Highlander has more of an SUV-ish squareness to the rear, coming off a nicely tapered nose.
It also stays at or just under the magical $30,000 range, which is sort of the breaking point of SUVs these days.
While the usual path is to build a Toyota, and then upgrade it and make it a bit more expensive with the Lexus nametag, this time Toyota went the other way. The RX300 doesn’t make any pretense about being a rugged off-roading specialist. It will handle some light off-roading, with its full-time all-wheel-drive, but it is primarily for the urban jungles, where 90 percent of SUVs are driven about 99.9 percent of the time.
You can load up an RX300 to the mid-$30,000 range, which isn’t bad these days.
But the Highlander squares off the corners, lightens up some of the accessories, and pares down the price tag, which makes the Highlander both more flexible from a utilitarian standpoint, and more affordable from an every-family viewpoint.
The Highlander I test drove had all-wheel drive, although it also can be purchased in front-wheel-drive only, which probably would work in most applications. But Up North, in this season of endless snow, all-wheel drive worked just fine, thank you.
There is no low-range lock on the Highlander, which is the single most prominent method for discerning whether it is serious about going off-road. It doesn’t need it, of course, because Toyota has the Land Cruiser, 4Runner, LX470 and Sequoia to handle those assignments.
Power comes from the familiar dual-overhead-camshaft, 3.0-liter V6 engine that Toyota has used in the Camry, 4Runner, RX300, pickup trucks, and numerous other vehicles. It is as close as any standard engine comes to being bulletproof, and it delivers more than adequate power and fuel efficiency.
The V6 turns out 220 horsepower and 222 foot-pounds of torque, which is plenty for a midsize vehicle.
The all-wheel-drive system has a center viscous-coupling device that distributes torque to the front and rear axles, varying the mix whenever slippage suggests it should send more to the other axle. It worked smoothly and gave no hitches of hesitation or jerkiness, now matter how much ice and snow we confronted.
The traction was good, and the handling, with the smooth stability of the car-like chassis and MacPherson strut suspension with stabilizer bars fore and aft. It doesn’t feel as tall as it looks, with an always poised and firmly planted stance.
Neatly styled alloy wheels, and a stylish front end, with large headlights covered with glass lenses and a prominent, fairly tall grille. The lines blend well into the side, with a styling contour riding over the front wheelwell and another one at a slightly lower level above the rear wheelwell, just enough to prevent it from looking too slab-sided.
Inside, the Highlander is efficient, friendly, and built to work without being pretentious or gimmicky. There is substantial room with the two bucket seats up front and a rear seat that will hold three without trouble. That leaves a lot of storage space at the rear.
An unusual styling touch is that the Highlander has the normal instrument panel and center dash array to house the audio and heat-air controls, outlined in woody plastic trim. Below that center dash area there is a large compartment that houses the automatic shift lever, ahead of the usual floor-shift location, and contained in this compartment that also has a little lower cubicle.
With typical attention to detail, Toyota armed the Highlander with all the latest safety gizmos. It has traction control available, and a skid control device as well, along with the latest antilock brakes and a brake-assist control that senses, from the severity with which you jam on the brakes, whether you’re attempting to make a panic stop or not, and can give you full braking force, or at least the maximum that the antilock will allow.
Airbags are standard, and side airbags are available.
Keeping the options down to a minimum can keep the sticker price down to around $27,000, and even less if you choose the base 2.4-liter 4-cylinder engine. The V6 will be the basis for sales projections that might be aggressive, but the Highlander fits in well in a niche right between the RAV4 and the 4Runner. That’s a niche I didn’t know existed, but it works, nonetheless.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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