Rental Experience

[bri23]

I have a Ford Edge on order so I jumped at the opportunity to pick one up as my recent rental car and give it a good drive rather than the limited dealer test drive. It was a Limited with the Ford touch system so pretty well has everything that mine will have. The car only had 400 milesl when I picked it up and I put another 500 on it. The car was produced in December so I assume it had the most up to date My Ford Touch system available.

 

The Good:

Great engine. Plenty of power. Runs smooth.

Very quiet interior. Little road noise.

Roomy interior in both front and back. Great cargo space.

Ford Touch was pretty intuitive to pick up and use.

Ford Touch was pretty responsive. Did not notice lags that I had read about. New version must have corrected that problem pretty well.

Iphone pairing was quick and easy for phone use.

Iphone indexing was fairly quick for music use.

When it works right - voice command was pretty cool and beyond anything else out there. Immediate calls. Immediate track or artist. Very cool.

 

The Bad:

On the way home from airport Ford Touch goes blank . It reboots itself and seems to run normal.

Music streaming did not always operate properly even using USB. Sound would stop but systems still continues. Had to unplug and replug to fix.

Experienced the common Bluetooth streaming issues with iphone.

Seats were comfortable but the position of the headrest and the inability to adjust it left me sore the next day after driving 500. Maybe just a new seat. Maybe more than that.

As mentioned the emergency flasher placement is terrible. I must have turned that thing on by accident 10 times.

I had an external GPS on the dash. With everything else in this car another item was definitely a distraction. I completely regret not ordering the navigation.

Phone misdialed several times using voice command. Very embarassing to call random people in my phone directory. Sometimes it was not even close to right.

 

Verdict:

After the experience of a brand new car with only 500 miles I have to say that I have some serious concerns about going through with the purchase. So many things to like about this car but should anyone really buy a $35k+ car that experiences so many issues? I want a brand new car to work and after the fun of the new gadgets wears off I think I might be simply left frustrated and out of patience that things just don't work. What will these issues do to resale of this car? What on earth will happen after the warranty period runs out.? We will be clamoring to dump these cars because we simply can't afford the repairs. Doing some serious reconsideration and very glad I took the opportunity for this extended drive.

[MrHappy]

Couple items:

 

The radio issues are primarily fixed with a software update now (minus the USB music, ours still skips at the moment) This would resolve items 1 and 3.

 

I agree on the emergency flashers but you get used to it honestly and isn't a reason not to purchase.

 

The headrests take a bit of getting used to, I give you that one, but again, not enough where I don't feel comfortable driving now.

 

As for the warranty, 2 things to note: With electronics you'll typically see issues off the bat or really not at all, and highly unlikely after 3 years if they hadn't shown up prior. If it is still a concern, Ford PremiumCare extended warranties are relatively inexpensive for these vehicles and cover most everything but wear/tear items if that helps put your mind at ease.

 

Is it perfect? No. Would we buy again? Absolutely in a heartbeat. It's really a great, solid vehicle.

[bri23]

Couple items:

 

The radio issues are primarily fixed with a software update now (minus the USB music, ours still skips at the moment) This would resolve items 1 and 3.

 

I agree on the emergency flashers but you get used to it honestly and isn't a reason not to purchase.

 

The headrests take a bit of getting used to, I give you that one, but again, not enough where I don't feel comfortable driving now.

 

As for the warranty, 2 things to note: With electronics you'll typically see issues off the bat or really not at all, and highly unlikely after 3 years if they hadn't shown up prior. If it is still a concern, Ford PremiumCare extended warranties are relatively inexpensive for these vehicles and cover most everything but wear/tear items if that helps put your mind at ease.

 

Is it perfect? No. Would we buy again? Absolutely in a heartbeat. It's really a great, solid vehicle.

 

Thanks for the peptalk. I needed it between the Consumer Report review and my rental experience. I may completely regret it but I'm still going through with it because it has so many unique features and minus all of the features it's just a great car to drive. This was a brand new rental. I pulled the window sticket and it was produced in December so I have to imagine it had the most up to date software upgrades. I guess the warranty should cover most things as long as it does not become inconvenient with lots of trips to the dealer. Does anyone know how to fix my issue with having the phone call random people? Can you change a setting to ask the car to confirm the person before making the call? Some of my issues may just be getting comfortable with the technology.

[ecb]

First of all, renting the Edge was an excellent idea that I think I'll do when car shopping in the future ! You managed to discover the bulk of the MyTouch bugs that were just not evident to me in a test drive (or in reading reviews outside of this user forum)

 

I've had the same issues with the USB and the main touch screen rebooting and I purchased my Edge about 4 weeks ago and I confirmed that it has the most recent version of MyTouch (2.4, I believe) i have to say that the issues with MyTouch are becoming a source of frustration. In my opinion, there will always be a lag with MyTouch. Software updates will hopefully stabilize the system so it doesn't reboot, but I think there is a hardware limitation can't be resolved with software fixes. That being said, I have not found the usual lag to be a huge issue. If they keep the system from rebooting and from hanging then I think it becomes one of the best car system on the market. My concern is that Ford/Microsoft has already put out a few updates and there are still stability issues. So, I'm wondering how long it will take Ford/Microsoft to provide a truly stable system.

 

FYI...

 

I have noticed that most of my problems come from using my iPhone as a USB device. The system attempts to reindex the iPhone every time it connects and that causes the entire system to hang (though it doesn't hang every time it reindexes). If I had to guess, the reindexing is a pretty resource intensive task and once available memory and cpu are low the whole MyTouch system becomes unstable.

[k1200rsport]

I still have issues with My Ford Touch, where it rests itself and sync suggested a TSB which dealer performed but calender is still off. Sync and dealer said they are working on it.

I do not use Iphone for music but no issues with Ipod.

Voice recognition 90% is ok.....and I've an accent, so may be my accent.

[sandpiper]

The headrest issue bothered me for about the first day. I've had it a month now and, until reading this thread, forgot it was ever an issue.