My wife has a Titanium Escape on order with all the options except the full leather seats for $700 - the standard leather and cloth sport seats were a great fit and were a selling point as this is the only model to have them. As we had access to Ford X-Plan pricing, which is A-Plan X 4%, we got roughly 6% off invoice or basically what a decent negotiator would get if they shopped around. Add in Costco $1000 and taking a credit of $750 instead of the free winter tire package and the pre-tax price was just over $39k all fees in and before GST - glad again to live in Alberta and only pay $2k in tax. We decided to finance @0% for 4 years, saving another $4,000 compared to if you had to go for the standard 4.99% when it's the Employee Pricing (A-Plan) Event.
All this to say, with the level of content, including the powered (and upgraded hands-free) hatch, blind spot and cross traffic sensors, nav, upgraded stereo and of course a pretty great handling and accelerating drivetrain, I wasn't cross shopping other entry level CUV's but testing it against GLK's, XC/60's and X3's. Optioning those vehicles to the similar level and factoring in financing, taxes, need for premium fuel combined with much worse fuel economy plus higher insurance and we were looking at roughly a $20k premium for the (slightly more) premium brands. So, when someone says that the top level Escape is not a good value versus the dull and ungainly looking CR-V, I simply look at it from the other side and say it's a great value versus the Euro CUV's. And the Acura RDX is around $6k more with the tech package and makes me yawn looking at it.
