Test drive: 2013 Ford Escape is all-new, with sleek looks

— -- Ford Motor remade its Escape compact SUV so thoroughly that only the name and one engine carry over into the 2013.

The 2013 even is made at a different factory, now in Louisville, instead of near Kansas City, Mo.

The boxy old Escape was a big seller for Ford, so starting over was a risk. The new version hit showrooms in June and sales that month jumped 28% from a year ago, according to Autodata. But sales tumbled nearly 12% in July.

The July slip was at least partly because of recalls. One recall is because the carpet might interfere with the brake pedal. The other one is for potential fire risk in models with the 1.6-liter EcoBoost engine, the one that most people are expected to choose.

Ford banned dealers from selling those models until they were fixed.

Ford is telling owners not to drive them and is having dealers pick up the vehicles to fix them.

The new styling is arresting, and upper-level models have premium interiors and a list of features befitting luxury models.

The base model with the engine from last year's Escape is intended mainly for commercial and fleet buyers and finished last among six competitors in the Cars.com/USA TODAY/Motor Week $25,000 Compact SUV Shootout published July 23.

The 1.6- and 2-liter engines are what Ford calls "EcoBoost" — Ford's heavily marketed brand name for engines that use a combination of turbocharging and direct injection, the newest type of fuel injection that can boost both power and fuel economy.

On the plus side:

•Comfortable seats. The padding appears thin, but could be an illusion. No distress on long road trips. The back has adult leg and toe space, and the rear seat back reclines.

•Tech gadgets. One optional system warns of cross traffic when you back up and tells if the traffic's coming from the right or left. Not unique, but still uncommon, especially in smaller vehicles.

Another lets you open the tailgate with a kicking gesture under the rear bumper, nice when your hands are full. It only works if the key's nearby, so your pets dashing under the car won't trigger the gate (unless your dog swallowed your key fob).

•Sleek looks. The previous Escape was boxy. The new one's not. Its roofline is about 4.5 inches lower, and ground clearance drops half an inch.

The streamlining makes the 2013 look smaller, but it's not. The 2013 has a slightly longer, wider body than the previous model. It rides on a longer wheelbase and a wider track, so looks and feels more stable.

But despite the stretched wrapper, the 2013 Escape isn't uniformly bigger inside. It has less shoulder room, but more hip room. Less headroom, more legroom. Slightly less passenger space overall, slightly more cargo space.

Besides the curious lack of a bigger interior, other factors dampen enthusiasm for the Escape.

Impressions are from a couple of days in a mid-level, front-drive model (about $29,000), and a week that included a 1,300-mile road trip in a Titanium all-wheel drive (about $35,000, and that's without leather upholstery or a sunroof).

Issues:

•Drivetrain performance. The FWD model had the 1.6-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder that's surprisingly quick and would be a good choice for many buyers. But its six-speed automatic engaged harshly when being shifted from reverse into drive twice. Worked fine otherwise.