My 2012 Edge Limited AWD is 20 days old today, so I thought I'd join the forum and write about my first impressions. We traded a 2003 Mercedes E320 sedan for the Edge. The Mercedes was a great car, but we were looking for something that was a little bigger, better in the snow, and a little less expensive to maintain. We also checked out the Explorer, the Toyota Highlander, and the Mercedes GLK before deciding to go with the Edge. The aggressive styling ("edgy"), the features, the technology, and strong incentives drew us to the Edge. We ended up $700 under "invoice," $2000 in rebates, 0% for 60 months, and no payments for 90 days. Seemed like a no-brainer.
This is my first Ford product, and I was concerned about giving up the luxury and quality of the Mercedes for a Ford. Granted, the Ford doesn't have the real wood trim that Mercedes has, and the interior door panels are hard plastic on the Ford, but otherwise the Edge holds it's own. In fact, the seating on Edge is leather, compared with a synthetic material on the Mercedes. The "fit and trim" seems to be good on the Ford, and 20 days in there are no rattles.
There were two big draws to the Edge that sold me - the technology and the sunroof. I'll start with my impression of the sunroof. In a word, it's COOL. I find myself keeping the shade open all of the time compared with my other cars where I would close the shade on sunny days. The level of tinting is perfect. The operation takes a little getting used to. There are two buttons used to control the roof - one only tilts open and tilts closed while the other slides the main panel back and forth and controls the shade. My thought is that one button should control the shade, and the other the roof, but once you get used to everything it works just fine. The system is equipped with a large fabric wind damper that pops up when the panel is slid back. It looks a little odd, but it seems to work well.
Technology was another big factor in deciding on the Edge. I wanted everything and I got it. The keyless entry and push button start work great. The adaptive cruise control and the rain sensing wipers are awesome. Want to really impress your friends? Take them for a ride at night and watch their mouths drop when you show them the ambient lighting. To really put them over the "edge" change colors on them. Very cool. The exterior front lighting also gets a lot of attention. The Edge really shines at night.
Now for the elephant in the room - MFT. You'll read a lot about the My Ford Touch system and SYNC on this forum and elsewhere. If you read the blogs you'd probably be as nervous as I was about the whole thing. Like I said, I wanted all of the gadgets on the car, so I had a long talk with my dealer before committing to MFT, and he assured me that all of the previous-version glitches have been worked out. Twenty days in my impression is mostly positive. There's a lot packed into the system, so you need to take an hour or two to run through everything. I'd send my wife into the store and stay in the parking lot just to take the time to learn it all. The "MFT Guide" app on my iPhone also helped. You have to remember, it's a Microsoft product, so (at least in my opinion) it's less intuitive than Apple designed products. I'm not bashing - just trying to offer some perspective.
Thankfully, I haven't experienced many of the problems in my first 20 days that you'll read about on the forum. The screen did "get funky" once on shutdown. I turned the car back on, let it reboot, and turned the car off again and all was well. That only happened once. I've tried the satellite weather radar twice in storms so far, and both times it showed no rain. That, to me, is a Sirius issue, not a Ford issue. This problem is discussed elsewhere on this forum, so I'm going to try the solution given there a little later. I do have some small scratched on the screen that I now see after cleaning it with the Ford supplied cleaning cloth. They may have been there when I bought it, the car wash guys may have put them there, or I did it when I cleaned it. They are hardly noticeable, but the dealer is working on a solution regardless. I do recommend everyone is very careful when cleaning the screen. I also HATE the blinking circle around the triangle representing the car on the navigation screen. I get the circle - it's on my Toyota navigation too - but why does it have to blink? I find it distracting at night, so I tend to keep the home screen displayed after dark instead of the navigation screen. When you consider everything MFT does, my issues are minor. All things considered I think it's cool.
So, after almost three weeks, I'm liking my Edge. It's got style (unlike the Highlander) and it's got technology (unlike the GLK). I worry a little about the future when I read about problems posted on this forum, but for now I'm impressed. I suppose, most people are probably drawn to posting to find the solution to a problem than to tell everyone everything is good. I'll keep you updated!
