Domestics rule the compact crossover segment this month, with the ageless Escape standing above the crowd (albeit without weighting for fleet sales). Again, Honda and Toyota show bigger drops than Nissan’s Rogue, reinforcing the perception that Nissan has done a remarkable job recovering from the tsunami. Intriguingly, Jeep’s Patriot is essentially flat year-over-year, while the Compass has bounced back on the strength of its redesign… but only to about the Patriot’s rate. Meanwhile, Hyundai has yet to find the disruptive success in this segment that it’s enjoying in the C- and D-sedan segments.
In Year-To-Date numbers, Escape still enjoys a strong lead while CR-V jumps to second and RAV4 beats the Rogue for fourth. Compass looks less strong over the year, and Hyundai is still being outsold by Kia. In more surprising news, Juke beat Mazda’s CX-7 and VW’s sluggish Tiguan, while the MINI Countryman outsold the Mitsubishi Outlander
If you add the Chevy Equinox to the GMC Terrain, you get approximately the same as the Ford Escape.
Are the costs of supporting two versions of the same vehicle outweighed by the extra profit (?) of a GMC Terrain?
This is a similar situation to full size pickups, GM splits the sales into two versions of essentially the same truck.
It costs VERY little for GM to take an Equinox and make it into a Terrain. Yet they can turn around and sell it for MORE than the Chevy.
GM makes a mint on all of the GMC models.
And, wow, fleets are loving the mediocre Escape.
That is true as to tooling costs, but the added marketing costs take away from the other brands. They only have “x” number of dollars and they have to spend it on both the Chevy and GMC instead of just on the Chevy. The only rationale I can think of is that it gives Buick dealers a truck to sell and thus a lot more volume.
Whatever GM spends on producing 2 different versions of the same basic car is still wasted money. I’ve driven both of these, and I’m surprised they do as well as they do, compared to a lot of their competition, they feel cramped, heavy, and slow. I can only assume GM puts a lot of cash on the hood or something.
Wow, the CR-V and RAV-4 cratered. I guess those are the result of post-disaster supply problems?
You forgot the $50,000 SRX!
Tsunami, tsunami, tsunami…
I wonder if they make Solaras for free after so many Camrys are sold?
I have a 2009 Ford Escape and a 2010 Mazda CX-9 AWD. I really like both cars, but if I had to choose one in the midst of a Zombie take over of the world, and I needed to flee to rugged and unfriendly bad lands, I would take the Escape. I really do love my Escape and would buy another one in a heart beat. Ford has managed to make an incredibly reliable and sturdy car all for a good price.
I have the Mariner version and it isn’t a bad little car. It’s in no way an off-roader but it handles rough Forest Service roads perfectly fine and the tight turning radius makes it a good choice around town. The engine is coarse and doesn’t invite any shenanigans but I don’t expect that from that car. In short, it’s good enough and was a lot cheaper in the used market a couple of years ago than its competition.
Love my Escape, it really is a solid and well-proportioned car with a great sounding V6. The current model, which to me is slightly more bean counter impacted than the original, is stacked high at many dealer lots today. I assume there is s decent amount of cash on the hood.
Locally we keep getting the Mike Roe commercials advertising the “fuel efficient” Escape. Seems a stretch.
I really like how the numbers are white, so it appears that only 1 Jeep Compass was sold in 2010
Another way to look at it is that when the first of four digits in the sales number is a 1, it doesn’t matter too much what the rest are.
1,000?
10,000?
100,000?
1,000,000?
big differences there….
I think Jeep really blundered by keeping around both the Patriot and Compass post redesign. I think if they put the front fascia of the new Compass on the body of the Patriot, it would have been a bigger hit. The combined sales of both outsell the albeit outdated RAV4
Hyundai might find success in this category if they BUILT the Tucson in any quantity and then advertised it! The Tucson has been out for 18 months, and we have yet to get any quantities out in the field. At my store we get one at a time, essentially the same quantity we get of the Genesis Coupe.
Too bad. The Tucson is selling over here like hotcakes (top three in this market). Yet the waiting list is a mile long. Hyundai simply can’t build enough of them to satisfy demand!
Nice to see the Escape still generating lovely sales numbers. Not bad for an old truck built off a secondhand platform from a dead car!
Noted again: Subaru sales falling. Last chart was the Impreza, now the Forester. I wonder if they’re spotty reliability when new, turning to poor reliability when older, is catching up with them?
True Delta and Consumer Reports don’t seem to show the overall reliability issues you mention, when compared to other vehicles. However, the continued lack of supply resulting from the tsunami is well documented.
My own personal and highly anecdotal evidence (beginning with a 94 SVX – owned since 96, original tranny; no real non-wear issues other than a faulty alternator (which is arguably a wear item) last year; now my college age daughter’s daily driver) that Subarus are extremely durable and dependable albeit not perfect. Wife’s 2000 Outback has been the worst – and it was faultless for many, many years until the dreaded head gasket hit (covered by Subaru’s goodwill program after the extended warranty expired). My 05 LGT wagon has been superb over 64K hard miles with only one hiccup – a turbo wastegate issue fixed under warranty. Not Honda/Toyota perfect (and I have seen numerous commenters on TTAC and elsewhere with Hondas and Toyotas that aren’t Honda/Toyota perfect, of course) Given that TrueDelta and Consumer Reports have a similar view, I do think my anecdotal evidence is not that far off the mark. The growing number of people who seem to be buying Subarus – again based on my anecdotal evidence as well as the hard sales numbers recently shown on TTAC seems to indicate that Subaru is on the ascent (note that the Impreza has never been a volume seller, has not had great fuel economy – a killer in this segment, and is due to be replaced and, like the Forester, is mfrd in Japan). All that said, I understand how it can suck to get a bad one. I just don’t think Subaru’s ratio of bad ones is all that bad.
Both CR and TD show excellent reliability for all Subaru models. You are talking out of your you-know-what. Impreza sales are most likely falling because the new model is due at the end of the year, and the new Forester shouldn’t be far behind. I also suspect the lousy fuel economy from models using the old 4-speed are hurting sales of these models.
Those Escape numbers are ridiculous. I had a loaded XLT as a rental a few years ago. It wasn’t bad, but it was also underwhelming and dated. Dirt cheap plastics and switchgear, and a thrashy four cylinder. By comparison, I’ve logged a lot of wheel time in my folks’ CR-V and while it suffers from most the maladies currently plaguing Honda these days, it still feels…like a Honda.
I haven’t driven the Equinox/Terrain, but they look like a nice package. The current RAV4 has always sucked.
I’m starting to wonder what percentage of Escape/Fusion/Focus buyers traded down from F-150s/Explorers/ rather than Camcords.
The Escape is plasticky inside, and the 4 cylinder is loud. If your rental was a few years ago the new engines and transmissions that came out in ’09 were a major improvement, and it feels genuinely quick with the V6 option. The plastic-fantastic interior is also easy to keep clean and pretty durable for those that like to do outdoorsy stuff. The real charm of the Escape is that it doesn’t get in the way of anything. The visibility is great, there’s a lot of cargo space for a small CUV, the rear seats fold totally flat, the interior is spacious given the dimensions, and the loads of hard plastic hold up well over time. It’s not luxurious or particularly stylish, but it’s probably the best in the segment when it comes to the Utility part of CUV.
As far as the trades go, the most common Honda model traded in at my dealership is the CR-V, and the most common Toyota trades are the Tundra, Highlander and Corolla. We used to take in as many Nissans as Toyotas and Hondas combined, but the number of Honda and Toyota trades is increasing, and more and more of them are the cars. For whatever reason we seem to get more Solaras than Camrys as trades, even though I’d guess significantly more traditional Camry sedans are sold than Solaras.
@NulloModo: You need to start selling Mazdas and move to NY. You seem like a genuinely knowledgeable and honest salesman. I’ve been to too many dealerships these past few days and feel dirty as a result ;)
This was back in mid ’09. It had very few miles on it, so it may have been an ’09 with the new engine, but I don’t know. Again, it wasn’t bad, just loud and harsh. Thing that bothered me most about the interior was the console, which bizarre removable tray made from the worst plastic imaginable…but it also concealed a freakishly huge storage compartment. And I definitely appreciated the visibility, the practical boxy shape and the flip out rear glass.
Thanks for the trade-in insight. Do you mind me asking where your dealership is located?
Oh, and for what it’s worth, I traded in a Toyota when I bought my Mustang last year.
@carguy –
Thanks, I try to keep up with the product. Since Ford’s strategy these days seems to be competing on features and quality instead of on price it’s more important than ever to really know what I’m selling inside and out. I recently had a customer who was cross shopping a Fiesta against an Aveo. The Chevy dealer was offering $3,500 off of sticker while the most I could do was $800 on that particular car. While it took a couple weeks of back and forth I eventually got the sale. I prefer it this way, I’d rather be in the position of having the superior product and selling the benefits and value in it than having to resort to the ‘Is the brand X product really worth $2,000 more than what I have?’ approach. The Lincoln side of the business still has a bit of that, but I’m hopeful that the renewed focus on the Lincoln products will elevate them to more than just good deals for what you get.
@FromaBuick –
I’m in South Florida, which may have something to do with the number of Solara convertibles running around. There are actually two plastic trays in the center console. There’s a smaller little organizer tray that can be removed and clipped into grooves along the outside of the console to allow for a little spare change well, and there’s a larger plastic tub inside the center console that acts almost like a liner, but does end up resulting in a lot of wasted space. I’m not sure as to the purpose of that plastic tub-liner piece.
The Equinox is underwhelming. I drove one at a recent GM driving event, along with a CR-V. The Equinox had a stylish interior, but the switchgear was not as nice as the Honda. The Equinox had the V6, but felt no faster than the CR-V, which also drove a lot better.
At the end of the day, I came away with a lot of respect for the CR-V, and I hope that Honda doesn’t screw up the successor.
With all that said, the Cruze was significantly better than the Civic.
The CR-V will scoot if you give it enough gas. No, it’s not quick, but as somebody who cut his teeth on cars with 100 horsepower, the idea of a 180 HP four just astounds me. Real world mileage is good too.
Like most new Hondas, the seats are crap, though. Too firm, and the simple up-down height adjustment is a major turn off to those of us who like to crank the front half of the seat up as high as possible.
I’d be inclined to agree about the Cruze, if it wasn’t for the engines. The 1.8 is a dog, and I just don’t trust a small-displacement turbo (from the General, no less) long term. For all the flack it gets, the carryover 1.8 in the Civic is a match for its competitors on performance and mileage, despite its “dated” technology. Ford can keep its direct injection and dual clutch transmissions, thank you very much. I’ve been defending the Civic because its a best buy for the average econocar buyer despite what those twerps at Consumer Reports say, but I just couldn’t live with that dashboard (same goes for the old car, too).
The Civic engine is indeed truly extraordinary. More power than the 1.8s in the competition, great economy, compact packaging. The only reason I wouldn’t buy a new Civic (as a daily, not a weekend warrior) is the horrible seats… but according to some reviewers, those have been fixed, finally.
The CR-V just gets no respect. It’s still got some of the best space in the class with a nice interior. The current one actually drives better thanks to adjustments to front caster and geometry. And the revised K24 gets better economy than before while still being able to match bigger engines for accelerative punch.
Well… maybe if Honda fixed the looks…
The LF1 is pretty crummy in every application. It doesn’t get its legs until it goes over 4000, and how many people are regularly going to drive a shopping mall CUV up there? The 3.4L LNJ V6 from the last gen is actually slightly stronger under 4500. The 3.0’s fuel economy and NVH isn’t stellar either.
The 2.4L LAF engine isn’t a barn burner, but it isn’t terrible, and you at least expect the base engine to be slow.
From a Buick — I dont think the current Rav4 sucks more than the Equinox/Terrain (but i guess its all in how you define suck). The Rav4 has more cargo room, more horsepower in the V6 (and is a whole lot faster) and its about 500lbs less bloated. And the V6 gets better fuel economy than the V6 in the GM cars. What does suck is they dont come with three pedals.
The cool factor of those vehicles seems to be inversely related to their sales volume.
The escape sells because even if the design is older it’s still a classic for this type of vehicle. In much the same way that the Panther platform was a classic for a full-size sedan.
One thing for sure, Ford does something right with the Escape. You can’t deny the sales figures, month after month.
What really gets me is how much the Compass sales have improved. When the Grand Cherokee face was applied to it, I wasn’t a big fan, but apparently it agrees with someone…
The Equinox/Terrain are clearly head of the class in this segment. Kudos to Ford for sales numbers on a rather outdated product. Fleet?
The Escape does have a healthy portion of fleet sales, but the majority are still retail. It’s really not outdated – the electronic options and powertrains are completely modern and the styling, though rubbermaid inspired, was redone only a few years ago.