Russ...our Mazda Tribute is the same body style as the Escape. In fact when I was looking for a new car, I went to a ford dealer. I had more leg room in an Escape than in an Explorer, which is bigger. When I went to another dealer they had Maxda and was told the Tribute was similar to the escape, and guess what had some decent room. This one had a power driver seat which allowed me about 2-3 more inches of leg room which sold me on it. Being tall(6-5)can be a curse, especially when buying a car. At one time I thought about a Jeep Liberty, but I couldn't even get in the passenger side unless they took out about 6 inches of dash in front of the seat!!!! Our Tribute does have 4wd. Sad to hear about that lower crossing. I think thats the one out of Antonito that heads toward Lava...correct! I went over that with a motocycle in 1971, but we had trouble with the 2 we had, since they did not like the elevation, and were used to this low land climate of Ohio.
Greg Scholl