I bought a Ford Edge a few months ago.  The lease on my Nissan Pathfinder was up, and I needed a new set of wheels.  I was gonna go used, but couldn’t find what I wanted and then a confluence of events happened that made getting a new Ford Edge a bit more practical.  When it comes to cars, I am admittedly a bells and whistles guy so of course I had to get Microsoft Sync in the new ride, and I also went with the built-in navigation system.  Being that this was the first American made car I had owned in over 13 years, I have been interested to see how much I would like it over time.  Here are my thoughts so far.

The Good

• The Edge rides very nice.  Much smoother ride and more comfortable for longer drives than my Pathfinder. 
• Sound system is very good though the steering wheel volume control is overly sensitive and you can go to “my ears are bleeding” sound levels very quickly
• I have an automatic lift hatch. I thought it was overkill but it came with the lot vehicle I wanted so I got it.  Now that I have it, I love it!  Funny how the simple convenience of being able to click a button and have the lift gate go up while holding a load of groceries is a wonderful thing.
• Yes – it has an automatic driver side window down AND up.  It’s the little things!
• Gas mileage has been much better than the Pathfinder for the same amount and type of driving.  I knew that would be the case, but its still nice.
• Being able to connect my Zune via USB to the sound system is great.

The Bad

• Sync is nowhere near as cool as it is in the commercials when you have a built in nav system.  Not even close.  It takes multiple voice commands to just be able to say “Play Track x” – and you have to go through those multiple commands each and every time!  For example, if I want say “Play Artist Bare Naked Ladies” I have to say the following… “User Device” - “USB” - “Play Artist Bare Naked Ladies”.  Now, it gets better in that if I then want to switch to Sting, I would only have to say “User Device” - “Play Artist Sting”.  Add to that that the system will only understand the request “User Device” half the time, and you can slowly go nuts!  I’m not sure where Sync starts and where the nav system ends, but I have a feeling Sync and its voice command software is limited to only the music area since it NEVER messes up picking a song, artist, whatever via voice, but using the rest of the nav system functions are hit and miss as far as understanding goes.  Maybe it is just me.
• The Edge has bigger blind spots than the Pathfinder did.
• I really miss powered seat recliners.  There are just times I want to tweak the seat incline a bit, and with a manual thing that is more an adventure to get it just right.
• The power sunroof will not close all the way automatically.  You press the close button and the sunroof gets about 8 inches or so from being fully closed and then it stops.  You then have to press and hold the close button for the last 8”.  And its slow.  I am sure it is some “protection from a law suit” feature but it is an utter annoyance. 
• There are a lot of features (like the sun roof thing) that I wish I could turn off via settings in the nav system but I can’t.

All in all I have been pretty happy.  Glad I bought American this time.