If you look around, you can find people who swear by and curse
any auto manufacturer or motor. Hell, there are people that had horrible experiences with Toyota and Honda who will never purchase one again.
Coming from a 6.0L V8 LQ4 in a 2002 Escalade sure, I would have liked a V8 option in my 2016 Expy. But the Ecoboost 3.5L puts out 60 more horses! No matter how you slice it, that's pretty darn impressive. And in comparison...the EB MOVES.
My LQ4 was it's own animal...biggest headache was the dreaded frozen bolts on the exhaust manifold. Very common problem on GM V8s and cost way too much money to resolve.
Point is, there's
no such thing as a perfect engine. Early EBs have some minor carbon issues, so what. You maintain your vehicles the best you can and if you gotta fix something, you fix it. Google away and you'll find EBs with 300k on the clock with 0 issues and some people that blew them up at 15k miles.
I do miss the exhaust on that Escalade, especially at idle. Made that sexy blub blub blub like old school cat-free cars. But in exchange, I got the cool sound of a turbo spool. Truth is, in traffic, both engines get 12mpg
*Escalade was a second car, still had my Escape...can't break the Ford for life chain. 1990 Escort LX, 1998 Taurus SE, 2002 Taurus SEL, 2001 Escape XLT (winter), 2010 Fusion SEL (summer), 2010 Escape Limited, 2016 Expedition Platinum.
. The RXP has a nice look to it.