Are Ford Explorers reliable?

For years I've been hearing that Fords are very unreliable, but it's 2014 and the roads are flooded with either toyotas Hondas or fords. I would really like to purchase this car but I have a kid on the way and my wife doesn't trust fords and keeps telling me to play it safe by getting a toyota bc of its reliability. I don't want to make a decision in getting this car and something going wrong and having her tell me 'I told you so'. I'm looking into the 2014 ford explorer.

There's a current recall on the smaller escape/mariner but overall Fords are probably the most reliable american cars made today. They're certainly not having the massive recall issues GM is and they didn't have to sell out to foreign car companies like Chrysler did… They also never took any bailout money (though both GM and Chrysler did) So I think your wife needs to stop living in 1991 and pay attention to more recent times.

I appreciate all the answers and i'll be showing it all to my wife tonight but i have to go with 5.0 for actually reminding me about the bailout chrysler went through and the massive GM recalls. It seems like Ford has been the only american car company that has been more reliable than the rest.

When asking for recommendations always consider there are two types of reponses you can count on. One will be from Ford haters, the GM, Chrysler, and foreign car advocates that all seem convinced Fords aren't well made (many have never owned a Ford product) so how would they know? The second group is the Ford owners and boosters who will give you opinions based on their experiences. Which one would you consider to be more reliable? I count myself in the latter and can attest to Ford's longevity as well as quality.

Toyota in general is more reliable than Ford but they aren't king either they have had there fair share of recalls too. If your buying a Ford that new it probably won't have to many if any serious problems. I would say go ahead and get the explorer.