on the diagram of the car it shows red by the back tires on my ford escape 2017?

If your talking about the dashboard picture of your front and rear wheels,the rears are red to show you are in 2wd,and they are being powered. Put the car in 4wd and the two front wheels on the diagram should light up also,to show you are in 4wd

Time to open the owner's manual and have a good long read.

Hey, it's a mew car! The salesman should have explained everything to you when you bought it but even if not, go back and ask all your questions now that you have driven the car a bit.

No, I disagree with you Larry. The sad thing is that when people buy a car they are usually just too damned lazy to sit down and read the owner's manual or any part thereof. Today's cars are complicated and loaded with features, reading some of the owner's manual is a must. It is just easier to post their questions here and get answers than actually doing some reading or Googling. It's just pitiful.

And I do agree with you Bob. I was making the presumption that he either didn't have an owners manual or was too lazy to read it BUT, if it was my car and new, and I had memorized the owners manual, I would just tell the dealer to "fix the damn thing or explain it". Would you fix it?

Would I fix it? Certainly... it is still under warranty and everything should work. I usually don't bark at people that own a 10 year old or older car and fail to read the manual, cause sometimes they don't have one, but every new car has an owner's manual.