My wife does almost all of the daily driving in our '08 FEH. I'm positive she drives just the same in the FEH as she does in the other 2 two-seaters she drove before this (read: sports cars) and she has yet to have a tank under 30MPG. Her commute is ~6 miles with ~2 miles freeway (@60-65MPG), ~2 miles of 35-45MPG stop and go, and then the rest is mixed 15-25mpg stop and go.

I do most of the Interstate driving and can get 32-36MPG regularly but I try my best to employ the wisdom found on this forum.

My younger brother drives an Xterra company car and love both it and my FEH. He was the DD a few weekends ago and got 34.7 with mixed Interstate and Rural 45-55MPG (over 40+ miles) driving on his very first drive.

I think he said he does 17gal fill-ups on the Xterra and still can't get the trip mileage that I get on my 13-14gal fill ups. So at a minimum he's paying $15 more per tank and only going the same distance.

***He is able to pull his huge boat and other trailers with his Xterra, I on the other hand can't pull anything (1000lb load capacity on the FWD FEH)***


I'm glad to see you researching your options and if you don't need to pull anything and can fit your payload into an Escape, I personally feel the FEH/MMH is a better vehicle once you look at the FE, price/tax credits, emissions, size, resale, maintenance, warranty benefits of the FEH/MMH.