I just hit 2000 miles on my 2006 AWD FEH. Its been 26 days since I brought it home.

Without paying attention to my driving (and the visual MPG screen), I stay in the 30-30.5 range. Once I start looking at the screen, and using hills and coasting to stop lights to my advantage, I generally maintain between 31-31.5. I have never been able to get any higher than 31.5 on the display and maintain it while driving. I drove from Greensboro NC to Cary NC last night on the highway, about a 80 mile stretch, and averaged 31 even with no AC. I filled the tank back up when I got home to test to see just how much I used (I had also topped it off back in Greensboro). The tank took 2.4 gallons, and my gas gauge was about 3/4 of the way to the 3/4 tank mark.

I also just came back from Carolina Beach last Wednesday. Its a 150 mile trip there, straight stretch of highway down Highway 40 until you reach Wilmington, from there its mostly stop and go traffic. With the AC blasting (not MAX AC), and a load of 2 people & maybe 150 lbs of fishing gear/coolers/chairs...etc, I was able to easily maintain 30.8 MPG according to the visual fuel screen. I also did about a hour of beach driving while there. Despite a lack of ground clearance when compared to my Jeep Wrangler, It performed flawless. I took it everywhere I normally take my Wrangler. I never once felt any of the tires digging down in a attempt to bury themselves (I never aired them down). After seeing the usual amount of people getting stuck, and me being able to go anywhere I wanted, I was very pleased. The gasoline motor did run more than I expected, even with the 15 mph speed limit on the beach. I did about 1/4 of my driving time in electric mode out there. I figure the torque needed to maneuver over the sands was more than the electric motor could offer me most of the time.

My beach trip comes out to be 348 miles total, from my driveway, down there, and back. This included all my driving while there. I left with a full tank (the miles until empty gauge read 432 miles), and my MPG reset. As stated earlier, I maintained 30.8 MPG, dropping to about 30.2 on occasion when I had to climb various hills. That # did inch toward 31 some, but never got past 30.9. This was with the AC blasting on the highway. When back home my gas gauge was almost touching the 1/4 of a tank mark. My Jeep Wrangler has a 19 gallon tank, and the same trip only left me with about 1/4 of a tank of gas by the time I got there (no AC). All my driving there would then consume the other 1/4 and I would have to refill on the island before heading home. I figure this to be about a tank and a half of gas total trip (about 28-30 gallons of gas for the day). My Escape did the exact same thing on about 11 gallons of gas total for the day, and that was with the AC going. Next time I'm going to test it with the moon roof open, and the back windows cracked to prevent that ear jarring vibration, to see if it really makes a difference with the AC off.

I am VERY happy with the FEH, I can still do the same things I liked to do in my Wrangler, and it literally slashed my gas bill by more than 50%. The only downside I have found so far is I am forced to leave the navigation CD in the dash unit to use it, and I can't take the top off the Escape