Hi,
I just went green and came home two weeks ago with a 2006 escape hyrbid. Ive always driven Suburbans due to 7 kids being here at one time or another, but most of them are gone now and it's usually just me and one or two kids. I became fed up before katrina sent prices even higher when I pumped $85 into my tank and it wasnt full.

I bought the only Escape hyrbid in town which has some options i didnt want such as 4wd and didnt have some I wanted such as leather. At any rate, the dealer didnt charge me for the options I didnt want and gave me more for my trade than I paid for it 6 months ago. Im still trying to learn the most efficient way to drive this car and I guess Im a little disappointed in the mpg. However, that being said, my projected fuel costs with the suburban were $4800 per year, so Im obviously going to save money on fuel. I had the dealer put a real wheel and tire in place of the donut spare and someone told me this weight will decrease my fuel efficiency. Does anyone know if that's true?

I sort of miss all the dash cubbies to put 'stuff" but I am sure enjoying passing those gas stations and parking is a breeze. It's taking some getting used to, but ultimately I feel it was the right thing to do for a thousand reasons. Im actually becoming pretty snobby about it..glaring with contempt at every hummer on the road etc.

Any advice as to how to maximize fuel effiency and whether or not the weight of the real spare will effect the economy of my car would be appreciated.
Thanks

The best place to start is probably with the following article:

Achieving High Fuel Efficiency

As for the weight of the spare, it does technically matter, but not nearly as much as your driving techniques. Several members here who are experts at high efficiency driving can exceed EPA highway mileage figures in their cars with the whole family plus luggage. It takes time to refine your techniques however.

Give yourself several months to become fully proficient and re-read the article tips often until you find yourself driving down the road constantly aware of what techniques you can be using at all times. After long enough, it becomes your natural style of driving and you can achieve excellent fuel efficiency in any vehicle you hop in to.

Congrats, and welcome to the club!

On the Escape forum, there are a few threads about getting good FE with your Escape, they may be a page back or so, but there's feedback from a lot of people, so you can read them all over, speciallized with driving your vehicle.

Give yourself and your vehicle time to adjust as well. I ended up with a 29 MPG tank on my second tank of gas, but this tank and the last one have been over 33 MPG.

First 4WD Hypermiler

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