My dealer's service manager (at Tyson's Ford in Tysons Corner, VA), says that the reason Ford does not offer a trailer hitch for the Escape Hybrid is that Ford probably feels the hybrid should not be used for towing. Now, I realize this goes against what the owner's manual says. The service manager felt that Ford did not want to go through the crash testing with a Ford-made hitch in place and thus probably will not offer a Ford-branded hitch. The expense of certifying a hitch for the hybrid does not justify the amount to be made by selling such hitches.

Aftermarket hitch vendors really don't care about such stuff, they just want to sell hitches and they don't need to test whether or not a hitch in place during a rear-end crash will puncture the battery compartment. The hitches I have seen offered are all class 2 hitches, which might imply that the Escape Hybrid can tow a class 2 load. The owner's manual limits towing to class 1 type loads, but it does seem to me a disconnect that the hitch is class two and car is rated only at class 1.

If I buy an aftermarket (class 2) hitch, I would need an adapter for my bike rack (which is class 1 size) to make it fit on a new class 2 hitch. The dealer did not feel that just putting a class 2 hitch on the car would void the warranty, but I would say that if you had such a hitch on your car, you might be under pressure to prove that you did not tow a class two load if you had a drivetrain problem.

How can we let Ford know that there is a market for class 1 hitches for the Escape Hybrid? If they made one, owners would get a reassurance that the car can indeed tow some dinky Jon boat or a small motorcycle trailer or some other class 1 type load without voiding the warranty or crunching that expensive drive train.

IANAL (nor am I an expert on the topic), but my gut says that's bunk.

The fact that the owners manual lists towing limits indicates (to me at least) that they must have done some testing with the FEH towing a load. This, of course, indicates that they must have installed a hitch to tow the load. This hitch may have been a custom job (due to the funky coolant lines in the back).

I suspect the reason they don't offer a factory hitch is because they don't want to modify the standard Escape hitch to fit the FEH.

My dealer (Woodfield Ford in Schaumburg IL) won't even install a hitch ... they just referred me to a local trailer & hitch company.

JMHO, of course

david

My dealer also said pretty much the same thing - go away. They did not want to get involved since Ford did not offer a branded hitch. I am pretty gun shy about towing since I needed to replace a Subaru Legacy transmission ($1,400 after much discussion with Subaru) only after a very small amount of towing of a light Jon boat (the Tintanic). Are you planning on just connecting a bike rack or actually doing any towing? If a rack, we have a 4-bike Thule that works great. Get the one that folds away from the car with the built in hefty cable.

When we bought the car in Feb, no-one had a hitch, but now they are available after market. We have no intention of towing and are using the hitch for bikes. Our hitch is for a 2" receiver and we ordered the bike rack (Yakima) for that size.

Re your boat - how big and heavy? Is it something you could put on the roof? Thule and Yakima make rigs for kayaks and canoes which might work. Or, there's a product called Maine Roller that fits on the rear roof rack which you can use to help roll your craft on to the FEH (see pic on Shared page). We have a snark sailboat and it's made loading and unloading the boat a dream - now if only the weather would cooperate...

C&J the Gas Pirates

I'm the Captain of this ship and I have my wife's permission to say so.

Hey. All this is so much BS from incompetent Service departments.

I was the first with a clean guaranteed installation last year. Jim Hart owns the company and his son personally put it on for me in Burbank.

You can go to etrailer or uhaul who I understand have jumped in with something but I worked with Hitch-Web.Com and Curt Hitches (the best as I see it but buy whatever crap you want).

Jim told me last week that Ford Corp. is now negotiating with his company and Curt to authorize an official hitch. The hitch Ford tried to sell did not work! I spent three trips to my dealer for three failures. The Hybrid Engineers in Dearborn asked me for my PDF File showing a good mod and installation before they would admit their solution did not work. If you guys do not believe me email me and I will send you a copy. Call Hitch-Web.Com. They will talk to you human-to-human. Their hitch is a Class 2 for the price of 1.

Mike

Mike Maline - Sdctcher
2005 Ford Escape Hybrid Owner
California School Teacher

Ford does not list a Hitch for the Escape Hybrid, but the Hitch for the '05 Escape non-hybrid does fit the Hybrid. I ordered the Ford Hitch and installed it in about 20 min. The Hitch has the smaller 1 1/4 inch reciver (Type 1?). It fits under the bumper cover and you need to make a notch for it in the cover (a marking line of area to notch out is molded into the back of the bumper cover). Everything fits just as the intructions that come with the hitch say they should and there is no interference with the battery AC lines because the hitch is incorporated into the frame.

As long as the towing weight restrictions (see the owners manual pg 189- 197 for calculations and such) are followed and the hitch was properly installed you should be covered by the warrenty.

Mike Kinnell
Sonic Blue FEH AWD
Go BLUE!

I just installed my HiddenHitch from etrailer.com. It fit perfectly, without any problems. (As others have said, fishing the bolts into the correct spot was a little tricky, but easy once you get the hang of it.)

I'm only using it to carry bikes, but it's a Class III hitch costing around $150.

So we now have 4 hitch solutions:

The Ford hitch cast me about $300 so it sounds like the ones that Hitch-Web.Com, Curt Hitches and HiddenHitch are a better solution, stronger & cheaper. Stronger is not much worry with only 1000lb capacity, but cheaper is.

Mike Kinnell
Sonic Blue FEH AWD
Go BLUE!

And the one from Hitch-Web is a full size 2 inch receiver and hangs below the rear facia so there is no cutting out a center notch.

Mike Maline - Sdctcher
2005 Ford Escape Hybrid Owner
California School Teacher

That sounds like about $100 more than the u-haul hitch, even if you have u-haul install it. Why would the service/aftermarket sales departments not know about this solution? Did you just go ahead and try it or did your Ford dealer seem to already know that the Ford hitch would work?