The Ford in question is a truck. The premium stereo seems to be loud enough to drown out the engine noise.
The Prius is a spaceship pretending to be a car. We have both and like them both.
The AWD Escape Hybrid with its factory rubber (Continental Cont-Trac Eco+) seems a lot more confidence-inspring in the rain than the Prius with its factory rubber (Goodyear Integrity). How much of that is the tires and how much is the AWD I don't know.
Usually I put on Michelins on my cars when the factory rubber wears out (doesn't take long in the mountains). Not sure what that would do the the FE. Is anyone running Michelins on their Escape?
The Michelins on the Escape are horribly expensive. They are fine (I have them on my 2005 F-150) but if it were my dime I would go with a less expensive brand and I have a high confidence factor in the Toyo brand. I've had three sets of those and have been quite impressed. I've never had good luck with Goodyears. It is my understanding that Hankook has a big contract with Ford to supply original equipment tires on their trucks. I tried to get a set for my 2003 Escape but they were back ordered. I also like the Pirelli brand. The original Continentals on the older Escape were horribly noisy and I wouldn't put those on a lawn mower. I'm far from alone in my opinion on those tires. The tires on the FEH are also Continentals and so far, so good but not the same tire.
As an aside, what's ironic about the engine noise is that both of my eardrums were blown out when I was wounded in a suicide bombing in Baghdad. Subsequently, me hearing is a mere fraction of what it was before I was injured. (Actually, the ears were the least of my wounds.)
Welcome DeputyJim!
This might sound funny (no pun intended) but it might be that the hearing you retained may be in the frequency range of the engine noise and that would be more obvious/annoying to you, though going uphill mine gets a little annoying too!
Anyways, glad your here and supporting our FEH's and very glad you came back!
I can tell it's a girl 'cause she tells me where to turn.
I think the problem of "engine noise" is found in the fact that we get used to the almost dead silence of the electric power in the city and when the engine fires up it is more noticeable than one would hear if a gasoline engine is always running. I just went about a hundred miles yesterday with a very full load over city and highway miles and frankly, the difference in noise levels between the conventional V6 and hybrid is nill except that it is so quiet around town. There is that little bit of transition when the engine fires up but it is momentary and of no consequence so far as I am concerned.
I would just enjoy the gas mileage savings and forget about it. I'm getting about a 50% improvement over the first 1,100 miles of driving as compared to my previous 2003 Escape.
As far as I am concerned, the "roll-over" problem is a fiction of someone's overactive imagination. I think a person would have to deliberately try to turn it over, although anything can be turned over if one were to try to duplicate some of those television commercials. This is not a true off road vehicle and anyone believing that should shop elsewhere in my opinion.
. . . I was not inclined to believe that the vehicle was at fault or that there was a design flaw in the suspension. It was definitely related to the factory spec tire pressure and the Firestone rubber. Now, the question is who was at fault? Both. Firestone knew that Ford was specifying a very low inflation pressure. Ford knew that they were putting cheep rubber on the Explorer. A conglomeration of errors.
I agree that both Bridgestone/Firestone and Ford were at fault on the "rollover" controversy. JeromeP's analysis suggests that there was a vehicle/tire interaction effect. As a statistician, I had come to the same conclusion without knowing details since Firestone tires did not seem to have this effect on other vehicles and Ford did not seem to have been affected by other brands of tires.
And I also fault both Bridgestone/Firestone and Ford for the way they handled the problem. Rather than point fingers at each other, they should have worked together to identify and resolve the problem.
I think Henry and Harvey are rolling over in their graves.
The center of gravity on an SUV is higher and the stats show that in accidents SUV's rollover more often, tires blowing or not. If you can get it to stop in a straight line you are fine but if you get that thing sideways to the motion of travel, with the high CG shes going to want to flip. Its why I went with all the airbags (side curtain and everything--just surround me in a cusion of air please)
The rollover effect had nothing to do with the tires. That just initiated the accident and the person lost control of the vehicle. You can get them to stop without a tire if you don't panic and are calm, but alot of people panic, slam on the breaks and jerk the wheel to the side.
Also... We hybrids have an extra several hundred pounds or so (battery), riding pretty low... I would GUESS that our rollover rate is better than the standard Escape.
If no one has mentioned it. I remember reading one of the contributing factors to the firestone problem was people running them with WAY WAY too low an air pressure, which damages the tires. Apparently people didn't like the ride of their SUV and were told to improve it by letting air out of the tires to make it ride softer.
Its one of the reasons tire pressure sensors are being included in newer models like ours.
The center of gravity on an SUV is higher and the stats show that in accidents SUV's rollover more often, tires blowing or not. If you can get it to stop in a straight line you are fine but if you get that thing sideways to the motion of travel, with the high CG shes going to want to flip. Its why I went with all the airbags (side curtain and everything--just surround me in a cusion of air please)
The rollover effect had nothing to do with the tires. That just initiated the accident and the person lost control of the vehicle. You can get them to stop without a tire if you don't panic and are calm, but alot of people panic, slam on the breaks and jerk the wheel to the side.
Also... We hybrids have an extra several hundred pounds or so (battery), riding pretty low... I would GUESS that our rollover rate is better than the standard Escape.
If no one has mentioned it. I remember reading one of the contributing factors to the firestone problem was people running them with WAY WAY too low an air pressure, which damages the tires. Apparently people didn't like the ride of their SUV and were told to improve it by letting air out of the tires to make it ride softer.
Its one of the reasons tire pressure sensors are being included in newer models like ours.
Yes, SUVs do have a higher center of gravity. That doesn't mean that they are just going to filp over at any point in time on their own. The inputs of the driver and condition of road surface or tires are core to how a vehicle reacts. When my dad was about my age he flipped an early 70s Plymouth Valient on a set of railroad tracks. A Valient is a pretty heavy vehicle even if it was a smaller car during its day and it has a low center of gravity. In essence, you can flip any vehicle if you drive it like an idiot and have road factors involved that help you out.
It is well documented that the Explorer, even from its genesis, had the lowest center of gravity for a vehicle in that class. The SUV lines and classifications are starting to bleed now, but amongst those mid-sized, rear drive predominant, transfer case equipped SUVs, the Explorer is still the one with the lowest center of gravity. Its flip-over statistics under this current design are stellar. But what people have to realize is that an SUV is a truck and has to be driven as such and respected as such.
It has been said: Hybrid drivers come in 3 flavors, greenie, techie and cheapie. Pick any 2.
2005 Prius, Melinium Silver over gray, package 5 (AI)
Doesn't matter what the make of vehicle it is...I think it has a lot to do with parents letting their 16 1/2 yr old take the family SUV out on the town with 4 hours of driving experience. Especially SUV's with the newer 8cyl hemi's and all this after they have watched countless reckless driving car commercials on the boob tube.
My dad had a Ford Explorer and the Firestones on his were replaced for free around 70,000+ miles. One of the problems with the Firestones is they didn't wear normally. The rubber, cheaper as it may have been, was also very hard and durable. Tires should wear normally over time, not all at once in a blowout. People didn't think the tires needed replacing because the tread would still have appreciable depth but the sidewalls were also weakening and this went virtually unnoticed.
Tires can transmit road noise so the tire brand can be a factor. I've always sworn by Goodyears but I also drove Ford Mustangs before the FEH. Bridgestones were terrible at keeping their tire pressure. And in my high school days I drove a Ford Pinto with a 2.3 L four cylinder. It made the same high pitch whines under hard acceleration as well. I'm learning to moderate the RPMs down from 4000 by taking longer to climb to freeway speeds. It makes a noticeable difference in MPG and it is also much more quiet. Besides, what's a few seconds between A and B anyway?
On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for your service DeputyJim!
Re: Vehicle rollover and engine noise
I can tell it's a girl 'cause she tells me where to turn.
