Thanks for all that info Wayne! Yeah, my mind is made up... FEH all the way. Now all I have to do is wait for my local Planet Ford is to have it's next sale.

 

Get one! We live in Maine and got our 2WD in February. Took it skiing (well, to the mountains - both in Maine and the White Mountains) and were impressed with it's handling. Even during the spring thaw when the roads were all mud and ooze we still made it down roads, something we never would have tried in the station wagon (Saturn LW200).


The only downside we have is my communte is less than 2 miles from home, so there's not much time for the FEH to get charged and switch off the gas before getting to work - if I take the detour for and donuts for the office I end up running part way on batteries. In hindsight, I wish I knew it did not immediately operate in electric mode because that was our naive thought, however, the 15+ mpg improvement over the wagon just going to work and home is enough to keep us happy.

 

I live in NJ and we had a couple of pretty bad cold spells this winter. Our FEH AWD performed admirably. While the mileage was a bit lower than what we are getting now that the weather has warmed up, we still managed the upper 20s mpg. Now, we are closer to 32-34.

As for the roll over issues, I got the FEH for my family car. The wife drives the kids everywhere with it. We don't drive it hard, we don't abuse the vehicle, and we don't speed around the back roads of western NJ with abandon. I think that mitigates the roll over risk nicely.

Good luck!

 

Just something I repost every so often. For those considering the 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid, I have PDF copies of an Ordering Guide and a Pricing Guide. These are invaluable tools to read before you go to a dealer.

I will email these to you if you drop me a request email.

Mike

 

Just to post an alternate viewpoint here...

We have over 5000 miles on our 4wd FEH and we're still getting about 23mpg. We've tried every trick in the book to get better gas mileage. We've taken it to the dealer 3 times - they say nothing's wrong. And frankly, we're really disappointed with the fuel efficiency we're getting. We bought the FEH because we expected to get close to the 30mpg Ford claims. If we knew we'd only get 23, we would have bought something else.

So just be warned that if you're considering an FEH and expect to get 30+mpg, there are no guarantees you'll end up happy with your purchase.

 

Copyboy,

I am suprised to hear that you are only getting about 23 in the FEH. I was able to get 25 driving from Pittsburgh, PA to Stockton, NJ, fully loaded, with a roof top carrier packed to the gils.

Does the car go into autostop? If it does, have you experimented (maybe in a parking lot), with driving only on EV? It took a few times for us to figure out how to run the car on the battery only up to about 35 mph.

Why the techs at the shop may not have found a problem may be an experience issue; they may not have the experience of driving the vehicle on a regular basis, and may not notice a problem that a hypermiler would think was obvious. (Makes you think how jet aircraft mechanics fix airliners when they are not pilots.)

If you are not keeping a mileage log, I'd suggest starting one. If you are, maybe you can talk out a typical trip with someone here. There are some ultra hypermilers (nudges xcel), who may be able to point out an area to investigate.

Don't give up on it yet.

 

I've been over my FEH problems in other threads here. I bought it in November and got about 17 mpg for the first 2000 miles, 20 mpg for the next 1000, and I've been stuck on 23 for the last 2000+ miles.

I don't live in a cold area, drive agressively, etc., etc., etc. And like I said, I've tried every trick in the book on this site (and others) to get the most from the FEH. Nothing seems to work.

In looking at the real mileage charts on this site (which I don't input on), there are several FEHs that get below 25 mpg, and I know of several other owners who aren't getting the advertised mileage.

So all I'm saying is, if you want to buy this car solely for the improved gas mileage, there's a chance you could end up quite disappointed. I'm not saying don't buy one, I just want people to be aware that there are possible downsides.

 

If I were only getting 23 MPG, I'd be so hopping mad ... here in NY, I'd bring a "Lemon Law" case to court and try to get the car replaced. Given that most of the FEHs seem to do so much better than that (my last tank was 31.5 mpg, still going up (thanks to the nice weather, and perhaps breaking in - I have less than 2000 miles on 'er so far)), it might pay to go for a replacement (rather than asking for your money back, which would be a long shot). I know that low mileage doesn't usually give rise to an actionable claim, but for a car like this, where such "out of range" mileage is probably a symptom of an actual malfunction of some type, the technology is so new, and mileage is one of its hottest "selling points," you might have a chance, particularly if all you want is a replacement.

Have you inquired as to your possible legal remedies in whatever state you're in (besides a state of exasperation, that is)?

For that matter, have you asked the dealer if it would consider replacing the car, or perhaps giving you a "loaner" FEH for a couple of weeks so you could see if it is something about your driving or the terrain, or truly a problem with this particular vehicle?

Just a couple of ideas, forgive me if you've been over this before.

C.

 

I know you said you have been to the dealers but please have them try to flash your firmware just once with the new version just to make you happier. They should not charge you if you go through your saleperson. This would eliminate any bugs inherent from the factory.

Mike

 

Hi there,

I was unhappy too with the mileage when I first got my Hybrid. One thing that helped me was to reset the mpg calucation that displays on the dashboard screen. That eliminated the crappy mileage that was still effecting the caluclation from when the dealer had the car. I jumped from 24.7 MPG to 28.4 MPG instantly. The mpg fomula uses all the mileage since the beginning of time or the last reset. If you haven't reset your mileage, the lousy mileage from the beginning of the car's life will still be dragging down the number you see.

Just a thought,

Sadie