That's funny because I seemed to be getting my best mileage driving around the Bay Area (low-mid 30s, AWD) when I was out there last year. It seemed that the speeds and temperature and traffic flow patterns really seemed to be what the FEH liked.

 

Here's mine from what I know off the top of my head:

Green 05 FEH AWD
Leather and NAV option
Bought online in Albany NY (to get around the ridiculous markups here in CA)
Took delivery in mid-December of 2004
1 major warranty problem with the Electronic Throttle Body (October of this year)
I use Regular (87) gas
Probably a 70%/30% mix of city/hwy driving (city driving is in Berkeley).

And here's what we've done to get better mpg:

When I first bought the car, I was driving it like a normal SUV for about a month and getting about 18 mpg.

Then I started trying all the tricks on this site: the low gear, accellerating sloooowwwwwlly, coasting to stop lights, starting further behind cars at red lights and getting a rolling "jump" on the green light, the pretend-egg-under-the-gas-pedal trick, double-tapping to get it into EV mode, the "double shift" trick, etc., etc., etc.

My mileage went from 18mpg to about 23mpg. I was stuck around there until my 10k mile oil change in Oct. Then it went from 23 to about 25.5 and hasn't gotten any better since.

Now with the cold(er) weather, I'm back down even lower than before.

I'm done. Fed up. Finished with Ford. Never again. I've owned 4 cars in my life and every one has gotten over 250,000 miles (the first 3 got over 300,000). I'm not even sure this car will make 35,000 with its shoddy construction.

Before the FEH, I had a 1992 Jeep Cherokee with 255,000 miles that was totally paid off and still getting 18 mpg. I should have kept that car and saved myself the $700/month payments I'm now making.

What a waste.

 

I agree that something seems wrong with your unit. In that environment I think I would be in the very high 20s to mid 30s. Berkley is traffic cental and the FEH (at least might) likes that low speed environment. I used to have Jeeps and I could never get 18 MPG out of any of them (exempt at the top of the Sierra), so I doubt you are a lead foot.

Have you tried going over the Dealers head and talking to Ford Directly?

Are you planning on going to the FEH event in California (if they have one) and talking to one of the engineers?

Perhaps even a different dealer might help.

In my experiance Ford has been very responsive to issues with the FEH (and on my prior Ford F-250). Compared to my last Jeep Ford's quality is much higher and the warrenty service is much better. Of course they do not hold a candle to Toyota or Honda for customer service.

Chris Brown

 

I understand the frustration and if it were me I would probably swear off a manufacturer that didn't make it right with their product.

I have said several times that I believe your dealer is the problem here, not Ford. These cars are well made and with two of them I think I speak from experience - 17,000+ total miles without a problem on either one of them. My mileage on the '05 has averaged over 31 and the '06 over 34 and it would be higher than that except for my wife using one of them as a grocery getter. I was even rearended in the '06 by a Honda that ended up with a lot more damage than mine. I got a new bumper out of it - he needed a hood, bumper, fender and some paint.

Anyway, I really think that either you got a lemon and the dealer is a jackass for not dealing with it or your type of commute is just not conducive to good mileage. Have you been to another dealer? Have you contacted Ford beyond the dealer level? Your mileage should be higher, obviously and someone should be addressing it.

You really need to have someone else drive this vehicle and see how they do. Rule out operator error and go from there.

What is really unfortunate is that this one vehicle will taint the reputation of the rest of them - the next owner will be unhappy, as will subsequent owners until this one is out of the gene pool so to speak.

 

I'm really sorry to hear about your problems with the FEH. Hopefully you will take your complaints to the next level, invoking the lemon laws and so on. Also through this forum you'll find the right people to write to at FoMoCo, and of course go through the problem solving stuff as outlined in your warranty.
I'd think that Berkeley's slow traffic would help your mileage tremendously. Guess not.
I've had my FEH about same time as yours, haven't had any problems, even in the cold weather still averages around 30 MPG with winter cold and winter gas ... and prolly a 60/40 city vs. highway mix.

 

if there is a physical problem with the car, the build date set off red flags for me at least. i'm guessing the car was built around nov 2004 which would have been pretty early in the FEH build schedule, which means there still could have been quite a few bugs in the system. i know this from experience with my previous ICE escape, a 2001 first-year model, and an early build. i had a nightmare engine problem for 4 years that ford was never able to resolve.

hopefully someone here might be able to meet up with you and check out the car (a good suggestion!). if you really do think you have a lemon, call a lawyer to discuss. in michigan, if you get the same thing repaired 4+ times (within a designated time frame) you car can be considered a lemon.

 

--

 

copyboy1, did you check the air in your tires recently? With the cold they may be down a few lbs.

 

Its been awhile but I called the throttle body problem when copyboy1 described his problem months ago. If he remembers, I also thought he has a accelerator switch problem before that which needed to be checked out. Who knows, that may have cause the throttle body to show problems later. A scangauge has a accelerator angle reading so he might want check that out and compare readings with us here.

Xcel makes a good point for copyboy1 to have Mike Sdctcher test drive it for him also. Mike's got some Ford connections and if he finds a problem also, you can bet he will help get Ford to solve it.

Having a forum like this gives members an upper hand with well established drivers who know what their talking about. If Mike confirms the problem, I think the members here would have no problem backing copyboy1 up and putting presure on Ford if Mike needs us to.

The Dealership I deal with has been in contact with Ford because they know me from some of the forums I post on. Their looking into my autolock system problem very carefully. My '05 FEH was not suppose to have autolock so their scratching their heads.

If anyone near my area needs a second opinion on the FE of their FEH or MMH, feel free to come visit me. If my mileage drops any at all, I know there is a problem right away.

Copyboy1, its your move if you want the problem solved. Mike can be reached at the yahoo FEH forum or I'm sure GPSman1 can give you his phone number.

GaryG

 

I don't want to speak for Mike (SDcatcher), but he is a long way from the Bay Area. Palm Springs is at least 10 hours away - on a good day.

Which kind of underlines my point that nobody seems to get good milage in Nor Cal.

Chris Brown