I spent about 5 hours in the dealership on Saturday and am ready to sign on the dotted line tomorrow night and pick up my 2005 Ford Escape hybrid. So I tell some friends and one states "You won't like it much whenever the thing breaks down and its more to fix it than what you paid for it!!"

This made my stomach sink and now I am nervous to sign. I am thinking of taking one of the "regular" escapes on the lot (although they are all regular v6's)

I am nervous about the battery since it does so much for this car, how much are they to replace ?

This escape has 80K Miles on it, a 2005 and seems in great condition. CarFax is 100% clean -- had only 1 owner who had it thru the entire 5 years its been in existance.

I am nervous -- what are some common issues, and OVERALL is this vehicle more expensive to have serviced and repaired VS. regular ones??

PLEASE help me make a decision

 

The expensive items are the brake controller, battery fan and battery pack. You don't say where you live, but many metro areas will have battery rebuilders who can exchange your battery pack for a remanufactured one or rebuild yours. $2,000 should cover replacement. New York taxi cabs have logged over 250,000 miles on their battery packs. Maintenance should be less because intervals are longer.
Look at NADA, Edmunds and KBB for used vehicle pricing.

 

i have ford escape 2005, and it was good with no errors, but u can search for my replies, im getting sick of it, even when ive get it it was perfect, cheap, and pretty car, but now i think its just a piece of **** i hope i can get rid of it soon,
i contains some unknown errors, it cost much to fix,

till now i cant fix the A/c because no one here in jordan know about it and even in US i think it cost alot of money to fix something

so my advice think twice , why u dont think about the 2009

 

Like Red said, NYC & I think SF, have logged hundreds of thousands of miles with no major problems. You should still have the Hybrid ext warenty up to 100k that covers the battery pack, transmission (eCVT), and engine.
I've only had mine 3yrs 37k, and only problems so far are blend doors/actuators. About a $200 fix (if it was out of warenty), and probably a pretty easy (3 out of 10) DIY projects.
I still love mine. If I had to replace it today, would I get another Hybrid, or just a V6, hard to say; but at the time gas was $3.80+ and looked like it was going higher, and my current vehicles were avg 12 & 17, so a 28-30mpg was great.
Hopefully Gary chimes in, he's got an 05 and a 09 or 10 and from what i read from him, he loves them both!

 

The engine is NOT covered under the Hybrid Extended Warranty.

The Hybrid warranty only covers the following three items:
Battery (silver box in the back under the cargo mat; contains batteries, fans and a few other component)
DC-to-DC converter (under the hood on the passenger side fender)
eCVT (connected to the ICE on the drivers side; contains two electric motors, control electronics and other components)

Originally Ford listed all three of the above components as non-user serviceable parts and therefore it is assumed that anything inside their respective cases is covered (reference the battery cooling fans thread). Anything outside the cases is not covered, EVEN IF IT'S UNIQUE TO HYBRID MODELS.

 

Thanks Chris, I knew there were Hybrid specific parts covered, I thought I read somewhere it was the entire drivetrain, including the ICE.

This has been learned, the HV Battery AC blend door/actuator, that obviously only Hybrids have, is not part of the extended Hybrid warrenty.

 

FEH owner for 3 1/2 years, 41000 miles. So far the blend door actuator and the right front tone wheel have failed, both out of warranty. I'm fixing them myself.

I think the FEH is the coolest most complex machine I have ever owned. That said, when you buy a FEH, especially a 2005, you are buying the forefront of technology. Repairs are expensive because there are not many competent hybrid mechanics around and because the sales volume is so low, unique parts tend to be expensive. If you love the geekiness of a hybrid, go for it. But if you expect the dependability and ease of repair of a conventional vehicle, be forewarned.

My next vehicle will not be a hybrid. I've had my fun and I'm ready for a boring uber-reliable ride.

 

It IS geeky and my friends all love to peek under the hood.

 

My '07 has been a great vehicle, reliable and fun to drive. But I would not buy another one. My gut feeling from following this forum is that the FEH may not age well and is susceptible to problems that only the Ford dealer can repair, making the repairs expensive.

I originally bought the 4WD FEH hoping to replace an '88 Chevy S10 Blazer 4WD truck with 200,000 miles on it at the time. The FEH is simply not a replacement for a 4x4 truck and so I still have the Chevy. Lifetime gas mileage on my FEH is around 33mpg, and probably 20mpg for the Chevy truck. That sounds like a big difference but it's not that much in dollars for the amount of driving I do (8k miles/yr).

Doing it again I would get a Prius for the 40+ mpg and keep the 4x4 truck for the few times when I need such a vehicle. The Prius would satisfy 95% of my automobile needs and I'd have a rugged truck for the other 5%.

This is more of a personal decision than a reflection on the FEH.

 

Did you obtain a service history on the vehicle from the Ford Dealership? If you can obtain a scanguage unit, you might be able to check for the blend door issue that is known to arise.