I’m curious to hear opinions on the Ford Escape Hybrid. I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a small SUV before winter and had been leaning towards the Hyundai Santa Fe.
Does anyone have experience with one?
Love the Nissan Rogue. Didn’t look at the Ford when I was car shopping. Did not look at the Santa Fe, either, because it is bigger than I wanted. Did look at the Tucson, though, and went with the Rogue because Tucson seemed underpowered and would’ve been almost as much when I added in the extras I wanted. The Rogue has been great in the snow and I get about 26-28 mpg on the highway.
Thanks man, I hadn’t even heard of the Rogue but had considered the X-terra.
Anything in particular that encouraged you to get it? Like you I had originally considered the Tucson quickly realized how underpowered it was. When I started looking at the Ford Escape Hybrid I was wondering if it had the ability to pull things.
A friend of mine has one and is quite pleased with it. It is supposed to be one of the few hybrids that pays for itself.
I personally found the brakes to be a little aggressive in a strange way. When you step down on the pedal the vehicle continues to stop as if you are continuing to press further on the pedal.
We have an Escape hybrid (Mrs. J. mostly drives it).
The pluses: Mileage averages in the low 30s, city and highway. It’s comfortable on long trips. The engine/power plant has been reliable over the 2 1/2 years we’ve driven it.
The minuses: There was a braking problem where you’d be decelerating for stops and the vehicle would lurch forward suddenly just before stopping. It felt like maybe a half second where braking power was lost - possibly not actively dangerous, but certainly disconcerting. We brought the damn thing in to two separate Ford service departments and was told it was “normal” for this to happen. One even showed us a convenient letter from Ford in which they explained how normal it was. After we persisted in complaining about it, one service department discovered a defect in a brake part (sensor?) which was replaced under warranty, solving the problem. We were pissed because it was apparent this was a defect Ford knew about, but seemingly wanted to avoid a recall.
Also - the Escape, more than other cars I’ve driven, has a bunch of warning beeps and buzzers that trigger quickly and keep on triggering if you commit a sin like unbuckling your seat belt before entering a parking garage so you can reach the ID card in your wallet. It is something of a nanny vehicle.
So it’s a decent model. Not great or exciting to drive, but does its job.
Rogue isn’t the best for towing except for small loads. Because of the CVT the max load is only 1000 lbs, or 1,500 lbs if you have the version with the paddle shifters, which I believe was only offered on the '08-'09 versions.
I liked ths size, acceleration, gas mileage, and looks.
That’s what I was worried about.
This question was inspired while I was passing someone trying to tow a boat with a drastically underpowered small SUV, but I wasn’t able to see which one. After passing it I then passed a Ford Escape Hybrid and wondered if anyone had experience using it to tow.
My wife and I work for County gov. At elevation. 6 months a year we have snow.
We have fleet vehicles. My wife is an appraiser and has to visit all the houses in the county. They tried the hybrid Escape. Now this was a few years ago when it first came out. The appraisal staff was used to the small Cherokee (before it got discontinued).
The story goes that the hybrid Escape did not have not enough power to even climb a curb. Much less drive at 11,000 feet safely. Such ended the hybrid Escape experiment and they went with the ones with the 6 cylinder engine. Take it as you will, my knowledge is that it is underpowered.
Look at the Subaru Outback. That’s what people where I live drive if they don’t need more of a truck type SUV. I can’t comment on the Hyundai Santa Fe, but might be a good vehicle if you want something a little taller.
And think about Nissans. For myself, they have always done the job.
The Hyundai Tucson produces almost exactly the same amounts of power and torque as the Rogue (slightly more power, slightly less torque) and weighs about 50 lbs. less, for what it’s worth.
Why are you comparing a hybrid Escape to non-hybrid competitors? The non-hybrid Escape is a great vehicle. It gets 21-24mpg, and you can get it with a 240HP V6. If you plan to tow things, do not get a small engine. You don’t give up much in mileage with the V6 anyway. The vehicle you compared it to, the Hyundai Santa Fe, is much heavier and gets worse mileage than the standard Escape. So I’m not sure why you’d compare it to the Escape Hybrid.
Also, hybrid vehicles are not meant for towing. They typically combine a small, low-torque, low-hp gas engine with an electric motor that provide torque for acceleration. But when you’re pulling a load, you’re not going to be getting assist from the electric motor very long. And I wouldn’t want to pull any kind of load with a small i-4 gas engine. It could be downright dangerous. Never under-power a vehicle you’re using to tow things.
I’ve got a 2003 Escape with the V6. It has never given us any trouble. It still looks new. The interior has almost no wear in it (very durable cloth material on the seats). At 110,000 km, it has no squeaks or rattles, the transmission still feels tight, and the transfer case and differentials have no howls or play in them. I couldn’t be happier with it.
The Escape with the V6 can tow 3,000 or 3,500 lbs. That’s about as good as it gets until you get up into the big SUVs like the Explorer, but then your gas mileage goes way down.
Also, if you get a Ford, you can get Ford Sync, which is still the class of the field when it comes to voice control and integrating bluetooth phones and audio. With Sync, you can even receive text messages and the vehicle will read them to you. It’s really a cool system.
The Escape is typically cheaper than its competitors as well.
With the Escape V6 you get nowhere near the hybrid’s fuel economy on anything other than highway driving.
crazyjoe, V6 Escape owner
You could always buy a 2011 Mustang V6 and get 30 on the highway with 305 hp. should be able to do light towing with it.
No in the city it’s something like 18 mpg, while the Escape Hybrid is rated at 30. That’s a fairly big difference
There’s also a big difference in price. So much so that it will take something like 7-10 years to pay back the cost difference in gas savings. This means it’s a relatively close decision in total cost of ownership between the V6 and the Hybrid. So then it comes down to whether you value the additional towing capability of the V6 vs doing your part to help the environment.
The Escape Hybrid is actually rated at at 3500 lbs. That’s the same as the V6 Escape, so maybe it’s got decent towing capability after all. But it won’t be as good as the V6’s - it has over 100 lb-ft of torque more than the hybrid when the electric motor is out of the picture.
Now, you can also buy a RAV-4 or a Chevy Equinox, and I hear both are good vehicles. But they won’t have Escape Hybrid levels of fuel economy either. So the decision then comes down to the non-hybrid versions of all the models.
The price difference for a used Hybrid is much narrower, something like 1K. Seems like that would be a much smaller payback.
I should have mentioned that I got mine in late 2008. You’re right that the current model year, which I believe is a new design, is pretty comparable (even looks similar). But the 2008 base Tucson came with a 2.0 liter engine with 140 hp.
Since you asked: My wife and I currently have and love our Hyundai Accent. It’s great for zipping around and the daily commute, but gets really small really fast when we start loading it up with bikes, friends, and tri-gear.
So from there, we decided that if we get a second car, it needs to be a bit bigger, with a bit more power, and 4WD/AWD–essentially a small SUV. She *refuses *to get a Subaru partly because she doesn’t like the grocery-getter look, and because this guy we know just got one and he’s kind of a douche.
I started off looking at the Hyundai Tuscon and quickly realized it was underpowered even with the upgrade. From there I started looking at the Santa Fe and really liked it, but found it’s a bit bigger and a bit more expensive than we want.
From there I started looking and similar small SUVs, namely the KIA Sportage. One of the problems I’ve run into is that neither of us like the Lexus-look that all of the SUV’s have started to copy, a concept that bled into the cross-overs like the Nissan Rouge.
It was at this point that we both agreed we love the look of the Ford Escape so I’ve been doing research and comparing it with other models in its class. But until last week, I had completely forgotten that Ford rolled out all those Hybrids, including the Escape Hybrid.
Which is what brought me here to ask about its performance.
Well, yes and no. Hybrid compact sedans aren’t meant for towing, and neither are compact sedans. What’s worse, there was a trend over the past few years to make weaker and weaker SUVs to the point that they weren’t meant for towing either (eg the Tuscon). Which is precisely why I was asking this question. I was curious if the FEH was set up with towing in mind, or simply as a large commuter car.
And this is the sentiment I’ve been getting from Escape owners, overall it seems like a great car, and it’s abundance means a better price. At this point I’m pretty much sold on the Escape, but I wanted to go back and consider the hybrid as a possibility since as I said I had completely forget it existed.
The Escape really is a great little SUV. Its mileage is similar to a mid-sized sedan. It’s lighter than a lot of SUV’s - only around 3200 - 3400 lbs as I recall. Again, in the range of the average car. That also makes it feel somewhat sporty. Or at least, as sporty as an SUV can be.
We used to have a Ford Taurus (the older, smaller one), and the Escape got almost identical mileage. It was also significantly shorter than the Taurus, so it’s easier to manoever around in the city. But it also has gobs of storage for a small SUV.
If you’re getting one, check out Ford’s 'Sync system. I wouldn’t buy a Ford without it. The new Sat Nav they have loads from an SD card, and only adds $800 to the price of the vehicle (other sat-navs are typically in the $2000 range). So if you need sat-nav, it’s a good deal.
In the same vein as the “not Lexus looking” SUVs, you also have the Jeep Liberty. Also a very capable SUV with mileage numbers not that far from the Escape’s.
It never ceases to amaze me how manufacturers can get away with absolutely molesting people with their prices on radio/nav system upgrades, though. $800 for GPS? And that’s a less expensive one? Cripes.
My husband has a 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid. He’s very happy with it. It gets 29ish mpg in the summer, 25ish in winter (our winter hits the batteries pretty hard).
When he was looking, he was also considering the Toyota Highlander hybrid. However, the Toyota dealership would barely talk to us, much less give us any information. (“We don’t have the hybrid in stock,” they said. And that was it - they wouldn’t talk to us about its hypothetical features or show us an existing Highlander while pointing out differences, nada. Just “we don’t have one.” OK. Went to Ford. “Got one on the lot, wanna drive it?” Night and day.)
He, like you, was interested in getting an SUV/truck big enough to tow something. (Interestingly enough, he had an Xterra, and loved it, but was getting killed by the relatively low mpg.) “Something” in our case means random landscaping rental equipment or his dad’s fishing boat, so we weren’t really looking for a huge amount of towing capacity. Mostly lightweight stuff. And the Ford does those things fine. If you have bigger towing needs, I don’t know that I’d go with the hybrid - I’d probably look for something larger.
At the time, the salesman told us that the torque and power of the electric motor made the hybrid equivalent in feel to the V6, but I don’t really know if I buy that. OTOH, maybe it does; I’ve only driven our hybrid, never the Escape V6, so really can’t compare.
We’ve had absolutely no issues. He’s does wish that the dealership had more knowledge about the hybrid - they were pushing 5,000 mile service when the owner’s manual clearly states 10K increments (or higher) even for the “you’re hard on the car” drivers, but that’s probably just because they want to make money.
I had been considering the Xterra for a while too.
I’m pretty much in the same boat. I’m not looking haul huge amounts, or even that frequently, pretty much exactly as you described. I’m buying this for the utility part of the SUV. My towing needs are small, so I’m happy with a small SUV.
Which dealership did you get it at?