bolt in blue

While I can parallel park just fine, the active park on my Escape definitely gets me in smaller spaces than I would attempt on my own. It's also usually faster than me doing it myself. True story: I once drove by a space that I said the car would never fit in. Active park disagreed. I decided to go for it just for kicks. 27 direction changes later, I was in. Not exactly fast, but it was the only spot in sight. It was amazing how little room there was in front or behind of it!

I saw a T6 ranger in Toledo, Spain this past month. It was huge - appeared to be roughly the same size as the current F150. I can't see it coming over unless it shrinks significantly. I think an eventual combining of the F150 and ROW pickup may happen given their similarity in size today. I could see the new F150 becoming the Ranger in the rest of the world if it shrinks a little bit as has been discussed on here. I can't see any scenario where the current F150 and T6 Ranger are sold side by side - they are going after the exact same market!

I would have done that for my Escape! One of the coolest things at the BMW complex in Munich was watching people take delivery of cars practically off the line. One of my coworkers did it for Porsche and I think flying over and trying it out on the autobahn was just as exciting for him as actually getting the new car.

I own an 2013 Escape and I had a 2013 Focus Wagon in Germany as a rental last summer. They're very similar vehicles. Cargo area may have been slightly longer in the Focus but felt about the same height (overall, the car rides lower). I do have to say I prefer the Focus Wagon though. I don't mind the lower seating position although I would have liked having My Ford Touch. If Ford introduced a Focus Wagon in the US, I would trade in my Escape. If Ford offered a diesel Escape, I'd trade mine in. I averaged over 50 mpg US in the wagon with a 2.0L diesel and a powershift transmission over 800 km, with about an even split of autobahn at 130-150 kph (80-90 mph) and back roads at 80-90 kph (~60 mph) - not being careful about fuel. When I'm careful in my Escape, I get 35 mpg on 55 mph highways and about 27-28 mpg at 65-70 on the interstates. My Escape has never been above 78 mph. The diesel drove very much like the gas engine. Now a diesel Focus Wagon, that would be really sweet. I think as gas prices go up, Americans are rediscovering the wagon. In particular, I see many young people choosing the most wagon like cars on the market. I would never go back to a sedan - it's too convenient being able to throw just about anything in the back!

Not a Ford product but I can definitely vouch for the slow cars of the 80s. My family had a 1985 or 86 Plymouth Reliant when I was growing up. My mom loved having six passenger seating but that car was pretty terrible other than seat count and comfort. Slow, ate mufflers, windows rolled themselves down, car shook violently above 55 mph, three speed transmission shifted roughly. My parents got rid of it when it was 13 years old with 86k on it (very early for us). In that time, we had to replace the head gasket, went through four or five mufflers (we drove 250 miles back from vacation once without a muffler - probably the only K car that ever sounded like a race car!), and had to have the A/C recharged every summer after it was just a few years old. We eventually gave up on the a/c and just drove our other car any time we only needed one car in the summer. In contrast, our other car during much of that time was a pretty stripped 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon. I had a 2013 Subaru Outback as a rental last summer and other than being better equipped and having a CD player, didn't feel that different than the one we bought 13 years earlier that I had learned to drive on. The Subaru was definitely ahead of its time. We had a Contour as a rental in 1998 or 1999 after our then almost new van was in an accident. Not sure how the insurance company thought a midsize was a good replacement for a minivan but whatever. The Contour they gave us only had 10,000 miles but had clearly been abused. The rear driver's side door didn't open. There were cigarette burns on the ceiling. The car felt like it needed new brakes. Even given those issues, the car felt cheap. You could feel the plastic door handles flexing as you opened the doors. I'm guessing that some of the quality issues were fixed pretty fast - the one we drove certainly wasn't going to age well!

How old is your Lexus? What model? I think you'll find the Titanium trim level on the Fusion comparable interior wise to luxury cars of a few years ago. I have a 2013 Escape Titanium and it has an interior that's almost as nice as my sister's 2013 BMW X3. We have different colors and options so it's not exactly apples to apples, but the Ford looks more integrated and is more logically laid out. If you took all the branding off them, you'd be hard pressed to tell which one was the luxury make.

Three times already? How many miles do you have on yours? We live maybe 10 miles apart so we have similar road/pollution/pollen conditions and I know I've had my Escape longer and I'm still on the original filter. Granted, I turned mine over 15k this weekend. I was thinking I'd do the filter at about 20k but you're making me rethink it!

As another Escape owner, I suspect you'll have to put the large side of the back seat down to make everything fit so it would be quite cozy. There is a definite benefit to renting a vehicle just like your own though. I rented a Focus Wagon (think a lower riding Escape) this past summer in Germany. It was very convenient having all the controls in the same places so I didn't have to think about things too much since I had to think more about driving with different road signs, etc. Anything Ford is going to have similar controls to your Escape. Keep in mind that Europe doesn't have My Ford Touch right now - I had a Focus Titanium Wagon with nav but it just had a little non-touch screen in the center stack. Worked great for us - 3 people with 2-3 suitcases each. We drove 800km in three days. Be careful driving in Italy, especially around Rome. Italy is one of the worst countries in Europe for foreigners to drive with some of their rules. I've also witnessed crazy drivers all over Rome - not as much in the rest of the country, but I've mainly stayed off the beaten path, often in places where there aren't a lot of cars.

I was in Canada recently and there were a number of billboards in the Toronto area for the diesel Cruze. Gas prices in Canada are very close to EU prices so I can see why there would be more of a diesel push there. I saw a number of VWs (almost all TDI). Lots of Japanses and Korean cars too, even more than in most US cities. The big three weren't well represented although there were lots of new Escapes on the street. GM seemed particularly absent from their market - I wonder if the diesel Cruze is their attempt to sell more in Canada since outisde of VW there didn't seem to be that many diesels available.

I use my climate control buttons so infrequently that I still haven't developed a feel for them like I have in past vehicles despite having the car for 16 months now. I usually just keep mine on auto. I occasionally change the temperature a little bit or turn on/off the A/C or recirc but other than that I just leave it alone. This car is my first with automatic climate control so I was much more hands on in the past. I didn't realize there was a max A/C button until the end of August - I thought it was only in MFT - and it's one of the largest ones on the control panel. I think the fact that I need to access those controls so infrequently is a testament to how well they work. I have friends with some other makes who have automatic climate controls that they think are completely worthless.

How many miles are on your Escape? Thinking about doing mine as I've had the car now for 16 months but I only have 11,500 on mine and I mainly run the climate control on recirc so my filter should last longer than some.

My car came from Sheehy in Springfield. They're not particularly close to me but they were the highest rated Ford dealer in Fairfax County and Costco sent me there. I've been happy with the service department but I use an independent guy closer to me who I've been going to for years for most non-warranty work. Sheehy has a nice customer waiting area and wifi so waiting for service isn't that bad.

What region of Virginia are you in? If you're in Northern Virginia, I've had the best experience at Sheehy in Springfield. The Ford dealership in Tysons is terrible. The dealership in Fairfax seemed ok but I don't have any first hand experience with their work.

I have tried my voice button about 10 times since the update. It's worked once or twice. Indexing is faster but not much else seems different except for the voice button becoming flaky.

My HVAC guy converted his 3/4 ton Chevy work truck so it could run on CNG. Other than having to drive out of his way to fill up it works just like gas and he can switch back to gas with the flip of a switch if CNG is unavailable. Last year, he was paying just over $2 per gallon gas equivalent to fill it up and trying to run it 100% CNG. Here's some pictures of his conversion: https://www.facebook.com/jsmeenen/media_set?set=a.10150098839687938.307773.757747937&type=1

I love my 2013 Escape but think that the gas tank isn't large enough. I think I do better than most around here mileage wise with my lifetime average being 24.2 MPG. I do roughly 90% city driving, getting about 23 MPG most tanks and 32 MPG routinely on pure highway tanks with the 2.0 EB. My low fuel light generally comes on after about 270 miles on the tank and I usually wait until after then to fill up. I put 12-13 gallons in on average when I run it to near empty. My previous car did a little better mileage wise (31/38 rating but the 31 was dreaming) and had nearly the same size tank at 13.2 gallons. I would put 330 miles minimum on a "city" tank and 400 miles minimum on a "highway" tank on that car. I much prefer the Escape but it feels like I spend a lot more time at the gas station these days - about an extra trip a month. Wish the Escape had an 18 or 20 gallon tank to improve range. I think the Escape tank is probably a carry over from the original Euro designs. I had a Focus wagon rental in Germany that I believe had the same size tank as my Escape but according to the computer had 981 KM (~600 MI) to empty after filling up the tank. With more efficient or diesel engines available, the 15 gallon tank would be fine but with the North American engines, a bigger tank would sure be nice.

I was ready to take the car home with me! I would take the autobahns too but neither one would fit in my suitcase. Forgot to mention that the Focus had a different keyfob than my Escape and didn't have a power lift gate but it had the keyless ignition and door unlocking that worked just like the Escape - I'm now used to never taking my keys out of my pocket. In a lot of ways it really felt just like driving my car at home which was nice. I had a Hyundai i30 hatchback last year in Greece and while the roads were much worse than Germany/Austria, it was much harder dealing with different road styles and signs while driving an unfamiliar crappy car (I test drove the i30 wagon, sold as the Elantra Touring, a few years ago in the US - not a good car but the one I had in Greece was much worse than the one I drove here). I suspect that if Ford did bring the diesel Focus Wagon to the US, it wouldn't have a tow rating. Our vehicles here consistently have lower tow ratings than their cousins in other countries. None of the US Focus models have any tow rating and it's rare for a midsize car in the US these days to have any tow rating. If they have one, it's usually 1000 lbs.

My ride back home is a 2013 Escape Titanium FWD 2.0. I was in Europe last week and needed a car for a few days in Germany. I had pre-booked a "Ford Focus or similar" and paid extra to guarantee an automatic from Hertz - didn't want another thing to mess with when it's only my second time driving in Europe. Declined to pay $15/day to guarantee nav and also declined moving up to a guaranteed diesel - more than doubled the rental price. The Focus was the smallest car listed with an available automatic on their site. We mainly hit small towns while we had the car, but started in Frankfurt and ended in Munich so didn't want to have a large car for city driving and parking. I was slightly nervous that the "or similar" could be a WV Golf as some other sites were renting automatic Golfs in the same size class. It would have been tight for three people plus all our luggage. I figured with car preferences in Europe, the Focus would likely be a hatchback. When I showed up at the desk at Frankfurt airport to pick up the car, they gave me the option of two vehicles: a Focus or a C-Max. Desk agent said both had nav (at no extra charge - yay!) and 2.0 diesel engines. Asked what body style the Focus was and he said wagon. Went with the Focus. Glad I did. Car was very nicely equipped and remarkably similar to my Escape. Dual zone automatic climate control (exact same controls as the Escape). Sony radio with nav and sync - not My Ford Touch - not sure it's offered in Europe. Driver display between the gauges same as the Escape but with a different color scheme and a newer version (has the quad display that my Escape doesn't have yet). Easy to change the language to English, which switched everything except the emergency traffic alerts on the radio over. Even had heated seats (cloth) with lumbar support (manual). Audio controls on the steering wheel laid out a little different than the Escape but all other controls in the same places. While the audio/nav system isn't as fancy as MFT, its operation was flawless and it had a nice large display (5-6" range). Engine felt very similar to the EcoBoost engines. Not quite as quick off the line (felt like there was some turbo lag) but plenty powerful for both city and highway driving. We hit 150 km/h on the autobahn when passing with no trouble. Direct shift transmission not as smooth as the 6 speed auto but much smoother than many of the automatics I've had in Europe and in no way a downside to me. True story: the last time I rented a car in Europe, I got out after the first drive and said "now I understand why Europeans all have manuals if these are the crappy automatics they get"). Engine also had great highway fuel economy - I was getting about 4l/100km on the autobahn with an average speed around 120 (75 mph). I believe our trip average was just under 6l/100km but we did a lot of back roads and mountains that cut our numbers. Also liked having an instant fuel consumption gauge in the driver display in addition to the average. We drove around 750km over three days and used about $80 of fuel, paying about 1.41eur/liter when we filled up. We probably could have done it on one tank but we played it safe and had an intermediate fill up, after which the car said it was 980km (600mi) to empty. Wish I could go that kind of distance in my Escape! The diesel lost economy at a much slower rate than my Escape when dealing with inclines or high speeds. One other interesting note: this diesel sounded like a typical diesel when you got into the high RPMs after flooring it but had a very quiet idle that sounded like a gas car (not the typical diesel idle rhythm). The cargo capacity was nearly the same as my Escape. It seemed to be the same distance in all directions and held about the same amount under the retractable cargo cover. The cargo cover on the Escape is easier to use and higher quality. Rear passenger legroom was a hair less than the Escape. Ride and vehicle noise inside was very similar. I think the back window was identical between the cars. I bought my Escape for three features: cargo capacity in the vehicle, 3500lb tow ability, and 30MPG highway. If Ford brought over an Escape Wagon with a diesel that somehow managed to keep a decent tow rating, there's a good chance I'd trade mine in. I don't mind giving up the ride height. With the difference in fuel economy between the lower body and the diesel, it would probably make financial sense even if the not as nice equipped Focus cost the same as my Escape Titanium when you added the diesel. One other interesting thing I'll add: Fords are very popular in Germany, more so than any of the Asian brands or any of the other American brands (Chevy and Opel both have a presence). Virtually all vehicles are wagons, MPVs, or SUVs with small hatchbacks also being popular in the city. I didn't see a single Ford sedan or coupe in Europe and saw a single Focus hatchback despite the Focus being one of the most common vehicles I saw. The only cars that I saw frequently as sedans were BMWs and even there the wagon was much more popular. I also saw a number of Audi R8s flying by on the autobahn but those were the only coupes I saw on the road. I saw more Fords than Audis too.

I think I got about 26-28 when I first got it. Every road trip I've taken has averaged at least 29 except for a trip to NYC around the 5000 mile mark where I sat for hours on the NJ turnpike. I got about 24 on that trip. I've done very few tanks that were close to 100% highway so I don't always have the best numbers (I reset my average MPG every time I fill up). Keep in mind that most of the highways near me are 55 and I rarely drive over 70 regardless of the speed limit (habit from my old car which lost ~5 MPG when you hit 69). I did manage to do 31 as a trip average on the open road where the speed limit was 70 around half of the way and I was going around 72 most of that distance. I have seen my around town MPG go up from 18-20 when I first took it home to 21-22 after a few months. It's now in the 23-25 range ever since it warmed up. I usually drive with the windows up and haven't run the A/C much so far this year so it might creep down a little bit once it gets hot here.

On Saturday, I had to do an airport dropoff at the Baltimore airport. Stopped to fill up on the way home and so I have a MPG number that's 95% highway - about 1-2 miles to the highway from the gas station (where I reset the gauge) and then about 40 miles on the road back home. Was going 65 most of the way but had about a mile of congestion at 40mph or so. Hit 70 a few times on I-95. No cruise this time. Number when getting off the highway: 35.3 MPG. I was down to about 34 when I pulled into my driveway three miles later (missed a lot of lights). I have a 2013 2.0 Titanium FWD that turned over 9000 mi during this test. My vehicle lifetime average is 24.3 MPG as of Saturday. I do mostly city driving but try to avoid driving during peak rush hour.

I just ordered one too. Had been thinking about something like it or getting a bluetooth reader and using one of my old phones but decided to just bite the bullet and go with the Ultra Gauge. I think I'm going to try using a binder clip to mount mine to the air vent like this person did: http://www.optimaforums.com/forum/23-entertainment-audio-navigation-electronics/7984-new-toy-ultragauge.html

Escapism, did you buy yours from Ted Britt Ford? They were one of the ones that I looked at but ended up going with Sheehy since I couldn't beat the pricing I could get from the Costco Auto Program (which sent me to Sheehy). I've been very happy with everything about Sheehy except that it's about 12 miles from me. I have family near them though so it gives me a good excuse to drop in for a visit.

I have about 6500mi/10,000km on my 2.0 FWD. My car calculated average over the life of the vehicle is 24.3mpg. Just about every tank for the last 2000 miles or so has been over 25mpg per tank. Most of my driving is stop and go around town. Only one tank has been under 20mpg average and that was the first one. I had one recent tank where it was just 20.0 but that was after the dealer did a MFT fix where they let the car idle for 90 minutes. I reliably hit 30 on the highway and frequently see numbers around 32 on the highway. Of course, I live close to a major city and most highway speed limits around here are 55. I generally drive between 60 and 68 on any highway. Most of my highway driving was in the 60-62mph range.

Are you guys trusting the computer or doing the oil at set intervals? I'm at about 4400 miles on the original oil. Have 6qts of full synthetic ready for the first change but undecided if I should do it at 5000 or when the car says to.

Well it never found my USB drive but the version on SyncMyRide.com now shows 3.5.1 so I think I'm set!