First tank of Gas since Purchasing FEHL AWD Already Saving Money

[tazjedi]

I had to fill-up for the first time today. When I got the Ford Escape Hybrid AWD vehicle it had 21 Miles on it and a full tank of gas. I drove it up to 428 miles for a total of 407 since initial fill-up from the dealership. The fill-up was 12.781 gallons which gives me 31.844144 MPG on the first tank of gas. :happy feet: Thank you Ford for improving on the Escape Hybrid. Most of the driving that I did was on the highway at speeds of 60 miles per hour this time with the exception of a few local trips.

 

This is a big improvement over the vehicle that I had that got an average of 19 MPG.

 

The gas attendent kept looking for the cap. It is nice to be capless... :shades:

Edited September 13, 2008 by tazjedi

[fmorriso]

I had to fill-up for the first time today. When I got the Ford Escape Hybrid AWD vehicle it had 21 Miles on it and a full tank of gas. I drove it up to 428 miles for a total of 407 since initial fill-up from the dealership. The fill-up was 12.781 gallons which gives me 31.844144 MPG on the first tank of gas. :happy feet: Thank you Ford for improving on the Escape Hybrid. Most of the driving that I did was on the highway at speeds of 60 miles per hour this time with the exception of a few local trips.

 

This is a big improvement over the vehicle that I had that got an average of 19 MPG.

 

The gas attendent kept looking for the cap. It is nice to be capless... :shades:

Gas attendent? Is there something about New Jersey you want to fill the rest of us in on?

 

Nice to see that the AWD version gets more than the EPA 29/27 estimate, even if it's heavily weighted towards the highway side.

[Pioneer]

Gas attendent? Is there something about New Jersey you want to fill the rest of us in on?

 

It is against the law to pump your own gas in New Jersey. It must be pumped by an attendant.

[tazjedi]

It is against the law to pump your own gas in New Jersey. It must be pumped by an attendant.

Honestly it is a great law in the bad weather. However when you want to rush onto something else it is not fun to sit there and wait for the attendent. Plus our gas is cheaper than most states because of living so close to Newark.

[GaryG]

I had to fill-up for the first time today. When I got the Ford Escape Hybrid AWD vehicle it had 21 Miles on it and a full tank of gas. I drove it up to 428 miles for a total of 407 since initial fill-up from the dealership. The fill-up was 12.781 gallons which gives me 31.844144 MPG on the first tank of gas. :happy feet: Thank you Ford for improving on the Escape Hybrid. Most of the driving that I did was on the highway at speeds of 60 miles per hour this time with the exception of a few local trips.

 

That's great, what did your Fuel Econ or Nav sys MPG average say? The reason I ask is the Escape gas tank can vary with every fill-up because of a large vapor space. Sometimes I can only get 12 gallons in and others I get 15 gallons plus because of an angle the vehicle is sitting on. This means your mileage can vary from great to bad if you use one tank at a time to measure. The good news is Ford and the EPA seem to really under estimate the Escapes MPG.

[rscalzo]

Plus our gas is cheaper than most states because of living so close to Newark.

 

Living close to Newark has zero to do with the pricing on NJ gas. The state tax is lower than most states and that is the reason for the cost. Of course the state's highway trust fund is bankrupt which means the state's crummy roadways and crumbling bridges will remain so for some time.

[Meatwaggon]

Don't you have to tip the attendant? Wouldn't that make the cost of filling up that much more expensive?

 

On another note, I thought the car is a 4WD not AWD. When I think of AWD I think of computer-controlled power distribution independently to each wheel.

[OX1]

Honestly it is a great law in the bad weather. However when you want to rush onto something else it is not fun to sit there and wait for the attendent. Plus our gas is cheaper than most states because of living so close to Newark.

 

It's cheaper due to our low gas tax. The only tax we have lower though and the state will fix that soon enough.

[Stock]

Don't you have to tip the attendant? Wouldn't that make the cost of filling up that much more expensive?

 

On another note, I thought the car is a 4WD not AWD. When I think of AWD I think of computer-controlled power distribution independently to each wheel.

 

This is confusing ... there are so many variations of drivetrains out there now ...

 

From what I heard from salesmen, the system is, in fact, a lot more of an AWD system than a 4WD system. Basically its FWD until the system determines the rear wheels need some torque, and then I think about 40% of the engines torque can be transferred ... Perhaps there is some limited-slip differential system that causes it to behave more like a 4WD system when conditions merit it ... AWD systems drive all four wheels at once I think.

 

I know there is a 'low' on the floor shifter in my FEH, but I think that its a bit of a misnomer. I don't believe there's actually a transfer case allowing the low setting, but rather that the generator for the hybrid system is used as a type of 'engine braking' way to accomplish the 'low' gear. I vaguely remember reading that in the manual.

 

I know that 4WD in my Jeep is WAY different than this. True 4WD ends up skipping tires all over the pavement around turns if you were to leave it on on the road (in exchange for the rock-crawling capability).

[Meatwaggon]

This is confusing ... there are so many variations of drivetrains out there now ...

 

From what I heard from salesmen, the system is, in fact, a lot more of an AWD system than a 4WD system. Basically its FWD until the system determines the rear wheels need some torque, and then I think about 40% of the engines torque can be transferred ... Perhaps there is some limited-slip differential system that causes it to behave more like a 4WD system when conditions merit it ... AWD systems drive all four wheels at once I think.

 

I know there is a 'low' on the floor shifter in my FEH, but I think that its a bit of a misnomer. I don't believe there's actually a transfer case allowing the low setting, but rather that the generator for the hybrid system is used as a type of 'engine braking' way to accomplish the 'low' gear. I vaguely remember reading that in the manual.

 

I know that 4WD in my Jeep is WAY different than this. True 4WD ends up skipping tires all over the pavement around turns if you were to leave it on on the road (in exchange for the rock-crawling capability).

My understanding of 4WD vs AWD was that AWD was way more sophisticated in that computers track each axle and can increase or reduce power to each axle depending on how much traction the computer judges that axle to have. Whereas 4WD just equally distributes power to all four wheels all the time regardless of conditions.

Edited September 19, 2008 by Meatwaggon