I'm eyeing into buying an extra car... particularly an 05 Escape Hybrid which goes around $5500-6000 with about 120-140k miles. Any owner experiences regarding any major or strange maintenance issues? Will only be driven about 10k per year around LA.
I bought one last year. It was an 06 4X4 loaded with 70000 miles. It cost 14000 dollars and is really nice. I had two problems when we got it and the dealer took care of both. It had a rear wheel bearing going bad and a leak in the air conditioner line to the battery. I have only put 6000 miles on it since we got it as we use our Prius most of the time. It was for when road conditions were bad and snow was almost non-existent this year. We get an average of 32mpg in warm weather and 27-28 in cold weather. The Ford Escape Hybrid has some concerns as do all used vehicles. It is probably one of the best used Ford products.
I've seriously considered getting one and research them including forums. One area of concern is a special ring sensor on the wheels that is a non-repairable item and is not cheap (IMO). They also can have the same hybrid coolant pump failures as the Prius. I don't think there was ever a recall for them though. Many of the used ones I come across have very high miles so owners must like driving them! Probably not a big deal in LA but it is here in south Texas: the a/c is belt driven and in ECO mode when the engine stops so does the compressor. When I test drove one in October with temps in the upper 80's, it never got uncomfortable at regular traffic lights (one cycle). I believe around 2010 they went to electric a/c. I found the ride (09) to be very nice with acceptable power. I was trying for good economy and got 35mpg on my 45 minute test ride (city streets and urban freeway).
I own one, bought new in 06. this has been the best car I've ever owned! gets around 30mpg but considering I came from a tahoe at 15mpg this car was a blessing. Awesome 4wd, great carrying capacity very little maintenance. Fit and finish is mediocre, road noise for some reason is terrible. Nav system is lousy seat heaters are annoying but otherwise, new oil occais, a new belt, a tone ring and tie rod, otherwise zero maint. I put over 40k on this car in the past yr...currently at 130kmi.
What type of tires are you running, and what pressures? Higher pressures are a simple way increasing economy, but doing so can increase tire noise. The Escape is considered the best hybrid for light off road use. It might be the only onethe manufacturer says not to take off road. Road noise may be the cost of such capability. Another plus for a dash mount gps. If it sucks, just return it.
I'm on, I believe my third set of tires. what we do is take the car in and say "do something about the road noise!" and they say "you need new tires". We put tires on and the noise slowly increases for the next 40kmi. After I changed the tie rod end recently, I needed to rotate the tires to move the poorly wearing tire to another spot. Being a clever sort I assumed that this rotation would have the effect of new tires (road noise wise). It's the worst it's ever been! The nav system is just so cumbersome (and to be honest, the nav in our MB is just as bad). The seat heater is just incredibly bad, it's laughable. The seat heater button is on the seat control down by the door sill. it is "push on, push off" with no different button position...it has a little led on it! so to turn it on you push, you wait a minute and have to try and look down between the seat and door to see if there's a light! Turn it off? same thing, you push the button but the seat is still hot, so you start wondering if it's still on. I wonder how a manuf even got this past a test group.
Truck tires with even a semi-aggressive tread are going to be noisier than a car tire. My friend usually switches his trucks to BF Goodrich Long Trails. They are road truck tires without the aggressiveness on the chance of going off road. Plus, they are LRR. Until that tire's wear evens out, don't expect better. You could try getting the tires buffed or shaved so that their wear and diameters all match, or find a road being repaved. A couple weeks of commuting on graded road took the shaky feathering off my Rangers tires. Someone in a test might have said it needed heated seats. Marketing thought it was good idea. The engineers were told to make it happen, despite them pointing out the only available space for the buttons wouldn't be visible to the user.
Well it's obvious to save money, they didn't put a wiring harness in every escape from the console to the floor(even though they ran power to the floor), so the heater controls go right on the seat. But why you make that a "push on/push off" switch is absolutely mind bottling. even back in 2000 chevy figured out to make this a toggle switch, forward on/rearward off. I did notice today that the road noise is starting to diminish just a bit.
