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Did the cause of your leak ever get found? Mine started to leak again after the windshield repair and now they can't find any cause. Just wondering if you ever got told.
Thanks
Sorry about your continued problems. It sounds like Ford has determined that there is a common windshield problem and developed a repair procedure for it. Unfortunately, In your case it wasn't the problem or they didn't fix it right. Or maybe they are completely wrong about the problem. I think we got in there early enough that Ford had not seen the problem, so they just gave us a new car. We picked up our replacement Escape last Thursday. Our sale person said he had no idea what the problem ended up being. He said he didn't keep up with it. We never talked to the manager again. I'm inclined to believe him on this. We went through the NFCU buying service so our salesman was a fleet sales guy. He's sort of off in his own building. Its a good possibility he didn't stay in the loop and didn't really care about that car anyway. As long as we got our car and he could complete the sale and move on he really doesn't a stake in car we brought back. He did think it was still over in the dealerships body shop, which is interesting. I know that's not helpful information.
Our new car is great except for some continued MFT issues. If those continue we'll be taking it over to the dealership and I'll ask the manager about the windshield.
***These are all averages over a number of miles. All with the AC on and with regular gas****
- On the interstate going less than 70 I can easily get 28 ~ 31 MPG.
- In the rolling foothills on route 29 between Lynchburg and Charlottesville I got around 25 ~ 26 MPG at 60 ~ 65 MPH.
- On the Colonial Parkway in Williamsburg (Very flat), cruising at 50 MPH, I got 33 MPG.
- Over 70 (the speed limit in Virginia is 70) the mileage drops off to about 27 MPG
- My wife is a Sysco rep and drives around all day in town, easily putting 50 miles a day on the car. The average mileage after several days of that is 24 MPG. For comparisons sake, she drove and Explorer rental for about a month and put about 1200 miles on it. Its mileage was pegged at 20.5.
Here are my thoughts after a week.
- The cars sweet spot like most cars is around 55 - 65 MPH.
- If you leave it in S mode it will never shift into 6th gear. I usually accelerated in S mode and then shift into D.
- Above 75 MPG the mileage really drops off.
- I tend to accelerate fairly quick off the line and then settle in to a constant speed about 5 MPH over the speed limit, but I don't tailgate, so I keep my speed consistent and I use the cruise control. However, according to my wife I drive like an aggressive a-hole. I still average about 26 in the car overall.
The MPG is very dependent on driving style and conditions. I know that people do not want to hear that. I would look at the cars Eco driving score and see what it says about your driving. I've been breaking this thing in so I've been driving conservatively. And I've actually been making a conscious effort to maximize the mileage(despite what my wife thinks). I think that if I just zoned out and drove like my natural inclination as a lead foot, my mileage would certainly be worse, but not anywhere near 15 MPG's. My G37 was rated at 18/23 I was able to get 29 MPG out of it but I also got as low as 5 MPG. Going 140 or redlining it at every stoplight will do that.
This issue puts me in mind of a Top Gear episode where they test drove an M3 against an Prius. They drove the Prius like a bat out of h311 and the M3 just had to keep up. They got better mileage out of the M3.
How you accelerate, how you brake and how close you follow the car in front of you makes a huge difference.
I'm not trying discount other peoples experiences. I'm not walking in anyone else's shoes, and I'm on my second Escape because of problems myself. However, In my experience with 2 examples of this model I can easily achieve or exceed the advertised mileage.
It does have an annoyingly tiny gas tank though. 15 gallons? Come on Ford!
Each gallon of gasoline weighs...7(?)lbs....
My Escape is at the dealership for the second time right now for this issue. The leak is caused by a bolt that fixes the roof rack onto the vehicle roof. It is improperly sealed and letting water through. My dealer has tried fixing it twice and is now trying for the third time by putting mastic around the bolt. They tried this once and it didn't work.
Ford customer service has been next to useless to me during this, so I'm glad my dealer is trying to get it right. I have been told categorically that under no circumstances will Ford replace this vehicle. Quite the statement considering that I seem to have purchased a sub-standard vehicle. Seems there is no recourse other than arbitration and Ford said if I went this route they would no longer help me.
I took it back to the dealer and here is what is happening so far.
The dealership admits we should be getting a lot better MPG and they claim Ford is very interested in our case. Not only the bad MPG but also the electronic issues I reported seemed to peak their interest. They will be taking the escape for an all day (4 hours if they get the same MPG we get) test drive so they can put a full tank of driving while connected to a computer that will apparently track everything with the engine and electronics. So much so according to the service manager that it will track each cylinders exact use of fuel. I am skeptical but I will post any pertinent info I get so if there are others experiencing lower than expected mpg they can contact their dealer or Ford.
Cbc410,
I thought our 20 MPG was bad. I think you should return to your dealer also and talk to them. The first thing I asked my dealer was for a loaner to drive for a week to compare. That was not approved so we are going the route of all the testing that they want to perform. Maybe you will have better luck asking your dealer for a loaner to compare. Who knows? Hopefully this time tomorrow I might know something more and will post an update.
1FMCU9J91DUA38365
Ordered 6/5/12
Manufactured on 6/29/12
Delivered on 7/19/12
The replacement vehicle (Hopefully not a leaker):
1FMCU9J91DUA84164
Ordered on 7/23/12
Manufactured on 8/13/12
Delivered on 9/5/12
Both were 2.0 AWD Titaniums with the panoramic roof.
- novascotiaguy
I'm sorry to hear that Ford is blowing smoke on this. They need to own it and resolve this to YOUR satisfaction. I really hope it works out.
-BTW
I think my MFT problems were related to turning on the Gracenote indexing. MFT reads the ID3 tags anyway, and I've got embedded album art. I turned off the Gracenote and no more crashes.......for now.
-Re Gas Mileage
I looked at the current total average MPG since we got our Escape last Thursday. The odometer just clicked over to 1000 miles. The average MPG is 22.8. I asked my wife how she's driving since 2 days ago it was at 24.5 MPG. She admitted that she's been making people eat her dust. It seems to have that effect on people. I'm thinking we will be getting less than the advertised mileage and enjoying every minute of it.
They just informed me they think it is the 'sealant' that is used by Ford - that it may be "bad sealant". They said they are re-sealing everything with different sealant to fix the problem and are in contact with Ford. It sounds like they believe this could be an issue for many Escapes that used this 'sealant' (maybe it was a bad batch, etc...).
The advertised capacity is the indicated (fuel gage) amount, plus the empty reserve.
There is a button that looks like a padlock below the button that says sound on the area below the radio display that sometimes lights up. Have looked in manual but no idea what that it is for. It is directly across from the emergency flasher button. Maybe somebody will see this and know what that is for. It could use some more cubby holes for things but you like me will adjust and figure it out.
Manual say leave foot off brake and push start button that puts you in accessory mode. Then put foot on brake and repeat when ready to drive.
One less thing you have to look up.
Thanks to all of you that have provided a wealth of information over the past two month while I was shopping.
Probably but I wouldn't push it. The fuel in the tank is what keeps the fuel pump cool. Going to far to E regularly could shorten the life of the fuel pump.
Since a new headliner should be installed anyway, because how can anyone tell how much water has been absorbed by the backing/padding, removing the headliner as part of the investigation into the cause of the leak shouldn't be a issue.
Some background-
Unibody structure vehicles of which I suspect the Escape is one, are assembled from sheet metal that is stamped and welded mostly by robots on the transferline. The process is continually improved from a quality and spec standpoint. Once the steel structure is welded, door assemblies are bolted onto the body structure that includes all the steel that makes up the car, it goes through the body sealing process which is mostly done by humans assisted by robots on the transferline. This is a crucial step because the sheetmetal has lots of daylight holes all over after being assembled that need to be sealed up. Workers use sealant guns to squirt the semi solid whitish substance (looks like caulk) into different parts and along the various nooks and crannies of this steel structure. Any process that can be automated, could be handed off to robots. Other washers, rubber grommets are inserted to seal up other areas of the vehicle. The car then goes through series of cleansing and coating baths where it is dipped in various chemicals (phosphate bath etc) that bond onto the sheet metal and assist in downstream paint process. Subsequently, the structures go through the paint process and then enter the oven where the body sealant and the paint bake and solidify filling in all those nooks and crannies to give you a nice sealed structure. This atleast is the intent.
What really happens -
Sometimes the workers miss squirting the sealant in the areas, sometimes they might squirt too little or in the wrong place because there was a substitute worker in place of another who was familiar with the process. Sometimes there is a design defect in that the sealant is not prescribed where it should be. Anyway, there are many reasons for leaks and a lot of chance for error to creep in but over time they (the manufacturing plant teams) tend to figure it out and fix these issues.
The plant gets continuous feedback from the field including dealers and customers. In the case of Escape, I bet there is an engineer who is racking his brains out to find the root cause for the waterleak that is common on the escape.
I know because I racked my brains on a water leak in the dash on the vehicle that I worked on at Ford. It was like a total mystery as I spent hours sending my cars through car washes trying to figure out the source. We tried everything to fix the damn leak including adjusting the joint near where the A-pillar meets the structure that holds the instrument panel , couple that with squirting the sealant in different areas. When we finally fixed it, I could still not really be comfortable that it was fixed for sure.
I think the Escape is too new, they might very likely still be in the process of figuring out the root cause for the leak and if they did, the knowledge and the skill to transfer it to the various dealerships across the country could take time. I wouldn’t be too surprised if a dealer tried to fix the leak and you see the leak again because fixing a leak can be extremely complex as I have explained above.
So what can I do as a potential buyer? I think the Escape is an awesome vehicle, I have never been so attracted to an SUV as I am to the Ford Escape. I will however wait for a few months until they stabilize some of these issues such as leaks and I am sure there are many other issues on all these new vehicles just starting to roll off the plant. So if you buy a new vehicle in its 1st year of production you take the risk of inheriting many issues. year after year they get better as they continue to resolve the issues and lean and improve the vehicle.
Thanks that is an eye opener and better than seeing a few videos on TV of cars being made. It explains in detail what happens on a phase of the production line and makes sense. Your analogy of daylight holes was great and I could envision somewhat how that would look. I did not wait a year more like 6 months after start of production and gratefully have had no leaks. It is amazing to see how people with the same problem get various responses from their dealers. I have read about one that had vehicle replaced and one that was told point blank do not expect vehicle to be replaced. Of all the cars owned I think Acura was the only company that I felt would have done some things to solve problems that no other manufacturer would have. More of a perception than an actual narrative as I had zero problems with that vehicle and gratefully that has been the same with the 2013 Escape.
I remember seeing one video that showed one phase of the process and people were hitting/beating the cars with wooden or rubber mallets to make sheet metal fit and align properly. Not sure if that still goes on today but the process appeared to be pretty brutal instead of a clean room experience.
Thanks
Question on your 2.0 Titanium, you said you waited 6months after production. Has the 2013 Escape been out that long already? I thought the 13 models come up just now, maybe they made an exception and launched earlier then
I am salivating at the prospect of owning the Escape literally. It is the best looking SUV I think in the market today and gives the Audi Q5 a run for its money. If it handles as well as the 2012 did, then we have a clear winner here.
Since I used to be a Ford employee, I am thinking I might be able to get one under the X plan. I am not sure if the best dealers can beat the X plan prices by negotiation or competitive shopping. Have any of you negotiated hard on this? where are the best prices? Certainly not the Seattle area as I had poor experience with dealerships and prices . I tend to buy my cars at the best possible prices even if it means travelling to a nearby state and picking it up there. There is usually a thread on discussion on prices but I dont see that on the 2013 Escape yet.
I found one dealer in Missouri that was selling them at invoice minus their holdback. Ford had 1000.00 dealer cash to help with that pricing but they were very aggressive on any trim level. Look on ebay as that is how I found them and you will see some Titanium's at around 30,000 last I looked that have a sticker of more like 34,000. Just follow the link to their dealership and you can view the window sticker and see thier price. 2000.00 off was also available from another Missouri dealer I found on ebay and they gave me a little more for my trade so I bought locally rather than the other side of the state.
Probably should drop the Tribute part but we still get people asking about buying used ones now and then.
Are there any other people with this complaint?
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VIN 1fmcu0h91dua81928
Note: I do not have a sunroof.