Edmunds dealer partner, Bayway Leasing, is now offering transparent lease deals via these forums. Click here to see the latest vehicles!
Popular New Cars
Popular Used Sedans
Popular Used SUVs
Popular Used Pickup Trucks
Popular Used Hatchbacks
Popular Used Minivans
Popular Used Coupes
Popular Used Wagons
Comments
Well, if I'm only 1mpg below the EPA figures driving in the winter & using the winter blend, then the Escape was a complete disaster this summer. I guess comparing the two isn't "apples to apples" but considering the two are close enough in epa mpg figures (same hwy, 2mpg difference in city) then the Escape should've had better #s driving in better conditions this summer. I never got better than 22mpgs in mixed driving & it's only when you combine the mixed with the straight highway miles did it go above the 23mpg city rating (23.5). I hand calculate everything & keep a spreadsheet.
As far as the comparison in weight & hp/torque, the added 500lbs has a HUGE impact on real life comparisons between the two. I subscribe to Consumer Reports, here are the comparisons of the tested vehicles:
0 to 30: Escape(4wd) 3.4 Crosstrek 3.8
0 to 60: 9.9 9.7
45 to 65: 6.5 6.6
Quarter-mile: 17.5 17.5
Quarter-mile: 80 82
So the Escape is quicker to 30 but slower to 60, with passing time (45-65) a statistically insignificant .1 second difference. So all that HP & Torque advantage the Escape has is completely wasted because of the weight.
Fuel Economy Tests:
CR's overall mileage: Escape 22 Crosstrek 26
CR's city/highway: 15/31 19/34
Crusing Range: 335mi 420mi
So much for the "ECO" in that ECOboost. The Crosstrek came out +1 in EPA hwy and -6 for the city. The Escape -2 in EPA hwy and -8 for city.
Yes, I'm slamming Ford, not on the old Escape, but this new Escape that sucks eggs as far as I'm concerned!!!
However, my 2013 Escape Titanium is the 5th new vehicle I've purchased since 1998. With the previous 4 vehicles I was able to obtain the EPA hwy mileage (cruising on the interstate @70 mph - the posted speed limit where I live) after a reasonable break in period. I've yet to come close to attaining the hwy mpg on my Escape (the best I got was about 24 mpg cruising @70). The best I've achieved - about 27 mpg was cruising @ 55 - 60. I'm at 24 mpg overall - just like the sticker says. But I live in a small town and I don't really drive in city traffic. My vehicles have always had a bias towards the highway mileage.
I have 2,700 miles on my vehicle. I understand the 2,000 - 3,000 mile break in period stated in the owner's manual before we should check the mpg. So far it's not looking too good for the hwy mpg (in my case). But I'm not officially disappointed yet. I'll be patient and give it more time.
The final exam will be next month when I head to Florida (from SW MI). I'm planning a round trip of about 3,000 miles with quite a bit of time spent on the interstate. I'll post the results after my trip.
But I'm beginning to think Ford engineered this vehicle to perform on the EPA test and not on the road (wrt to fuel mileage). If so, they may be technically correct and passed the EPA test but could lose in the court of public opinion.
Overall, on all other factors I'm extremely satisfied with my new Escape! The vehicle's performed flawlessly so far (even the My Ford Touch)!
What's your source for this conclusion? or is it simply an emotional knee jerk reaction? I'm interested in the hard data source.
In my latest update, our 2.0l SEL 4WD, since around Christmas Eve, has returned an average closer to 25.5 mpg overall. This also needs to take into account colder temperatures during this period. We got snow XMas Eve and again 2x since, just in large enough amounts and with enough cold air to keep most of it around for two weeks, and even now there are small patches that haven't melted completely away yet, but mostly where it was piled from shoveling or plowing. The worst average tank for this period was just over 23 mpg.
Overall, taking into consideration the 'ideal' nature of the EPA testing process, this is right in line or even a bit better than the car is 'supposed' to return- I have a mixed drive of rural highway, town, city, and interstate, with speeds anywhere from 25 to 70 mph, and these tanks were with me driving five over wherever the speed limits were under 70, or 70 in 70 mph zones.
The most recent tank, with temperatures in the mid-upper-50's, is already over 25.5 mpg, and looking to hit 26 (warmer weather, slightly higher % hwy affecting the numbers). I've had over 29 on occasion, without ever having a single tank of *all* highway driving.
I'd love to get the opportunity for the latter, but time and opportunity have to get together first.
Most people don't seem to understand -- Supply & Demand!!! -there goes your money!!
NOT ME ! NO ONE will tell me that I can't drive 70 MPH !!! LOL
AT 70 I get to cry and complain about my mileage !! Waaaaaaa.....
At 55 MPH I got 38.1 MPG 1.6L FWD Now that makes sense LOL
The choice is YOURS!!!
Thanks
If so, I have the same setup. I have recorded the first 12 tanks of gas and have been between 20.6 and 27.6 MPG with my average at 24.2. All winter driving with snow tires.
If you are convinced that it is your vehicle (and not your right foot, traffic patterns, etc) then you should try to take some proof to the dealership. I have used the OBDII port with a wireless "dongle" and an iPad app called DashCommand to monitor my engine functions and fuel-economy while driving. See post 435 and subsequent posts on that topic, under the 2013 Escape forum.link title
Maybe you could monitor your mileage on a short trip with a mechanic and discuss your results?
Let the mechanic drive, to see what mileage he/she can get.
The DashCommand app shows instantaneous mileage, one minute averages for 5 minutes, 5-minute averages for 30 minutes and 30-minute averages for 3-hours. (and the overall average, which you will find, agrees with the overall average you see on your Escape dash)
Good luck!
Last few tanks were slightly better for me. It wasn't that cold yet (nothing like the last week) and I did 376km over 46.9L (12.4L / 100km avg), 95% city.
Now that it's really cold outside, I'm back into the mid-13s.
I drove to Quebec City back and forth over X-Mas, and managed roughly 600-610km with these tanks (averaging 8.4 L/100km), going at 112-114km/h. Quite the difference...
Agree with you on the "break-in" period, there has been little difference for me over time... I'm at 8500km now.
On the other hand, a couple of days ago I had the cruise control on, and my speed was approx 70Kph (44mph) and the tranny was in 6th gear. It produced 4 lbs of boost at just 1200 RPM. This is because the cruise control was opening the throttle further and further to maintain speed as I went up a gentle hill. (transmission then downshifted)
I have really found the turbo to be a function of throttle position more than RPM. It is amazing how much pull these engines have at a very low RPM, and how much boost they can produce at a low RPM.
"Edmunds Testing Finds Overestimated MPG Is Common."
Your Fuel Economy Gauge Is Fibbing
That said, I've real a lot of posts around the forums where people were getting very close to what the instrument panel was telling them.
What's impacted is the range, i.e. it'll tell you 0 miles left but there are a few gallons left in the tank. It's the same for me, my biggest fuel-up was exactly 13.0 gallons, and just before I did, the trip computer was telling me a range of 0... and I could probably have added a bit more gas in the tank but it was clicking and I didn't want to risk overflowing...
I calculate every tank manually and compare with the mpg readout: it's always been within 1 mpg or so... most of the times within 0.5 mpg. The difference is usually not in my favor, i.e. my manual calculation comes out a bit worse than the mpg readout, which is a little bit optimistic.
Average out those numbers and my display is 1.5% optimistic.
I am quite impressed by that, as my previous vehicle from another manufacturer was about 15% optimistic on average.
If you're running it to the red on the fuel guage, you could be using up to about 13 gallons for the tankful, though many times my low fuel warning comes on at around 11.8 gallons or so.. Which is why I ask how many gallons you are calling a tankful. That same 261 miles becomes something between 20.1 mpg and 22.1 mpg if you consider your tankful to be running it to indicated 'dry' on the guage.
If you're like most of us, your tankful is probably the 1/4 tank mark or around. If so, you are exceeding the EPA estimates, and are actually in line with my own observations for my 2.0l AWD SEL.
Fill your tank
Reset trip odometer
At next fill up, note mileage on trip odometer and divide that number by the gallons needed to fill up.
That number is your miles per gallon..
Nothing else matters.. doesn't matter how big your tank is, how much you have left, how accurate the gas gauge is, etc, etc, etc....
Edmunds Price Checker
Edmunds Lease Calculator
Did you get a good deal? Be sure to come back and share!
Edmunds Moderator
Doing the math, 62.1mi / 2.2gal = 28.2 mpg <-- the important part to compare, for us. Not unreasonable, but many here might claim otherwise.
It's the 379 miles for that tank that sounds most interesting though, because that means you used 379 mi / 28.2 mpg = 13.4 gallons of gas for that tank, which tells me you probably ran it down at least far enough for the low fuel warning chime / indicator, and probably to the red fuel guage mark. Yet, you still had around 2 gallons left in the tank.
Sure wish Ford would recalibrate the fuel guage on these. I can adjust (filling up with a lesser amount indicated on the guage), but it drives my paranoid wife nuts to see me waiting until it gets down close to 'empty'. :P
BTW no need for manual calculations, you can simply type this in google:
"8.4 L/100km to mpg"
So the trip was roughly 800km one-way... In fact I did 8.2 (28.7 mpg) on the way there, and 8.6 on the way back (27.3mpg). Might be some slight differences in speed, elevation, temperature to explain the difference...
It was done with cruise control set most of the time, at 112 km/h (69.5 mph) but I did do a little higher at times to pass and stuff.
So yeah, around 28mpg, it's not the best out here but it's not bad either, I was not trying to get the best number ever. And it's during winter in Canada, pretty cold weather (was around -15C out there). Definitely satisfied with that however, now if only the city numbers would be that close to the rated numbers!
Yep I often fill up when the fuel gauge is deeply in the red!! But I don't feel too bad about it, knowing that there's still a lot of gas left due to the huge reserve...
Also, what I typically do to estimate my "true" range, is take whatever value I drove (ex. 365km) and add to that the estimated range left that the computer provides (ex. 20 km to empty) so then I'd tell myself that my range was 385km with that tank. I know it'd probably eeke out an an extra 40-50km if I really wanted to push it and run dry but that wouldn't be too wise, especially in the eyes of the missus... lol...
In what I said above (600 km for the roadtrip), it was truly driven kms on the odometer, but with almost nothing left in the tank at the end (playing it a bit risky).
CR just bashed the Fusion and this Escape Fuel Economy thread is starting to look like the Elantra Fuel Economy thread.
She got it mid way through October, so I don't have any mileage measurements to fall back on.
I do have a couple of Explorers that I split my driving between.
Since November, they have each taken a 10% mileage hit.
I'm in CT.
I really don't understand why AWD's are being pushed so much anyway. Here in Canada, any Titanium is 2.0 and AWD. Can't get one that is FWD. I wanted the 2.0 and most of the goodies but NOT the AWD, so I had to special order an SEL 2.0 FWD.
I run snow tires in the winter and have never needed AWD. It uses 7% (or more) additional fuel, it makes the vehicle weigh 150 lbs more and it is not needed by likely 90-99% of buyers. Just my $0.02
So far, personal experience combined with everything I've read everywhere says these Ecoboosts get better than rated highway numbers by a bit, but equally offset by worse than rated city numbers, all in the real world. The overall effect is that, in a true 50-50 mix, the numbers often end up in the range of the EPA rating, too.
In any case, so long as Ford adhered to the EPAs specified testing regimen, and obtained the numbers on the sticker from that, it's not false advertising, even if your real world results vary. I too get annoyed by the ads showing a top-trim vehicle while also listing the more 'eco' model's fuel economy ratings. All of the manufacturers do this, because they know:
1) We all want the nicest car we can buy (and the top trims are usually sexiest looking)
2) We are all rank fuel economy higher on our list than in the past
So, they show us the best of each in the ad, and leave it to us to find out that you can usually have one or the other, but not both.
If, on the other hand, Ford has fudged their actual test numbers (like Hyundai / Kia), I look forward to the yearly checks too! (even if my own experience says the Monroney is showing reasonable numbers, though not exactly *my* numbers).
I am having the same issue with my 2013 leased Escape. I only drive highway miles to and from work 20 miles a day and only get 22 mpg after a month, it was 19 mpg the first couple of weeks, which makes me really angry that Ford has lied about the mpg. Everyone I know that has one is only getting 20-22 mpg. If someone decides to go after Ford, I'm in, because I leased this car for the great mileage it supposedly had and now I feel had.
Just yesterday I took another trip 80% highway RT 123 miles and got 35.9 MPG driving at 58 MPH !
Plain and simple just like the TV ad. Drive faster use, more fuel! The choice is yours! 1.6L FWD
On level ground, with engine shut off, hold down the OK button on the left side of steering wheel and press the start button. Continue to hold OK button for a few seconds and you will be in diagnostics mode. Then use the down arrow to scroll through the diagnostics. This will show fuel level in % (among lots of other variables) Mine showed 6% fuel which is about 1 gallon) This agreed with what I filled at the pump.
When you are done scrolling through your diagnostics, just hit the start button again.
These numbers are what the "computer" and sensors are actually seeing. The gas guage and the Distance To Empty display have the buffers added in.
Hope this helps.
Let me know if it works.
Just did a mostly interstate trip, top speed around 68mph (still taking it easy on the new car), with about 15mph headwind. The trip display showed 26mi, 30min (so... 52 Mph average?) and 25.2mpg .
The trip home, over a hillier,windier 2-lane state road, came up 43.6mph average speed and 28.2mpg. If these numbers are within 6% I'm fairly happy.
The dash display is not as happy in city driving(high teens), sure would have been nice if Ford had managed to lighten the vehicle up some more, oh well, it probably would feel flimsier if they had, so I'll take that tradeoff.
Here's an example.
Lets say you drive the first 3/4 or 7/8 of your tank in heavy traffic, or poor winter conditions and are averaging 15MPG. Then you are freed up to some nice 60 mph highway cruising at 30mpg. Your DTE indication will still be using a big rolling average of fuel economy to let you know when you might run out. Since it cannot predict what kind of fuel economy you will see in the future, it will use the economy that you got in the past.
So in this case, it may indicate 30 Miles to Empty, when it is really 60 miles at your new fuel consumption rate, plus a little reserve. (maybe another 20 miles, for a total of 80 actual miles to empty)
We certainly can't fault the Ford engineers for helping us to "never run out of fuel". They have accomplished that !
I think we would all be quite upset if we were running out of fuel, because there was no safety margin designed in.
Certainly the small fuel tank is the "bigger" issue here.