Also, I'd like to say a few more things because they touches on a lot various accusations people make about these cars that I don't think are based in reality. The first is whether or not the 2005-2012 Ford Escape Hybrid is a "good" car or a "well engineered" car or a "well-produced car." In my opinion, owning a 2010 Limited 2WD for more than a year now, this is one of the best-engineered cars I've ever owned - at least in terms of the fundamental thinking that went into it. People need to remember that in 2008, the United States suffered what was basically a financial *collapse* that nearly destroyed the automobile industry in this country. That's a deep and detailed subject, but in some ways, every car that was built in America after 2008 (and especially during the 'crash' and afterward) encountered problems as a result of it.

I don't know for sure, but I'll bet that Ford engineers were told to lower the build costs of the FEH for the 2010 and onward model years because the US automobile industry was teetering on the brink and asking for $25 billion dollars of government money to keep them alive. Nowadays, $25 billion dollars is Chump Change, but waaaaaay back then it was a lot of money. My sense is that their engineers came up with a compromise: delete the rear A/C evaporator and the rest of the plumbing, remove some other extraneous bits, and do the best they could with software to compensate for that, in order to reduce the build costs of the cars. It's an unfortunate compromise, and I don't like it, but I live with it.

In early December of 2008, Alan Mulally - then the CEO of Ford - traveled to Washington for a congressional hearing in a Ford Escape Hybrid, after criticism of the Big Three executives using private jets. Barack Obama leased one of these cars, also - it was a Dark Grey 2008.

https://www.yahoo.com/now/2010-10-07...er-hybrid.html

In my experience thus far, the basic car and the underlying engineering are very good. The biggest problem is that most people who buy them now, used, turned over three or four times, maybe auctioned, sometimes badly abused, do not understand the first thing about them, they have short tempers, and think they are "owed" something.

I enjoy mine a lot and it drives very well. Lots of Ford (and other) dealers had big problems as a result of the 2008-9-10 financial crisis, and it's not much of a surprise to me that a lot of dealerships don't have technicians that understand these years very well anymore, especially since Ford barely builds things recognized as "cars" anymore. In fact, if you go their website, they have exactly ONE vehicle listed under "cars" - the Mustang Mach E. All the rest are crossovers, SUVs and trucks and vans. They're not concentrating on 10+ year old cars that were owned by a relatively small group of customers for a limited period of time. They're making their money on pickup trucks.

I don't have a lot of tolerance for people who assault the basic engineering of the car. I look at it and I know that it isn't true - these are good cars if you care for them and understand them. Where I live, there are a *LOT* of Escapes - non-Hybrids - from this range of years on the road, and more Hybrids than I would expect given their age. A local pizza place uses one as a delivery vehicle - it's a Metallic Lime Green 2009 Hybrid with more than 210,000 miles on it. It looks *great*. So people hold on to them, and they can fix them. Luckily thanks to this forum, I've been able to completely avoid the dealership with mine. I suppose there are some really good and really bad Ford dealerships out there, but in the end, these are old cars now. I wish the 2008 financial crash hadn't happened. Maybe Ford would have kept making the FEH in this form for another few years, with the very good battery thermal management, instead of deleting that. But it wasn't to be. So a lot of dealerships now have techs. who were never trained to fix these cars.

It's also not valid to compare a Hybrid vehicle that was basically laid down in 2002, 3 and 4 to cars that are 20 years newer. That's not what it was designed to compete against, and people who try to do that are pretty silly. The system is designed to store some energy, recoup some kinetic energy, and improve the base mileage of a 3700+ pound vehicle over its gas-only counterpart by about 40%, and that's what it does. It's not designed to tow boats, out-accelerate Teslas, or leap tall buildings in a single bound. I just got home after a 40 mile drive and I'm getting 31.6 MPG, so it's working, and it's not falling apart. But if you don't take care of it and expect too much from Ford dealers working on what is now an old car, you will be disappointed. And like everything else in this world, the parts have limited lifespans and so do the batteries. Enjoy it for what it is. Over and out.

 

The car is fine. The design is ok. The brake thing is a definite issue. When mine were acting weird it was super hard to stop. If it happened suddenly on the highway it would be a huge problem. But it didn't and I don't hear any stories of that.

There are many worse and truly poorly engineered cars you could buy. I've worked on some. Sounds like a case of sour grapes.

Heh, my car is probably the same color as obama's.

 

Check out his two other posts outside of this thread (both from 2019). 'Nuff said.