Finally, the big 30. Wonder if it will go higher. Cabin A/C removes 3-5MPG. I went down to 27 messing with it.

 

Congratulations on the milestone! I'm glad to see that my ballpark MPG guess for the A/C was close, and you're well within the EPA numbers now, no ifs or buts.

As John "Hannibal" Smith (the A-Team) used to say: "I love it when a plan comes together."

 

I added some window visors. Hopefully water doesn't drip into the car anymore when driving with open/cracked windows. Wipers pushed water inside too. I don't like how they block out part of your view however. So far so good. Don't appear to impede the window at all. The poor sealing in the door appears to be scratching it, something sharp is in the bottom of the window.



shade outside

shade inside


Also went and installed the dome light. No more reaching all the way back for quick light. I messed up the headliner cut at the top a little. If you copy me watch out for that. It mounts lower than you think. You'll need to remove the plastic screw holder along with the light as the car doesn't come with it. Just screw a screw in and pull out sharply.




dome

I have black visors because I went and snagged the "extending" visors from a 2012. Looking at my center console topper I might get one of those too with the LED harness but it HAS to be a hybrid so much harder to find. I'm going for a black/beige theme. The carpet I threw over the back of the cargo area is black too. I like it way more than the ugly beige but others might not. Debadged the hybrid symbols and escape nameplate too. Eventually I want to remove/replace the ford logos. They are huge and worn out anyway. My back one is completely reflective and I took a spare. Maybe I can paint it body colored.

A towing rig is $150 so I'll get that at some point. I'd like a push bumper but it appears all of the ones sold are just guards and mostly cosmetic. Mounting to the radiator support won't do for something I want to push things out of the way with.

Up to calculated 35MPG as well. Who said the 4wd gets 29... As it appears to be time honored tradition here I'm going to be experimenting with ethanol content and checking fuel trims/mileage. AFAIK we have PTFE lined fuel lines, injector pulse and ECU map is what stops this from being an FFV. Sadly there are no tuners compatible with the escape HEV that I've found. I can save 3c a mile if I run E25. I'd have to go down to 25mpg to break even with current gas price. E15 or rather E13 is the first test since we have a solid 35mpg baseline. If you had a bad average MPG it's good to reset it from time to time. After clearing I quickly rose to the correct mileage on the screen and now all those early 10mpgs aren't dragging it down. AVG mpg is now actually useful in between fueling.

 

Nice with the AVS shades, I concur - I bought a set also, not the in-channel kind like yours, the stick-ons. I also noticed during fitment that they occlude quite a bit of view, so I compromised and mounted mine about 1/4" higher than the recommended position. I can still crack the windows about 3/4" inch but the outside view is a little better and yes, they stop the water ingress during rainstorms which I really wanted. They are a well-made product. PS If you get the stick-ons and want to remove them, I checked removal videos on YouTube - you can run a piece of fishing line between the shade and the body, back and forth slowly until the shade comes off, then basically roll/push the adhesive off your paint by working with your fingers, so they can be removed without damaging the paint, but it will take some work. The adhesive is a 3M part if you ever need to dismount/remount them, and it is *STRONG*. You could stick your hybrid to another hybrid with that stuff and have a two-lane "double parallel hybrid" (badump bump, cymbal crash).

I didn't know about the 2012 "extending" visors, neat-o. Great to hear about the mileage, at the beginning of this saga I frankly doubted you'd ever get it into the 30s but perseverance, knowledge and some $$ carried the day, as they often do. Living in Chicago and having driven there I can recall several times I would have wanted a "pusher bumper" too. Lol. "GET OUT OF MY WAY!!" It's interesting to hear about the difference between the FlexFuel and the regular engine. Too bad someone doesn't offer a remap. service, it sounds like these could be FlexFuel Hybrids pretty easily.

That front, split dome light with the sunglass compartment and moonroof switch is a dead ringer for my '10 Limited, yours is black, mine is beige. I find that it will not hold really highly curved "face fitting" wraparound sunglasses but most others are fine.

The "Limited" badge on my trunk needs some touch-up, the black paint has flaked off in places so now it reads "LITd" or somesuch. In keeping with my "all stock" philosophy for this car I think I'll get some model paint and touch it up.

I've noticed the headliners on these cars seem to stay together pretty well and not sag after 10 years like a lot of other cars, which is nice. Mine still looks great everywhere. Listening to Metallica "Orion" the other night on a back road with the moonroof open I noticed mine is getting a little "gronky" in the last 1/2 inch of travel. Time to shoot some lube in there to keep it sliding smooth.

 

Floss is what I used to get the logos off. Then the 3m eraser wheel to get the glue. Like it never happened.

I should check HP tuners forums, maybe someone asked about it before. I'd need a map, just doing injectors like gpsman or whoever it was on here isn't enough. It will get you out of the lean CEL but you won't be getting any bonus from the ethanol. So far I still get same mpg at ~E13. By tomorrow I should know if the average got affected and then tank up E25 and see what that does. Full E85 in this car is probably huge ask in general, you'll fail the injectors making them run at 80% the whole time. They aren't expensive but it would still be no savings.

When I move I'm going to look for a full size spare to ditch the dinky wheel the car came with. Should still fit on the tire lift we have.

BTW, I use the glasses holder for my ipass and was missing that. Having to dig through the center console for it is not fun. If it only read in the holder it would be even better.

So unleaded 88 results = 36.5mpg.. I gained .5MPG.

I mixed some ethanol now but I think I did too much because I should have looked at OBDII fuel level and not the gauge. I have somewhere between 22% and 35%. Fuel trim goes between 7.8 and 14 (when LT+ST is added together). I'll see what it does but the no brainer looks to be use the 15% ethanol fuel. Its 5-10c cheaper. Will burn it down to the 1/4 tank and try again depending on results.

 

Results of the ethanol: 32.8MPG. Car felt a little more sluggish but other than that no problem. I would pump E20 or E30 if available depending on price without worry.

 

That sounds right from an energetics/combustion point of view. The only thing I worry about with the ethanol is condensation and fuel system rubber deterioration. You say we've got PFTE lines?

 

Condensation if your car sits, sure. I don't think we have rubber anything in the fuel system at this point. It would be swelled/dried/melted by isopropyl, xylene and toluene in our gas. Someone on here mentioned we have PTFE lined lines and it would make perfect sense. E85 is more about the programming and lack of a secondary sensor to measure E content. If I did 50% or full E85 I doubt the injectors would keep up.