My wife and I are day sleepers due to her working deep nights most of her life. Its her idea as were both retired and I have to do the same to ever see her. lol

We go town at dusk to eat then shop for groceries. They are many times we walk up to the car and the interior lights up as were within 3 or 4 feet of the car. So if it ever gets down to 2 feet we replace the fob battery. Never been any problems as the FOB low battery warning comes on the MFD readout so it easy to see in advance when replacement is needed.

 

Just go for it. You'll be fine. Just realize that no matter what car you choose, your wife won't be happy when something doesn't work. Thankfully, in 6 years, there have been very few of those times for me.

 

could also be consistency of fill-up, coupled with just how full the car was when you started out. Over 42K+ miles, the 'fuel in /miles driven' method has consistently been 2 MPG lower - and a consistent 39 and change.

 

My wife doesn't like too much gizmos in the car, she prefers to drive the truck with regular key in the ignition and the sense that you don't forget to leave the car running when going out. Ever since I bought it she only drove it once, lucky for me !

 

I looked hard at the FFH last year. The main problem with it for me is that if you get one with a moonroof, the headliner is too low. I'm 5'11" and I felt like the car roof was bearing down on my head. There's even less headroom in the back seat. The TCH XLE with moonroof, on the other hand, has plenty of headroom front and back -- headroom in the back seat is important to us, because I have some tall friends who visit from time to time.

In addition, the FFH just has too many bells and whistles for my wife, who'll be driving our prospective hybrid. She didn't like the instrument panel display with the leaves. (I know you can change it to a more simple display, if you want.) It has too many bells and whistles for me as well. I just don't want to pay for all that stuff, and I think it would be hard to find an FFH with moonroof and leather without it. Plus, I've been lurking in an FFH forum, and I've seen too many complaints about the display resetting itself and so forth. Also, I've seen too many instances of people reporting that they could not start their cars, or the cars died because their 12V batteries discharged. (Two or three such complaints are two or three too many for me.) I haven't seen any complaints about this re. the TCH, but maybe I missed something.

Also, I rented an '11 TCH last year and drove the TCH and the Ford product back-to-back (actually a Lincoln MKZ hybrid; but with the same drivetrain as the FFH), and I thought the TCH was much smoother. The '12 TCH is smoother still, and more powerful.

In the FFH's favor, Ford's Sync system is really, really good and from what I can tell, blows Toyota's system out of the water. But that's not enough to sell me on this car.

And finally, Toyota's dealerships have had a lot more experience with the Camry/Prius hybrid systems than Ford dealerships have had with Ford's system, which is still relatively new. You have to work maintenance issues into the equation when you're choosing between the two. The FFH might be the "cooler" car, but how cool will it be when it develops some kind of problem that the Ford mechanics can't diagnose? Consider also that Ford has produced far fewer hybrids than Toyota has, and each of its dealers have sold far fewer hybrid cars than Toyota dealers. So Ford mechanics haven't had the opportunity to service as many hybrid cars for as long as Toyota mechanics have. I'd rather go with the more experienced service departments.

I decided last year that I didn't want to be the first on my block with an FFH. Call me stodgy, but I sure wouldn't want to be one of the first buyers of a radically redesigned FFH with a lithium-ion battery pack.

Well, obviously, I have a lot more concerns about this car than its lack of headroom. I hope my observations are helpful.

 

I have owned mostly Ford cars over the years and I wouldn't recommend buying anything with high end electronics from Detroit. They're mostly shortsighted products with no long term reliability, if you ever get one get an extended warranty that covers everything (some of them won't cover the nav) I was also able to compare the engine compartment of FFH vs TCH and the FFH (and most Fords) have the worst service accessibility to the components. Think of how everything is tightly squeezed in FFH and the space in TCH. How many layers of components you have to remove just to service a part which equates to high amount of labor charges if you let the dealer fix it.

I can't even see a single FFH driving around in Kansas City, as for the TCH there are lots of them including the 2012 models.


If they couldn't build a decent CD player that last, how about a Hybrid system?

 

I agree with you about not wanting to be the first year buyer but I will look at it after the '14 year model comes out. Consumer Reports has it's highest reliability marking so far so we'll see if that holds up. I haven't test drove one yet so can't say anything about head room but I am 6' 2" and that mighte end up being a problem. Also the '13 redesign looks real nice in the pictures I have seen.
Anyway, I will look at the TCH and FFH about this time in two years and see what they have to offer.