I don't know much about the Escape in particular and I tend to steer clear of most American vehicles. They're usually "good enough" but from my experience they're not as reliable as the Japanese stuff. Still, overall from what I've seen, in terms of cost, if you're planning on keeping the vehicle for 100K miles or more there's a good chance you'll make up the difference in fuel cost compared to the extra you paid for the Hybrid part. If you're only going to keep it for a few years and maybe 60K miles it's kinda doubtful that you'll recover that fuel cost compared to buying the cheaper model. You just don't generally get THAT much better mileage compared to the extra cost. Make sure you're aware that you will NOT get the mileage ratings on the window for city and only the highway rating if you accelerate slowly and keep it to 45mph... They are changing the ratings now to make a bit more sense (especially in regards to hybrids that might complete half the test without ever starting the engine, but not getting to the point of having to recharge)and the Prius is about to lose around 12mpg in the city rating.
As for batteries, that's going to FAST becoming more of an issue in my mind. I've been watching the Honda list lately as the Insights were the first around 2000. And as expected, the batteries last around 6 years it seems. Honda seems to be doing pretty good and for the most part replacing them for free even on a 7 year old car with 178K miles on it. But I'd say you could expect to pay somewhere in the $500-3K range if and when your batteries die and you decide to replace them. I haven't really heard any reliability problems with them other than the same thing with pretty much ANY battery in that it's hard to make them last more than somewhere around 6 years... I *LOVE* the idea, but there are a lot of caveats with it. I'd love to pick up one of the original Insights that ACTUALLY got 70mpg on the highway. That could be done for like $6K too... It would still get near that mileage if the battery pack was toast too. Unfortunately they've more or less got it tied into the system so that if the battery pack gets completely useless there's no way to charge the normal 12V battery that would run the electrical system... Levi On 5/18/07, Donald Snook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
My wife told me she really likes the Ford Escape Hybrid and may want to sell/trade her Explorer to get one. I am a little leary of hybrid technology while it is still so new. Does anyone know anything about the reliability? Or the cost to replace the batteries when they will inevitably need to be replaced. I read an article that talked about the fact that with the cost of the batteries all the fuel savings is gone. Any information would be great. Donald H. Snook 1990 300SEL 137K (For Sale) http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?car_id=221355344 _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new parts see official list sponsor: http://www.buymbparts.com/ For used parts email [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
