Last night after calling the salesman and saying I wanted the car, I went out to my car to get something and noticed the lights flashing when I unlocked the car didn’t look right. I got in the car and tried to start it and it wouldn’t turn over. Dead battery. I looked up whether I could roll start the car and since it is a manual transmission, this can be done. The internet recommended starting from second gear at about 10 mph and it worked like a charm as I coasted out of the driveway and down the street. I went around the block and parked again, but it stayed dead even after driving a half hour to the dealer, so I probably need a new battery. I think the Mazda knew it was about to be replaced.
After shopping earlier in the week, I decided to go in today and probably buy the car unless something fell through. It went pretty smoothly though. I could only put $5,000 down with a check and had to finance the rest or else wait a few days to move enough money into my checking to pay for the whole thing. Actually some of the discount was based on me financing with Ford Credit, so it worked out fine. I was hoping to get 0% or 1.9% financing, but to max out the discount, I had to pay market rates based on my credit rating, so the interest rate was 4.15%. I might have let 1.9% ride figuring it is less than inflation, but I will probably go ahead and pay off the loan if I have to pay 4.15%. It is a 4-year loan.
The salesman said that after I called yesterday he looked for the paperwork on the car (they had two identical cars, but one was already spoken for) and another salesman had someone from out of state interested. He convinced the other salesman that I was more likely to buy, so I got the car. That was kind of neat.
The other nice thing was that I asked if they could do something about the $595 paint protection package they automatically charged and they waived it completely. So that was another nice savings on top of the $6250. The final sale included $129 for an “electronic filing fee” which apparently is a bogus dealer fee, but if it is like the documentation fee, not one they are willing to give on.
All of the paperwork was electronic on an iPad and when we were done they gave me a flash drive with my copy of the paperwork. They sent me an email and a text with a link to a website with videos telling me how to use the different features of the car.
They had me go ahead and download the FordPass app on my phone and then showed me how to link it to my new car and do Bluetooth. Now I can start my car from my phone no matter where I am. I read about a service with Amazon where the car can be unlocked by Amazon (I think) when they deliver a package and they put the package in your car and lock it for safe keeping. It’s a neat concept but may not have much applicability for me since I am home all the time. The salesman had pulled the car around and left it running, so when I drove it over to where my car was parked (pointing down a hill so I could roll start it again), I didn’t know how to turn off the car. You don’t put a key in the ignition. So I thought maybe it turns off when you open the door, but it didn’t like that. Then I found the Power button, kind of hidden and that worked. Since it is a hybrid the engine isn’t usually running when you are parked anyway. I moved the Mazda to a real parking space since the hill it was on was very much in the way and hoped Jeb was in town and could drive me back out, possibly helping to jump or roll start it (happily, he was and we went out there that evening with his jumper cables and he got to see real traffic jams for the first time in a long time, but it was also raining). Before leaving the dealer with the new car, I texted Mom that I had bought the car and she called shortly thereafter so that I could test out the car’s bluetooth and touchscreen. No wrecks on the way home! Then Carol called me out of the blue and I got to test out the bluetooth again. Mom had some trouble hearing me some, but I could hear Carol perfectly.
The car has been great so far. I have been trying to figure out all of the features. First the stereo system. No CD drive, but it has two ports that you can use to attach a flash drive, one in the dash and one in the center console. I loaded a 32 GB flash drive with most of my music and put that in there. When you start the car it indexes the music, which takes a couple of minutes, so you can’t use the flash drive right away, though if you were in the middle of an album, it will keep playing from the last time you were driving. Finding artists and albums on a big flash drive takes a lot of attention, so it is better to narrow it down using a voice command. The Ford system is called SYNC3. I may be able to put less music on the flash drive or use a faster flash drive and minimize the indexing time. It would be better if it only had to index once and as long as there were no changes, wouldn’t have to re-index, but I’m not sure it can do that. On the Mazda it held 6 CD-ROMs each with 10-12 albums worth of MP3’s and I put those in and never took them out, just rotating through the albums over and over again. So I could pare down the music on the flash drive to a similar 70 top albums if I want. The salesman says he puts movies on a flash drive for his kids to play on the 8-inch SYNC3 screen, but that is of limited use for me.
The USB input in the console is a USB C port, but most flash drives and USB cables are USB A on the end. The phone can hook up over Bluetooth, but Bluetooth is limited to mostly phone calls and texts and projecting music playing on the phone, but I think I can pull songs through SYNC3 via the phone. For anything more than that (like navigation or apps, though the car has built in navigation), I have to connect the phone by USB, so I would like the USB in the dash to stay open for the phone and use the USB C port in the console for the flash drive, so I ordered a cheap adapter on eBay. However, it looks like there are more and more flash drives coming out with USB C ends. I may also get a phone mount, which seems like should be standard, but I may get one that fits a cup holder for about $8.
The car tells me all the time what the tire pressure is, which is neat. And with the bigger tires and the importance of having the right tire pressure on a SUV, I don’t know that my bicycle pump (or me) is up to the task of manually pumping the tires. I started looking up air compressors on Amazon and the ones around $30 seem very unreliable. Then I went looking for my spare tire and I found out I don’t have one! Instead, oddly, in the spot where the tire should go under the cargo area is my 12V car battery. That means I also don’t have a jack or lug nut wrench. But I do have an air compressor! And it has a switch for “Repair” that will pump in latex to pump up a leaking tire as long as there isn’t too much damage. You have to replace the latex cartridge if you ever use it or every 5 years, but I’m not sure how much that costs. I thought I would try the compressor on my Mazda, but its tires were already overinflated by 10 psi (maybe because of the summer heat), so I wound up letting air out. Then I tried it anyway and it seems to work pretty well. And it includes an attachment for blowing up rafts and beach balls, which is fun.
I knew the car was set to turn on the headlights automatically, but I drove it at night and it turns out it also turns the brights on automatically and dims them when it sees other cars.
Also thinking about floor mats since the car didn’t come with any. It has anchors on the floor which I’d like to use to keep a mat from sliding around. Weathertech makes a custom mat the fills up the whole floor, but it is kind of expensive. Ford makes one that people like, but I think it is about the same price as Weathertech. Maxliner makes a cheaper one that some people like, but they don’t have one for the hybrid model yet. May call the dealer and see what price they would charge for fronts only.
I was thinking about seat covers to keep dog hair off, but then saw a hammock for the back seat. Covers the back seat and the back of the front seat and maybe keeps the dogs from jumping up front. It hangs on the headrests. Not really suspended like a hammock, but it does keep them from getting down on the floor.
The car is working out great. I had some nice LL Bean floor mats I had used in the Mazda. The passenger side mat was still in pretty good shape, but the driver’s side is a little beat up. Still, better than nothing. I can’t just use the passenger side mat on the driver side since I had to cut out a notch for the dead pedal (the notch I made for the Mazda seems to be just right for the Ford).
I got a faster USB 3.0 drive and a USB C adapter so I can put the music flash drive in the console, but it still takes a while for the flash drive to be available. That is frustrating. Maybe worse is that even the navigation system takes a while to boot up, so if you get in the car and want to go somewhere (which is 100% of the time!) you can’t enter the destination into navigation system right away. Plus the voice activated navigation is terrible. It often gives me results that are in other states.
Still I haven’t gotten a phone mount yet, though I did hook the phone up with USB now that the dash USB port is free (formerly used by the music flash drive, now in the console). If you hook it up with a cable, the navigation works via the entertainment screen and doesn’t have to boot up. But then I’m not sure how to get back to my music drive.
I also got the back seat hammock for the dogs. It fits fine, cover the seat, seat back and back of the front seat. But it isn’t really high enough to stop the dogs from going over it and getting in the front, which is exactly where Bella feels like she belongs.
I have been checking prices and at one point, the markdown on the car was $6500 instead of the $6250 I got, but that’s not a huge difference. I still haven’t seen any plug-in hybrid Escapes for sale yet in my area. Those cars could be a real game changer for people, although I am still only about halfway through my first tank of gas. My mileage so far is 31.5 mpg, which is terrible compared to the 41 mpg combined the car should be able to get or the 44 mpg it should get in the city. Not sure what is going on with that, though I spent at least an hour in the parking lot of the vet with the AC running and the gas engine coming on every few minutes, plus my driving style may not be that conducive to getting great mileage, or just the AC uses a lot of power right now in the hot months. The salesman says he usually has owners come back for an advanced introduction to the car after a while so they can learn some of the less often used features, so I might ask.
I filled up the car for the first time, just a few days short of two months after buying it. It has been getting better mileage than at first (it give you running totals), but at 36 mpg, it is well short of 44 city, 37 highway, 41 overall. Still, I was able to drive 489 miles on the first tank, which gives it pretty good range. Last week I got the title from the bank after paying it off on my first payment. I loaded the dogs in for a hike at Mason Mill Park which they seemed to have really enjoyed, but got some paw prints. If I put the back seats down, they seem to like staying in the back where it is mostly flat. That puts their noses close to the top of the window, so they can stick their noses out if I crack the window. Bella would like to think she can jump in the back with the tailgate open, but I have to help her out. Buddy will get it eventually, but it took him a couple of tries today.