Good news on the diesel front for FCA, and all those wanting to buy one! :beer:
I had a rental Ford Escape with the ESS / EcoBoost setup last week. Drove it all week in mostly city traffic. Wanted to keep an open mind, because this is the future of new vehicles. So I was a bit biased towards hoping it would be a nice feature.
Previous to this I've had two Toyota Prius vehicles with ESS built in, and was very comfortable with that.
What I liked:
* Quiet at the stop light
* Button that would deactivate it, for the length of time key was turned on
What I didn't like:
* Rough start
* Caused me to "Jack-Rabbit" take off, due to the lag
* There were times when I needed to make a turn right off the dead start. The steering didn't come on line until the engine was up to idle speed.
* There were a few times of sitting at a long light, where it started getting stuffy in the vehicle (hot & high humidity).
* Can not just turn the button off period. Has to be reset each time the vehicle is turned on
My overall thoughts after the week:
ESS worked really well in the Prius, because it started off on battery power, so it was close enough to seamless that it was comfortable to drive.
I did not like the ESS on the Ford Escape, because there is nothing to back up the engine. That is really disappointing. I was hoping to at least be "OK" with it. I was not at all OK with it.
Based on this short term experience, I'd look for a vehicle where it could be turned off completely, unless the vehicle was a hybrid design.
Other than that, I really liked the Ford Escape. Great power, comfortable, room for some pretty big guys to fit, decent fuel mileage (averaged about 24mpg 70% city 30% highway).
However, based on the way they setup the ESS, it wouldn't make my "short list" to buy. Which also means I probably won't buy an F150 like I had been planning on.
Hopefully Jeep will make it so the button permanently deactivates ESS, unless the customer wants to turn it on.
