POWERSTROKE

FORD really needs to get their act together on high volume repair parts. Any time I read about a recurring part problem a bunch of people post they are without their car for weeks or wait months before taking their car in to be fixed. As a retired Purchasing Professional who worked for a little company named International Harvester as well as several other companies well known as popular brands, I bet I could fix that problem in less than a year! My Wife drove a 1988 Mustang GT hatchback with plastic taped over the left rear window for THREE MONTHS, December, January, & February of '88 and '89 because "Left rear fenders are backordered", even though they were building over 1000 cars per DAY with fenders. Every company I've worked for supplying service/repair parts took priority over new production. Not really, service parts shipped AND production went on as planned. I got involved expediting my car's fender and had a fender delivered within 24 hours, the included dent was no charge! I bet the good fenders went to production, the scrap fender sent to my body shop instead of being scrapped! Thanks FOR NOTHING FORD!

Our first Edge was bought back by Ford, low option SEL with the 3.5L V-6 AWD, prettiest shade of Ruby Red. Our second Edge is Bronze but has $2500 more options. The power hands free rear hatch is a MUST HAVE! Wife & I use it all the time. I grab all the bags of groceries and can still find a finger to press the close button. The hatch slowly closes securely and latches. The first Edge you really had to slam the hatch to get it to close without throwing a "Hatch is AJAR" message. Sometimes had to slam it twice! Have never had that with the newer Edge. We got HomeLink & GPS too, and the $1000 polished wheels which is a total ripoff. Ford did the fold down rear seats right in the Edge right too. Our old 2003 Mountaineer had fold down seats too, but you had to open both rear doors and manually fold them, then move back to the rear hatch. In the Edge, a switch easily reached from the rear releases each rear seat and they fold down. Big time and energy saver. I really liked the Ruby Red car, but the extra options on the bronze car can't be beat!

The first '15 Edge we had was 3.5L V-6 powered. Couple hills on some local roads the trans would drop from 6th to 4th to hold speed in one shift when using cruise control. I played with sport mode and was able to pull the hills in 5th without having to buzz the engine at 4200 rpm. The new '15 Edge with the turbo-4 pulls all but the steepest hill or two in 6th, drops into 5th on the steepest hills. Haven't needed to play with sport mode.

I actually run in cold winter temps down to Zero degrees F with the passenger door window 1/4 to 1/3 down on my straight piped POWERSTROKE F-250 so I can hear the turbo whistle. Quiet is not an important quality in my vehicles. And Ford puts an awesome heater in their light trucks! You ever rode/drove an International semi-tractor with a 2-cycle Detroit Diesel? I think they would b quieter riding inside the crankcase than riding in the cab!

Guess the Edge is much quieter than what you drive now. Wife and I both commented how quiet the Edge was when we first got our '15. Just turn up the radio! Wife drives our about 95% of the time, I drive it on trips. I can't really say the turn signals are loud or noticeable. Of all the vehicles I've owned the turn signals are the least obtrusive I've ever had, they cancel when they should, and they don't cancel when they shouldn't. My '96 F-250 has that problem!

Been about two months since the wife let me drive it. I'll check next time I'm behind the wheel. THANKS!

80-90% of snow driving is tire selection. A good tire like a Bridgestone Blizzak makes all the difference in the world. The other 10-20% is ground clearance and whether you have locking or limited slip differentials in the vehicle, and vehicle weight. The '15 Edge the wife drove this winter had 18" Michelin all season tires, which sucked as snow tires. We had no deep snows in southern Wisconsin this winter so ground clearance was never an issue. With no locking or limited slip diff's on the Edge it is not as capable as the 2003 Mercury Mountaineer AWD we had before the Edge. It had the optional rear Traction-Loc, more aggressive tires, greater ground clearance and about 500-600# more weight. But the Edge still got the wife safely to work all winter. There was one morning with 3-4" of fresh snow the traction control on the Edge almost kept me from getting the Edge up the slope to the road. An override switch to turn off the traction control is necessary on the Edge. After a second or two of tire spin the electronic throttle reduces throttle to reduce wheel spin, all the way down to low idle RPM. Poor design not to have the override. My Volvo has it! So FORD, we need better winter tires, locking diff's, and a traction control override. If you put the block heater and radiator shutters on for us in the northern states, those other items would complete the package.

On the 3.5L the oil filter was easy to remove/install. Just a little piece of the splash shield would need to be trimmed to get access to the drain plug, like maybe an inch by 2-3 inches. May not even require removing the splash shield to trim. The splash shield on my S-40 Volvo is made from molded fiber reinforced plastic and it's within 6 inches of being the full width of the car and about 3 to 3-1/2 feet front to back, kinda unwieldy holding it up with one hand and starting one of the seven screws to hold it up.

Oil change at my Ford store is $42.95. Plus they only use synthetic blend oil. I prefer Mobil 1 full synthetic. And yes, the stupid splash shield gets in the way of draining the oil on the 3.5L. I think they just used the 2.0L EB shield on the 3.5's. SHAME ON FORD! Still the best EVER Ford for oil change servicabilty I have ever had is my half-breed truck! 1996 F-250 with the Navistar International built PowerStroke turbo-diesel. All three and a half gallons of oil from the oil pan and oil filter drain into a five gallon bucket at the same time. My '88 Mustang GT5.0L HO had two drain plugs, front one drained right on the sway bar. '87 F-150 4x4 300-6 was better than most, but oil ran out of horizontal oiol filter all over engine & shop floor. '93 F-150 Lightning the filter snaked up thru front frame cross member, reduced mess from removing filter but prevented pre-filling filter.

The Buy-Back requires the replacement vehicle to not exceed the value of the original vehicle by a certain amount, in our case, $2500. I know others with the water leak also had a $2500 greater replacement vehicle. Ask your RAV analyst. Our first Edge was a low option SEL and we were able to get a few nice options we couldn't find when we bought the first Edge, like Navigation, power rear hatch, convenience pkg for the HomeLink, and the $1000 polished wheel option. What a waste of a Thousand Dollars for those wheels! Our first Edge had the 3.5L V-6. It was O-K, performed well over the 12,000 miles we put on it, had to really floor it a couple times to force a downshift to get it to move. Actually got used to seeing the tach read 4000-5000 rpm. Our new Edge has the EcoBoost 2.0L, and it actually outperforms the 3.5L in almost all normal driving situations with it's greater torque at lower RPM. We got better mpg with the 3.5L by about 1 mpg but the 2.0L EB will hold 75 mph on hills without dropping a gear or two and accelerate faster easier without having to run up the tach so far. Wife and I both like driving the 2.0L EB better. Wife felt the 3.5L was sluggish, doggy. She was trying to drive it like her 2003 Mercury Mountaineer with 4.6L V-8, 239 HP @ 4200 rpm. She wasn't coming close to getting the 275 HP @ 6500 RPM the 3.5L made. I doubt you would be able to upgrade to an Explorer unless you pay the difference between the Edge & Explorer out of pocket. My Father-in-law drove several Mountaineers but bought a new Explorer a year or so ago and it is REALLY nice.

edgetb - congratulations on getting your buy back approved. The buy back process can be frustrating too, our buy back is almost complete and we've been in our new Edge almost three months. The bank the loan was with had some troubles with the paperwork. But every time we get behind the wheel we forget about those problems. It's really a nice car on trips, smooth, quiet, good mpg.

Can't help you on the speeding ticket. But there's two rubber bumpers or supports on the front sides of the hood that need adjusting to eliminate that lifting of the hood. Adjusting them is a quick easy minute job each. Our first Edge you could lift the hood about a quarter inch because the bump stops were not adjusted right from the assembly plant. Took the body shop tech only a couple minutes to fix. That also allowed the hood to raise & lower with the car at speed.

Dealership we bought our '15 Edge at created a similar rust proofing to Auto Armor and also do a paint protectant similar to AA's also. The first 2-3 days we had both our '15 Edges there were funny smells mostly from those coatings burning off. Your smells will dissipate in another day or two.

Wife & I put 12,000 miles on our first '15 Edge that leaked. 3.5L V-6 AWD. Setting the cruise at 75 on 4-lane divided highways in hilly western Wisconsin would have the transmission dropping two gears and screaming up to 4200 rpm while climbing hills. If I played with the sport setting the car would climb the hill in 5th gear. We have around 3500 miles on our replacement Edge, EB 2.0L AWD. Most of those same hills it will pull in 6th gear, even accelerate in 6th. If you drop into 5th acceleration is rather spirited. So the extra 25 #/ft of torque 1000 rpm lower in the rev range does make up for the 40 extra HP of the 3.5L. The 2.7L EB V-6 makes even more torque & HP at even lower rpm so it must pull really well. My Wife found the 3.5L in the Edge to be "doggy", only way to get it to move at times was to floor it and force a downshift to lower gears or it would not accelerate. The little 2.0L EB blends into city and highway traffic with much less commotion and accelerates comfortably at lower rpm without downshifts.