Leg 1 – Toronto to Kingston – #LexGoFurther – A Ford Escape

The first step of Lex Go Further – a Ford Escape was picking up the Ford Escape.

Rannie was there when I got it to give me a run down on the Sync & MyFord Touch,  Hands-free Lift Gate, and specifically the Active Park Assist Feature  which I can’t imagine anyone wanting to try their own for the first time!  (But more on that later).  I got the car around 1pm, did the run through with Rannie and headed back downtown.

That left me calculating the best times to hit the road in order to avoid rush hour traffic. Sounds strange to be considering rush hour that early, but the trip back downtown took a while, I needed to get the car packed and wait for Gerry to finish his day. 

If you haven’t lived in Toronto, or another equally “Mega”-city,  I should probably mention that rush “hour” is a solid  3-hour window minimum running from around 4pm to 7pm. Leaving the downtown core anytime during that window generally means you’ll spent a lot of time time sitting in nose-to-tail traffic cursing the drivers speedily squeezing themselves into the tiniest of gaps between cars which are just stepping on the gas to close those gaps.  It’s boring and annoying at best, and stressful and costly at worst.

Besides, it rarely buys you anything in terms of arrival time on the other end.  It often makes more sense to just wait it out and  do some pre-trip errands or find somewhere interesting for dinner.  Unless of course you like sitting on the DVP and/or 401, or like weaving your vehicle through stop and go traffic leaving behind you a wake of stress and swearing.  I do not.

Once the car was packed, we waited it out and I did some planning on what info I could and wanted to capture about the trip. Since the Ford Escape‘s Trip Computer is setup to let me track the mileage, drive time, and average gas mileage for 2 trips,  I set one Trip to track the whole adventure and the other to track each leg of the trip.  This way (and trust me I obsessed over this), I could compare the trip down and back, city and highway mileage, as well as big highway and small highway mileages. I could see how many hours I was actually driving in a day and the average speed. I could also see exactly how the 2.0L Ecoboost engine in the Ford Escape effected mileage and gas costs.  (Can you say Data Geek? I knew you could.  Trip Stats will be documented at the bottom of each post for those of you who get off on that kind of thing.)

We started the trip with a full tank (thank you Ford Canada), and headed out at 6pm.  A little early, but we wanted to get on the road before it was dark.  This first leg, as mentioned before, was pretty uneventful and in fairness it was really a preamble, or warm up, for Lex Go Further – A Ford Escape for a couple of reasons: 1. it was a very short jaunt along the 401 from Toronto to Kingston, 2. it was an evening drive and I couldn’t explore much, but primarily 3. because I wasn’t alone and Gerry did some of the driving. That breaks all the rules of a Solo Road Trip, so this is really the preamble to the trip.

We drove to Ajax, had dinner at Blossom Garden beside the huge Smoke’s Poutinerie location that didn’t serve poutine at all. (Which we found a little odd but don’t worry, I promise there is poutine on this roadtrip!)

Then we got back into the car and had our first Ford Learning Opportunity.

Gerry was taking over the driving after dinner, and when he used the Intelligent Access with Push-Button Start, he pushed the button and the car turned on. But the engine did not.  He pushed the button again, the car turned off.  He pushed the button again, slower, more deliberately, the electronics of the car turned on, the ignition did not fire and the engine did not start. One or both of us swore.

I reached for the trusty Manual! (Yes, I read car manuals and not just when something goes wrong. I read them to see just what I can do with the vehicle I’m driving.)

There it is on Page 136

1. Fully press the brake pedal.

2. Move the transmission selector lever to position P.
3. Press the START button

AHA!  Foot on the break. Car starts, ignition fires, engine starts, Gerry smiles. And away we go!

Nothing else to report as we continued on to Kingston and spend the night at my mother’s house.

Trip Stats – Toronto to Kingston

Departure: 6:09pm         Arrival: 10:00pm
Time: 3:20h
Leg 1 Distance: 263.3km

Average Fuel: 8.8l/100km
Distance to Empty: 168km
Gas purchased: 0l for $0

Odometer: 017251
Photos taken: 32
Total Distance Traveled: 263.3km

Note: this post is part of my Lex Go Further – A Ford Escape series sponsored by Ford Canada.  If you want to know more about what trouble I get into, you can read my disclosure statement here.