Feirstein

There are very few tires made in the Edge's 22" size, and those are often in limited supply. Some of the truly great all-around, long lasting tires are simply not made in this size. The 18" Edge tire is not much better in this regard. The Tire Rack site has a list of tires for the Edge in the 22" size; and you can sort them by order of owner ratings. That is a good place to start.

The auto mags have tested larger and larger tires and wheels (not on an Edge) and found that the ride and overall performance went down as the wheel and tire size went up. It is possible to make a light weight 22" wheel and tire combination, but Ford does not offer such a combination and few would be willing to pay for it. The biggest problem with Ford Edge 18" and 22" tire sizes is that very few tires are available in the size Ford selected for the Edge. Even Ford has had problems obtaining an adequate supply of tires as sales have picked up.

This is why the Ford Edge with OEM 22" wheels has a worse ride, poorer handling and braking and overall performance than an 18" Ford Edge OEM wheel equiped model. It is just for looks. I put it up there with blue tinted bulbs.

But remember, the amber rear turn lights have been shown in a recent study to reduce rear end accidents over red turn lights.

Objectively speaking; if you have 22" or 20" wheels and tires, a switch to significantly lighter 18" wheels and tires will give the Edge a significant boost in handling and acceleration. Sad to say, the choice of truely great tires in the 18" 20" and 22" wheels is quite limited, but some better than average tires are out there. Now if someone would offer a truly light 18" wheel for the Edge, a true path to better performance would be at hand. Ford would do this if there were a demand for performance instead of appearance.

No need to remove the battery.

I can now report that after the plugs were changed at 90,000 miles my fuel economy seems to have improved just a bit. I just got over 25.3 MPG on the highway for the first time (OK, there may have been a tail wind, and the road was progressively on a slight decline in altitude from Canada to Albany, NY, and the speed was kept under 70 MPH). But still, this was a first. I can report about 17.5 for city driving. Again, just a tad better than I noticed prior to the plug change. Perhaps 90,000 miles is a bit too long?

You know, it may not be the octane increase at all, but the new fuel may have helped clear out some of the contaminated fuel that caused the problem. Keep filling it up at a different station and see if the problem goes away.

With the trend to much larger wheels and tires (it started in 07 with 17" wheels and tires, and we are now at 22"), the weight has gone up. This has not helped the ride, performance or fuel economy. Now it is possible to supply very light 22" wheels and tires, but you would not want to pay for those and the tires would not hold up for long. My 07 AWD Edge gets about 21 mpg on the highway, but if I keep it down to about 60 mph the mpg's go up to about 24. Doing 85 on my way down to Fl last summer it dove down to about 18 MPG. Ford will have to put the Edge on a strict diet to meet coming Federal fuel economy requirements. But it is classified as a truck so the stricter limits may not apply.

Even if the engine motor light is not lit you might be able to pull some codes if you plug in a code reader (located under the driver's side dash). Without a code this can be hard to resolve. If the mech recommended higher octane fuel you perhaps need to find a different mech. (Higher octane is only needed if you hear a ping or a knock, it has nothing to do with a miss, and an mech worth his salt would know that).

Be very careful if you have a 2007 Edge or MKX! I just did my Edge at 90,000 miles. The OEM fine wire plugs sported a gap somewhere between .075 and .081. These were replaced with fine wire iridioum plugs and the intake gaskets were changed also. The dealer cost was about $35.00, and they old ones looked fine to my eyes. The Very Careful note concerns the fact that "early" 2007 models sported a heated PCV valve just forward of the PVC hose. I did not know this and pulled the wires out of the plug end. Even though the official three volume 2007 repair manual shows a part number, Ford, in fact, does not have a replacement plug end. It took me several hours to do micro surgery on the wires to restore the plugs function. Be careful out there. I also found that the locking clips for the wires going to the on plug coil were a bit of a pain and one of the rear clips fell off. I solved that by using an appropriate plastic glue to hold it in place. (After I had to remove the upper manifold to cure a miss caused by its loose condition. Gerrrr. It took me far less time and effort the second time around. By the way, even with the excessive gap in the OEM plugs, the Edge ran just fine; but 90,000 miles seems to be a good time to change out the plugs.

The reason car companies charge so much for replacement wheels is that they assume our insurance companies will pick up the tab. Other sources sell the identical wheels for much less. Our insurance companies go along because all they have to do is rase our rates.

Amber DRL's are not likely legal outside of the US and Canada. HID's in Germany likely require auto leveling and headlight washers, another glare reducing set of regulations not required in the US and Canada. Although the non-HID headlights used on the Edge in the US and Canada are only DOT certified, it is likely that the optical properities are very close to those mandated for EU certification, but the DOT units also sport amber reflectors which may or may not pass German Certification Requirements. It is about time that the US and EU standars merge. The glare reduction, optical and output requirements for EU certification may be superior, but the US reflector requirements are superior. There is overlap already between the two levels of certification for output and optical properities. The EU also mandates amber rear turn lights and at least a single red rear fog light. Both are permitted in the US and Canada but are not mandated. Strange as it may seem, most current German car venders have removed amber rear turn signals and rear fog lights from the current crop of offerings. I find that my 07's OEM headlights with upgreaded bulbs offer very good lighting properities, superior to my 04 Town & Country mini-van with German headlight units.

Yes, the trend in the industry has been toward larger wheels and tires with low profiles. This trend has resulted in much heavier wheel/tire assemblies. These require higher levels of dampening, ie, stiffer shocks. The end result is that it is more expensive to replace the wheels and tires (size and limited choices), the ride has gone down hill, and fuel economy (extra weight) and road performance has actually been harmed. But just look at many of the posts on this forum from Edge owners that just love the look of huge wheels. In my opinion we might be better off with 16 inch wheels using a tire size that is not somewhat unique to the Edge. But it looks like the car companies have decided that the customer wants huge wheels, so huge wheels we do get. If you want a softer ride switch to the standard 17 inch wheels with a tire known for its ride qualities, coupled with shocks designed for the lower mass of the reduced wheel and tire assembly. Your dealer will have a listing of the proper OEM shock for that application. I don't have an issue with the ride of my 07 with 18 inch OEM wheels and Hankook Dynapro HP RA23's.

So let me see; Ford paints its interior surfaces and refuses to offer a solution if you damage the paint, and you don't have a problem with that. I guess I must be wrong. And bashing me for going out of my way to point out a problem and a solution is good policy for a public forum. I happen to own a lot of Ford stock and anything that undermines the brand bathers me (not just as an owner). But keep up your attitudes and nothing will change because the act of bringing up a short comming is actually seen as product bashing. Live and learn. (Anyone want to bet that no one at the decision making level at Ford even knows about this issue?) I'v learned my lesson and will think twice about ever posting on this forum again.

It is very sad to see a forum moderator react in the way that you have. I posted what I thought would be very useful information for our forum members and visitors. The reason this information is useful is because Ford failed to provide adequate information and failed to provide a solution concerning interior paint repair colors and products. That is an objective reporting of the facts. Instead of welcoming the fact that a member posted a solution that could be useful for forum members you insisted on calling me a complainer. Perhaps there is a real attitude problem here that you need to confront. It is very sad to see this attitude projected from a moderator. If you want to discourage reasonable discussions on this forum keep it up. I stand by my report that Ford has left its customers down with regard to this subject. That is a fact. So stop putting down reasonable comments or you will kill off this growing forum.

If you damage the interior paint and you go to your Ford dealer or call Ford's Customer Relations, you are told that Ford does NOT provide a paint code or the paint itself or even a repair kit. All you can get from Ford is the name they use to describe the color. In my opinion that is a problem. Are you telling us that Mercedes leaves its customers in the cold in the same situation?

The passenger side of the dashboard had the paint rubbed off when I transported some material in the Edge. Who knew the dashboard color was merely painted on at the factory? As reported here earlier, Ford and the Ford Dealers in my area were of no help. No paint and no paint codes are available from Ford or the dealer. I made a connection with a company called TCP Global, and for $35.85 plus shipping, they mixed up a pint of Medium Camel SEM # 5850 and shipped it to me. Today I got out some dash cleaner soap and maskeing tape and a good 2" brush. I applied 3 slightly thinned coats. I can report that the color match was spot on. Once the paint fully cures I will apply some very mild compound and I think it would be hard to tell that the dashboard had been repaired (at least if you don't look too close under very bright lights). A Customer Rep at Ford Corporate did inform me that the color of the dash was Medium Camel. That was enough for TCP Global to mix up a match. I also noted that the arm rest on the driver's sided had the paint worn off (2007, 80,000 miles). The paint was also used to touch up that area to my full satisfaction. Too bad Ford Thinks paint is a good solution for providing color to the plastic interior trim.

The real problem is that Ford does not offer the paint or instructions or even a paint code to repair the interior painted surfaces. This is a huge negative mark on Ford's management and may well influency my decision on what make I go with in the future.

Any details you can provide on how you got your amber rear turn lights to function properly would be most welcome.

I took it into the Ford Dealer. Apparently Ford does not offer a kit to repair the dash. The dealer's body shop quoted me $375.00 to repair the small area in need of a recoat of paint. Gerrrrrrrrrrr.

My 07 all wheel drive had only fair braking power. I changed out the brake power booster to the latest Ford OEM version (third or fourth revision) and installed a set of agressive Bendix front pads and new rotors (bassed upon tests set up for police car use off the internet). I now have no complaints about the vehicle's braking power.

I will be installing a set on my 07 Edge in the morning. I will be using a converter box used for amber turn trailers run from a combined light setup. Don't know if this will work. I'll post details if it works. Richard

The Bosch 4 plugs are not based on any real engineering principle but are purely a marketing ploy. Very sad to see Bosch offer such a product.

What technical changes did you have to make to register the two cars in Germany?