POWERSTROKE

I feel your pain on getting Ford parts in the Quad-Cities. I lived there for 35 years. I had the best luck walking in the back door at Sexton's and getting/taking Wholesale plus tax, plus they seemed to stock a more varied selection of parts. None of the dealers on the Iowa side would stock anything, everything was special order. Comment on brake rotors/drums. They are cast iron. Either gray iron or ductile/nodular iron depending on the application. Steel of ANY type makes terrible brake disks/drums. Bit of advice for you. Get a pint bottle of Permatex anti-sieze compound and use it liberally when you reassemble your vehicles from repair/service. Just about completely eliminates parts rusting together. Saves a ton of time on the next repair of that component. I've got a 1996 F-250 regular cab 4wd pickup with Power stroke diesel and manual 5-speed trans I ordered out special in March 1996, waited thirteen weeks for it to come in to the dealer, and was my daily driver for nine years till I semiretired it in 2005. Truck had around 250,000-260,000 miles on it by then, has 301,000 on it now. Nineteen Wisconsin winters has caused corrosion issues on a couple fuel and brake lines but that issue is almost resolved now. I still prefer to drive it over any other vehicle. Not sure how much longer I will be able to keep the old girl running, truck will turn 19 years this Saturday. Trick to wrapping up Big miles on a vehicle is to protect them from rust and put the miles on FAST! Ohhhh, and cabin air filters, the one in my 2006 Volvo S40 is still the factory original filter, car was placed in service June 28, 2005, so TEN years old.

Wife & I had a 1983 2wd S-10 Blazer w/2.8l V-6. Talk about an under powered DOG! Small children on Big Wheel trikes beat that thing stop light to stop light! We over compensated just a bit, next car was a new '88 Mustang GT hatchback HO 5.0L with 5-speed manual trans. One of the last Mustangs with T-tops. The Edge should pull a small trailer well. The 3.5L V6 has a 3500# tow rating. If you tow a boat, and launch at slick or dirty landings, the all wheel drive may be a wise choice. Wife's last car/SUV was a 2003 Mercury Mountaineer AWD, 4.6L V8. 12 years and 205,000 miles it was getting to the point of having expensive repairs yearly. The Mountaineer got 18+/- mpg, the Edge is getting 24-1/2 so far. We never towed with the Mountaineer, and only ever had four people in it a handful of times. The Edge is plenty big for our needs. I thought a new Escape would have been nice but Wife agreed with Son that the Edge was nicer. More money too!

SIDESWIPE - I'd buy what you plan to normally use in your new Edge to break the engine in. 87 octane is fine, no need for higher, E10, straight 100% gasoline, whatever you will be using a year from now.

I'm surprised at the complaint of weak brakes. Our SEL has VERY good brakes, almost too sensitive in fact, the SEL we test drove had strong brakes too. Both vehicles have/had 18" wheels/tires. The larger 20" & 21" wheels/tires may make them seem less aggressive.

Not sure where you've bought gas in Iowa, but every station I've been to might have one pump with straight gas but no guarantees, and it will most likely be 85 octane so when mixed w/10% ethanol will be a cheap 87 octane. If the straight gas is 87 octane, then they'll sell an 89 octane E10 premium grade for a premium price. Highest octane I've seen in Iowa for decades is 91 octane which is always E10. I get down to the Quad-cities about once a month. It's amazing how much the gas business changes driving across the bridges from Moline/Rock Island over to Davenport/Bettendorf.

Ohhhh ethanol is HEAVILY subsidized, and required by the gov't. Roughly a Third of the US corn crop is used to oxigenate our gas supply and stretch it a few percent. That's why hamburger costs $5.00/# now! Think our operators manuals said not to use E85 in our Edges.

'15 SEL AWD w/3.5L V6, has about 900 miles on it now, two weeks old. Both tanks have been right at 24-1/2 mpg on 87 octane gas. Mix of rural country roads, rural Interstate, urban expressway, and some city miles. Dealer filled tank at delivery, wife refills tank, divide miles driven by gallons needed to refill tank. Same way I've figured mpg for the last 42 years. Wife's old '03 Mercury Mountaineer AWD w/4.6L V8 averaged 18-19 mpg on the same commute.

I think the question isn't if the Curt hitch fits the Sport, but "Why does Ford not want a Sport to tow?" There's obviously a reason why the vehicle with the most HP didn't come with a towing package. Showing up at your dealer with a receiver installed on a Sport could void your warrantee.

I think it's more a situation of an Edge OR an F-150. Not BOTH. There's always 4-door six passenger pickups too if you need the carry four or more passengers. Or you can do like the clowns on The Diesel Stop and buy a one ton dually POWERSTROKE to run a garbage bag of tree trimmings to the dump and pull your jet ski.

Yes, not sure what the OP has against trucks, everything you touch on any shelf in any store got there by truck. And Ford builds an F-150 every 43 seconds of every day 24/7/365. If the OP doesn't want a truck, he'll have to buy a trailer! Just make sure the truck or trailer has at least an eight foot long bed.

HATE is a really strong word, only vehicle I've ever HATED was my old '74 Chevy LUV. Soured me on GM and Japanese cars/trucks both. 15,000 miles is not a lot in my opinion. I'm curious what model year your Edge was and what exactly you HATED about it. I'd assume a '15 since this is a '15 forum but doubt you had 15,000 miles on a vehicle since March when '15's started appearing on dealers lots. I have an engine in my old commuter car that has most of the features of the EcoBoost, turbo, intercooled, variable valve timing on intake & exh., EFI, Has just over 135,000 miles, runs better, harder, better mpg on 93 octane and almost as good on 91 octane. 87 octane it runs like I have a half ton of junk in the trunk, mpg suffers enough to justify spending the extra on 91 octane.

Andrew - I agree, ethanol oxygenates gasoline for better combustion, but you have a lot to learn about livestock! Corn is harvested two ways, used to be three years ago. The whole plant is chopped for silage and goes thru a fermenting stage after storage. But cattle will eat it either way. Most corn is combined for shell corn, which is used by distilleries to make enthanol, fed in limited amounts to cattle, larger amounts fed to hogs, chickens, turkeys, etc. Years ago, mid-1960's picking ear corn, cob with kernals still attached, fell out of favor, but ground ear corn makes excellent cattle feed to fatten them up making the best tasting steaks imaginable! Last statistic I saw was that 37% of the US corn crop was used to make ethanol to stretch out our fuel supply a little, actually much less than 10%. A TERRIBLE WASTE of animal feed in my opinion, and MACBWT's too. The government should be subsidizing ethanol production from switch grass, seaweed, forestry byproducts, KUDZU, or waste products from sugarcane. The gov't should not be subsidizing ethanol produced from corn. Granted the distillers byproducts are still usable as livestock feed, but it's a wet product unless more energy is used to dry it, it can only be stored a day or two before it spoils, which means it's only a viable feed for large cattle feeding yards or dairies that are lucky enough to be close to a distillery. And comments I've seen on other forums by farmers, it sells REALLY CHEAP, just little more than the cost of trucking. The corn fed to hogs and poultry starts with dry shelled corn kernels, and is simply ground, coarse for hogs, fine for poultry. Trace minerals and other supplements are added during the grinding process. NO FERMENTING is done to the corn in the process for these animals. There is no "surplus food/feed" due to ethanol production, just bumper yields of corn from favorable crop conditions or farmers planting every possible acre of ground possible to corn. Only shell corn is exported to other countries, some may be exported as corn meal, but that starts as dry shell corn anyhow. The US used to be one of the few countries that could/would export corn, now many countries can export surplus corn. South America is a big competitor in grain and foodstuff exports, as well as The former Soviet Union. Ethanol production has given the farm economy an absolutely huge boost in income the last few years, and when farmers make money, they spend it, and John Deere has had record breaking quarters and years because of their ag equipment helping farmers spend this extra income. The corn market went back to "normal" about a year or 1-1/2 years ago. Deere is now laying off, rumors are starting about farmers being in financial trouble like back in the early 1980's. Equipment sales are off over 50% in some categories compared to a year ago. I agree, lot of incorrect information about "ethanol from corn" from our government. You have to check numerous sources to determine what is accurate. But the bottom line is that ethanol as a motor fuel is O-K, in engines engineered to run on it. Low BTU per gallon means poor mpg compared to gasoline. Making ethanol from corn is a total bad deal. Long term, we should be looking at hydrogen fuel cells to propel our vehicles. Short term, diesel power via biodiesel makes more sense.

I can't speak to long term durability, but went with the 3.5L in the '15 Edge SEL AWD we drove home from the dealer yesterday, car now has about 50 miles on it! The 3.5L burns regular gas, even though FMC says the Ecoboost engines can burn 87 octane regular, most websites claim it needs premium. My wife will drive the Edge and HATES to spend the extra $$ for premium. So the 3.5L was the logical choice.