Winter Driving Tips | Prescott Brothers Ford Rochelle IL

Severe weather can be both frightening and dangerous for automobile travel. Motorists should know the safety rules for dealing with winter road emergencies. We want to remind motorists to be cautious while driving in adverse weather. 

We recommend the following winter driving tips:

• Avoid driving while you’re fatigued. Getting the proper amount of rest before taking on winter weather tasks reduces driving risks.
• Never warm up a vehicle in an enclosed area, such as a garage.
• Make certain your tires are properly inflated.
• Never mix radial tires with other tire types.
• Keep your gas tank at least half full to avoid gas line freeze-up.
• If possible, avoid using your parking brake in cold, rainy and snowy weather.
• Do not use cruise control when driving on any slippery surface (wet, ice, sand).
• Always look and steer where you want to go.
• Use your seat belt every time you get into your vehicle.

Tips for long-distance winter trips:

• Watch weather reports prior to a long-distance drive or before driving in isolated areas. Delay trips when especially bad weather is expected. If you must leave, let others know your route, destination and estimated time of arrival.
• Always make sure your vehicle is in peak operating condition.
• Keep at least half a tank of gasoline in your vehicle at all times.
• Pack a cellular telephone plus blankets, gloves, hats, food, water and any needed medication in your vehicle.
• If you become snow-bound, stay with your vehicle. It provides temporary shelter and makes it easier for rescuers to locate you. Don’t try to walk in a severe storm. It’s easy to lose sight of your vehicle in blowing snow and become lost.
• Don’t over exert yourself if you try to push or dig your vehicle out of the snow.
• Tie a brightly colored cloth to the antenna or place a cloth at the top of a rolled up window to signal distress. At night, keep the dome light on if possible. It only uses a small amount of electricity and will make it easier for rescuers to find you.
• Make sure the exhaust pipe isn’t clogged with snow, ice or mud. A blocked exhaust could cause deadly carbon monoxide gas to leak into the passenger compartment with the engine running.
• Use whatever is available to insulate your body from the cold. This could include floor mats, newspapers or paper maps.
• If possible run the engine and heater just long enough to remove the chill and to conserve gasoline.

Tips for driving in the snow:

• Accelerate and decelerate slowly. Applying the gas slowly to accelerate is the best method for regaining traction and avoiding skids. Don’t try to get moving in a hurry. And take time to slow down for a stoplight. Remember: It takes longer to slow down on icy roads.
• Drive slowly. Everything takes longer on snow-covered roads. Accelerating, stopping, turning – nothing happens as quickly as on dry pavement. Give yourself time to maneuver by driving slowly.
• The normal dry pavement following distance of three to four seconds should be increased to eight to ten seconds. This increased margin of safety will provide the longer distance needed if you have to stop.
• Know your brakes. Whether you have antilock brakes or not, the best way to stop is threshold breaking. Keep the heel of your foot on the floor and use the ball of your foot to apply firm, steady pressure on the brake pedal.
• Don’t stop if you can avoid it. There’s a big difference in the amount of inertia it takes to start moving from a full stop versus how much it takes to get moving while still rolling. If you can slow down enough to keep rolling until a traffic light changes, do it.
• Don’t power up hills. Applying extra gas on snow-covered roads just starts your wheels spinning. Try to get a little inertia going before you reach the hill and let that inertia carry you to the top. As you reach the crest of the hill, reduce your speed and proceed downhill as slowly as possible.
• Don’t stop going up a hill. There’s nothing worse than trying to get moving up a hill on an icy road. Get some inertia going on a flat roadway before you take on the hill.
• Stay home. If you really don’t have to go out, don’t. Even if you can drive well in the snow, not everyone else can. Don’t tempt fate: If you don’t have somewhere you have to be, watch the snow from indoors.

Original post can be viewed here.

The new 2016 Ford Explorer will go on sale in North America next year | Prescott Brothers Ford Rochelle IL

The 2016 Explorer will go on sale in North America next year with a new look and some of Ford's latest technology.

The current Explorer debuted in the 2011 model year and made the dramatic change from being a body-on-frame truck to a car-based crossover.

The Explorer helped define the SUV segment and sales in the U.S. peaked at 445,000 in 2000. Nearly 7 million have been sold since the SUV debuted in 1990. But gas prices forced Ford to rethink the family vehicle to make if more fuel efficient and nimble to drive. Crossovers of all sizes have surged in popularity because they fill that bill.

Global demand for SUVs is up 88% since 2008, making utility vehicles the fastest-growing segment around the world, according to IHS Automotive. Utilities now comprise 19% of the global vehicle market.

For the Ford brand, utility vehicles accounted for 23% of global sales in 2013, up from 17% a year earlier; and sales are forecast to grow to 29% by 2020.

"As utility vehicle demand rises around the world, our global lineup of vehicles, like EcoSport, Escape/Kuga and Edge, is helping us grow our share," said Jim Farley, head of global marketing, sales and service. "The global desire for new utility vehicles is driving expansion in developing markets like China and helping the Ford brand reach more customers."

Ford is trying to distinguish itself in China by offering four different crossovers for sale — the only region where Ford offers so many utility choices.

The expanded portfolio in Europe now includes the new and tiny EcoSport and the Edge will be added in late 2015. They augment the Kuga (known as Escape here). The utility market in Europe has grown from 9% market share in 2008 to 19% last year.

In the United States, small crossovers are now the largest segment. Ford reported record Escape sales last year.

Winterizing Your Vehicle | Prescott Brother Ford Rochelle IL

Are you ready for the upcoming winter and what it will be offering? Before you rush to the store for the last gallon of milk and loaf of bread, you’ll want to be sure your car is ready to battle the elements. Follow these tips before venturing out into the winter wonderland.

• Get a Tune-Up. Have your mechanic check your hoses, belts 
  and anti-freeze. A weakened hose or belt can break and leave you stranded, or a 
  weak solution of anti-freeze can ice up and damage your cooling system. 
• Check Your Battery. Make sure your car’s battery connection 
  is clean, tight and corrosion-free. The battery should be securely mounted. If 
  the battery is three years old or more, have it tested and replace it if 
  necessary.  
• Check Your Heater and Defroster. If your heater isn’t 
  working, you’ll probably know. But what about front and rear defrosters? Before 
  you’re faced with a frosty windshield, turn your front and rear defrosters on 
  and off to make sure they’re working. 
• Give Yourself a Brake. If you have the slightest concern 
  that something’s amiss with your brakes, get them inspected immediately. If you 
  have anti-lock brakes, you should avoid pumping the brakes if you begin to 
  slide.  
• Have Your Exhaust System Checked. Ask your mechanic to 
  double check the exhaust system for leaks, which can emit dangerous carbon 
  monoxide into your car. If you become stuck in the snow and want to run the 
  engine and heater, make sure your tail pipe is clear of the snow and crack open 
  a window to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning, which can be fatal. 
• Fill up with Washer Fluid. Slush and mud splashed on a 
  windshield can spell danger for a winter driver. Make sure your washer fluid 
  reservoir is sufficiently full, and keep a spare jug in the trunk. 
• Consider New Wiper Blades. Even if your windshield wiper blades 
  are in good condition, you might want to upgrade to a rubber coated snow blade 
  that can handle the extra weight of wet snow. They’re not expensive, and could 
  make your winter driving a lot safer in the long run. 
• Take a Look at Your Tires. Your tires need to have adequate 
  tread with “grip” to propel you through the snow. 
• Fill Her Up! One of the best driving tips for winter is to 
  keep your tank more than half full at all times. It will help you avoid 
  freezing in your fuel lines, and will keep you safer in winter weather 
  situations.

If for any reason you are in need of assistance with any one of these safety precautions please give us a call and we will be happy to help you in any way we can. Please visit Prescott Brothers Ford or schedule an appointment today!

King of the Hill | Lifetime Ford Loyalist | Prescott Brothers Ford Rochelle IL

A LIFETIME FORD LOYALIST PUTS THE NEW 2015 SUPER DUTY TO THE ULTIMATE TEST: A DAY OF WORK ON HIS 1,500-ACRE FARM OUTSIDE OF CUNNINGHAM, KANSAS.

 By Sam Martin

Photography by Bridget Barrett

Farm work waits for no one. So when My Ford rolls up at a homestead in central Kansas with a 2015 King Ranch F-350, our test driver is hardly sitting around waiting for us. Bob Renner, 54, is prepping the hay baler on the back of his 2000 F-350, getting ready to feed 100 head of cattle and almost 90 baby calves.

Renner is a quintessential midwestern farmer. His manners are old school, his smile is broad—his stories are told with a sparkle in his eye. Like most people who have worked the land their whole life, he has seen his fair share of trials and tribulations. In 1984, while driving to a dance in his hometown of Cunningham, Renner was involved in a serious car accident. After being airlifted to a hospital in Wichita, he awoke from a coma seven days later without his left arm.

“The doctor told my father there were two ways people reacted to an injury like mine,” Renner says. “They either complain the rest of their life, or they yell at you to leave them alone. Well, we were leaving the hospital, and my dad opened the car door for me. I yelled at him, ‘Dad, I only lost one arm. I can do this myself!’ I was tough to be around for a few years there, but I was lucky enough to have a lot of people who loved me.”

Spend a day with Renner at his 1,500-acre farm and its neighboring townships of Cunningham, St. Leo and Zenda, and you’ll quickly see there are still plenty of people who love this man. You’ll also see that the loss of a limb has done nothing to slow this father of three. Renner, along with his wife, Donna, raises cattle and grows wheat and alfalfa on his land, a part of America that has been in his family for three generations.

His method of farm management relies on squeezing every last drop of production out of his fleet of five Ford pickup trucks. Listening to the genealogy of Renner’s trucks is like listening to his family history. “My dad always ran Ford trucks,” he explains. “So I always, always, drove Ford. I’ve sold some, I’ve wrecked a few, but they’re awfully tough pickups.”

“My red pickup [the 2000 F-350], that’s my overall work truck that I feed cattle and haul hay with all the time. I just about live in it. It has about 300,000 miles on it and is still going strong.”

The tough miles that Renner puts on his trucks make this the perfect setting for today’s test: putting one of the very first 2015 King Ranch F-350 trucks through its paces on a working farm. “When I woke up this morning, I was excited,” Renner says. “I’d never thought I’d have people from Detroit come to my place to let me drive a brand-new F-350. So I’m ready to put it to the test.”

WHAT A FARM NEEDS

A typical day for Renner begins with a trip to inspect and feed his herd of cattle and, at this time of year, baby calves. “I don’t brand my cattle, but on any given morning I may have to tag calves, check to see if anything’s wrong with them, and give them a feed.”

He keeps his bales of alfalfa on the second story of a tall white barn with red trim, built by his grandfather in 1919. Renner opens a small hatch 20 feet in the air and throws four green bales down into the tray of the waiting F-350. As he steers the truck down toward the nearby paddock filled with the waiting herd, he reflects on what he considers when purchasing a vehicle for his farm.

“When I buy a truck, I’m mainly thinking about weight. I do a lot of hauling: I haul a very heavy swather, cattle, a lot of hay—sometimes upwards of 16,000 pounds. You need good towing capability to do that.”

Luckily for Renner, the 2015 Super Duty has been designed to work. The second generation 6.7-liter Power Stroke^® Turbo Diesel offers best-in-class power. This is a truck built to tow, to increase productivity for its owner, and to do so as efficiently as any truck on the market.

Ford Marks 20 Years of Fighting Breast Cancer with Warriors in Pink | Prescott Brothers Ford Rochelle IL

This year marks 20 years of Ford Motor Company fighting against breast cancer. The company’s journey began when it became one of the first corporate sponsors of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Ford branded its initiative Warriors in Pink^® and developed a full line of clothing and gear that donates 100 percent of the net proceeds to four breast cancer charities. Thus far, Ford has dedicated more than $125 million to the cause.

Involvement for Ford extends far beyond just financial support for research. Warriors in Pink encourages women to have continuing and honest conversations that keep them proactive about breast health and early detection.

“Through Warriors in Pink, Ford continues to be a unifying force in driving awareness for breast cancer. This year is especially meaningful to us as we mark our 20th anniversary and honor the strength and courage of all the survivors who have shared their stories with us throughout their journey,” said Joe Hinrichs, President of The Americas, Ford Motor Company.

Other ways Ford has been able to shine a spotlight on survivors is through its Models of Courage program, which highlights individuals who openly share their experiences with breast cancer.

Since 2006, Warriors in Pink has offered a line of apparel and accessories, and 100 percent of the net proceeds from the sale of these items benefit Warriors in Pink’s four charities partners: The Pink Fund, Susan G. Komen, Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation and Young Survival Coalition. Join the fight and support a breast cancer charity of your choice at check out when you shop fordcares.com.

Canyon Lands

My Ford tests the off-road limits of the 2014 Explorer with a journey to southwest Utah’s legendary national parks.

By Seth Putnam
Photography by Jonathan Kane
You can feel the gallop through the steering wheel of the 2014 Ford Explorer Sport as we surge through steep mountain ranges, effortlessly passing other road warriors on the way from Salt Lake City to Moab, Utah.
On the surface, the Explorer is a sleek and stylish vehicle, roomy enough to comfortably accommodate seven people and a cargo area full of gear. But looks can be deceiving, and beneath the hood of this black beauty is a beast of a machine: a 3.5-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost^® engine that boasts plenty of hauling and climbing ability, all with impressive EPA-estimated fuel economy ratings.*

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Utah has an idiosyncratic climate that threatens to shift every few minutes. During a three-and-a-half-hour afternoon drive, fog turns to rain to snow to rain and back to fog. Whipping the windshield, the otherworldly snowflakes seem—deceptively—as if they’re as big as the palm of my hand. Despite the wild weather, the Explorer is doing great on the highway. But how will it perform when the pavement ends?

The Descent

When we arrive in Moab, we head straight to Canyonlands National Park to find out. We enter the preserve at dawn, just as the sun begins glinting off the red rock canyon walls. Pulling off the road, we get out of the car and walk gingerly toward the canyon’s edge. The earth seems to disappear, with hundreds of feet of sheer cliff dropping away from our toes. The centuries peel away, and I begin to think how difficult it must have been for Native Americans and settlers alike to move across this unforgiving landscape, much less make a home here. We’ve arrived in a vehicle packed with technology, from the available SYNC^® with MyFord Touch^® voice-activated technology**—which allows me to use voice commands to get directions, make phone calls, and even skim through the available SiriusXM^® Radio^† stations—to the available heated leather-trimmed seats that take the bite out of the desert’s freezing dawn.
When you stand face-to-face with nothing but thin air, your hands start to tremble. Your knees shake, and it feels like your stomach has taken up residence in your mouth. One wrong move could end in a free fall. It’s a sobering reminder that for all of humanity’s efforts to tame it, the ferocious wilderness still lurks. The Explorer had taken us to the brink, and it was time to push the envelope.
In the distance, what looks like a game trail snakes its way down to the canyon floor. We decide to explore the trailhead, and we discover that it’s actually the Shafer Trail, a road into the backcountry. On second thought, “road” might be a charitable description; it’s little more than a one-lane path carved into the side of the canyon. On the right, a sheer red rock wall towers into the sky. On the left, nothing but thin air. How can we say no?
The Explorer’s available Terrain Management System^TM is designed to intelligently deliver the vehicle’s resources in the way that best fits the landscape. The Sand setting keeps the transmission in its lowest gears and allocates the vehicle’s 350 foot-pounds of torque to the wheels to aggressively pilot through desert conditions. With Hill Descent Control^TM enabled, we set our desired speed and begin our off-road descent, handling the plummeting switchbacks with ease.
The walls of Lathrop Canyon shoot up around us as we plunge into the abyss we had been standing above only moments ago. Looking along the contours of the gorge, the snowcapped La Sal Mountains form a stark contrast to the searing desert clime surrounding the SUV. Just when we think we’ve reached the floor, huge fissures open up in front of us: canyons within the canyon. The Explorer scrambles over the rough rocks with all the grace and poise of a mountain lion. After several miles of winding, rugged road along the Colorado River, we emerge from the canyon onto pavement, victorious over a trail that—despite its beauty—was fraught with danger.

The Climb

In awe of the earth’s oddities, we head to Arches National Park to ascend into an entirely different landscape. There, we discover spires of sandstone that tower over us like castle ruins. Below our feet lies an ancient salt bed that’s thousands of feet thick in places. The bed was created 300 million years ago, when the sea flowed into the Paradox Basin. The basin evaporated over time, forming the bed, which continued to rise and sink as the environment changed. A plethora of rock layers formed, and as erosion and acid rain began to take effect, weaker bottom layers fell away from stronger top layers, creating the striking arches that more than a million visitors flock to see each year.
The current rangers of the park are also concerned with fostering natural ecosystems. They do this by eliminating exotic plants while encouraging native ones to grow. Some plants in the park are over 100 years old and are examples of the resilience needed to survive in the desert.
Despite this hardiness, conserving the delicate desert ecosystem is an important task, the scope and scale of which is not to be underestimated. The rangers are following in the footsteps of forward-thinkers like Teddy Roosevelt (revered as one of the fathers of the national parks system) and Edward Abbey, an extreme naturalist and author who served as an Arches park ranger in the 1960s.
It’s essential work that allows us to revel in the wonders of the natural world. But it’s also a reminder that adventures in the wilderness can be tough, especially in a place like the rugged desert of Moab. Luckily, the Explorer is just as rugged and has shown that it’s up for the challenge.
FAST FACTS

2014 EXPLORER

>SOLID FOOTING The 4WD system allows the Explorer to deliver confidence and traction in all conditions.
>SAFE ON SLOPES Hill Descent Control^TM lets you set and maintain a constant speed while traveling downhill.
>ADAPTABLE TO ALL TERRAIN The Terrain Management System^TM lets you easily shift on the fly into one of four settings to match the terrain: Normal, Mud/Ruts, Sand and Snow, Gravel, Grass.

*EPA-estimated rating of 16 city/22 hwy/18 combined mpg, 3.5-liter EcoBoost^® 4WD. Actual mileage will vary. **Driving while distracted can result in loss of vehicle control. Only use mobile phones and other devices, even with voice commands, when it is safe to do so. Not all features are compatible with all phones.
^†Subscriptions to all SiriusXM services are sold by SiriusXM after trial expires. Subscriptions are governed by SiriusXM Customer Agreement; see www.siriusxm.com. Sirius U.S. Satellite Service available in the 48 contiguous United States and D.C. Sirius, XM and all related marks and logos are trademarks of Sirius XM Radio Inc.

STANDOUT SAFETY

Looking for a safe and efficient pre-owned car?

The 2011 Ford Fiesta earned a coveted safety award.

Proving that small can be mighty, the 2011 Ford Fiesta earned a coveted Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the first compact car to do so since tougher rollover-protection testing was introduced in 2010. More than 55% of the Fiesta’s body structure uses high-strength or ultra-high-strength steel to add rigidity and save weight, so it can maximize safety while delivering up to 40 hwy mpg.* Plus the Fiesta has the most standard airbags in the segment, including an exclusive driver’s knee airbag.