I own a 2019 Ford Escape. It replaced a 2016 Ford Explorer. Apparently between 2016 and 2019 Ford decided my trip mileage calculator only has to count to 2000 miles, then the trip calculator resets to 0 (for both trip 1 and trip 2). In the past I used the trip calculator to keep track of mileage between oil changes. Why does Ford think I only need 2000 miles to keep track of?
because maybe they think most people can look at the little sticker in the upper left side of the windshield to see when the next oil change by miles is due . Also the oil change is by time and many people reach the time point before the mileage point.
As for why Ford did that , why not use the contact number and ask them.
I did. No help. Much like your response. Do you work for Ford? And I haven’t seen a little window sticker with the mileage in 5 years.
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The same way they knew back in the old days that everyone wanted a black car. They are the almighty FORD, they know what you want. 
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Look in the least read book in the world ( The Owners manual ) and I think you will find that your Escape has an oil life monitor system .
The one in my wifes car only makes it 1,000 before starting over.
I didn’t have a car with a trip odometer until I bought a Ford Tempo in 1985. I had a little notebook where I noted the mileage and date of the oil change, the mileage, date, and number of gallons of gasoline I put in the tank. That made it easy to calculate the gasoline mileage. I kept a separate notebook where I noted repairs and other maintenance.
I do use the trip odometers on my present vehicle. I reset one each time I fill the tank and do some mental arithmetic before reset the odometer by dividing the mileage by the number of gallons I put in the tank. I round both numbers one way or another to make the arithmetic easier because all I want is a ball park figure. I use the second odometer on road trips to keep track of the distance traveled.
Please understand that I grew up in the days before hand held electronic calculators. I got used to doing calculations in my head.
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You don’t need no stink’n trip odometer to remind a driver of upcoming oil changes.
I own a veritable small fleet of family cars. It would have been difficult to keep track of oil changes and work them into my DIY oil change schedule. We had as many as 4 drivers, some driving 2,500 miles per month.
Here’s how I managed it then and I still do to this day. I chose/choose 5,000 oil change intervals for all my cars and used/use Mobil-1 Extended Performance oil in each one. Then I made sure to adjust changes in each car purchased to even 5,000 mile increments, as appearing on the odometer and then whenever I observed an even 5,000 miles added to it , I’d change oil. So, I change/would change oil at 25,000 miles, 30,000 miles… 95,000 miles, 100,000 miles, etcetera. Voila! Not Rocket Science!
When I’m in my cars I can observe the odometer and using mental math can anticipate changing oil in X number of miles and plan for it, give or take a few or a few hundred miles. Some changes are a tiny bit early and some a tiny bit late, but always count as even 5,000 changes. I also record everything in a log, including actual mileage of changes.
The log also tells which filter part #, drain plug wrench size/style, which filter wrench (socket or strap), and oil capacity for that vehicle. I stock filters and oil in my garage and even have a small roller box of strictly oil changing tools and supplies, separate from my large tool box.
I was doing a lot of oil changing. DIY helped fit it into my limited spare time, got the job done correctly, and at a big savings.
Why make things harder than they need to be?
CSA
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Or maybe you should be glad the OP is changing his oil instead of berating him. Or possibly work on giving answers that are remotely constructive.
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I expect available display space was a design factor they had to consider. Newer cars display lots of stuff, and something has to make-way to be able to display it all. That’s not something I’d even notice myself. But I can see that it could be useful for making sure the oil gets changed at the correct mileage interval. You’d still need to check the oil level in between oil changes. A lot of newer engines are prematurely toasted due to running w/ low oil levels, b/c the owner isn’t routinely checking the dipstick.
Sounds pretty stupid to me, let me reset it when I wish. Of course new technology stinks for some times for no apparent reason, Another pet peeve I cannot add a new member to a text message group, have to start a new group, how stupid is that?
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Most trip odometers, even the old analog ones, roll over at 1,000 miles. They’re really meant to let you see how far you got on the last tank of gas, or maybe to measure mileage over a road trip. If your road trip is more than 2,000 miles long, just split it into chunks.
Wow, I bet he’s grateful for that “google it” answer!
The trip odometer isn’t just for OIL, hence the word TRIP. And who changes the oil every 2kmi?! 2500 is for non-synthetic and the super paranoid. 3500 is normal. Some go 6k with synthetic (but I wouldn’t)?
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I remember the trio odometer in the cars my dad owned. It was portable and could be transferred from car to car. It was a little plastic gadget with five dials that were set by hand. The entire gadget clipped to the sun visor. You set the dials on this gadget to the odometer reading at the beginning of the trip. At the end of the trip, you subtracted the mileage recorded on the gadget from the reading on the car’s odometer. One could certainly record more than 2000 miles. To make it work, a person had to be able to do simple subtracting. This gadget was a freebie from the insurance company.
I guess all cars today have a trip odometer and probably two. In the old days, only more expensive cars had trip odometers.
Same number of digits to display 9999
Yes, but it’s not the same amount of space. A “9” takes more space than a “1” .
Not sure if this applies these modern days, but an electronics design engineer used to be able to buy electronic display modules which would display a certain number of digits. The 9999 type of electronic display module was spec’d as a “4 digit module”, while the 1999 type was spec’d as a “3 1/2 digit module”.
If the display in question showed the number 999 as “0999”, then this theory wouldn’t hold.