Just announced that Motor Trend picked the Fusion as the Car of the Year. It keeps getting better....:bglasses: I don't hear anyone addressing the battery life and plans for disposal...That could be huge and guess who'd pay for that? Everybody....whether you have one or not.
according to ford.,,, battery is 10 year warranty ....disposal I imagine would be dealer and responsibly I imagine ... 2 week report : mind you the wife is driving and 70% is city 30% hyw and she drives speed limit almost 2 weeks and from a full tank(free from dealer,but I know I paid for it ) gas gauge is between 1/2 and 3/4 full. and 245 miles driven so far :eek2: (17.5 gallon tank ) I think that's very impressive,s**t it is impressive ....and according to many people on this one fusion forum the mpg increases after about 1,000 miles * and as I hoped and suspected it will be 1 tankful of gas per month w/ my wifes driving habits ....and that's better than 3 tanks per month in the older BMW and we are driving a midsize car remember and not a Toyota Prius that has bad drive-abilty also on fusion forum is some Ford tech guy who says the batteries will get better and smaller and possibly some plug in the wall mods to charge up batteries in the future imo .....buy ford stock
mow I'm really impressed ...I stole the car from wife . did a 35 mile trip at no more than 40 mph almost all on electric I believe the motor switched on 3-4 times only bcs I had the heat running and in a few inclines ...and I did it all with the trip computer showing a 46 mpg :eek2: ....and gas guage didnt budge a molecule. I love this concept
Excellent stories.....gotta love it!!!. The company that DOESN'T take the bailout $$ is the one producing the best cars. Bailouts, no bailouts, whatever....it's just great to hear about an excellent new car being built by a US Manufacturer.
one month report : last night my first fill up on gas spent 16.5 gallons and did 615 miles on fusion hybrid that's 37 mpg combined driving maybe 80% city 20% highway ford and owners are saying mileage increases after about 800 miles and car/computer/battery adjusts for break in and driving style .... so far so great....
Glad to hear that these things are starting to get to a point where they are practical cars. What type of warranty comes with the hybrid? I assume that the electronic controls, electronic motors and batteries are very expensive so knowing how they stand behind them would be important. One thing to remember when looking at the MPG on these things is that my 99 Cadillac De Ville got about 30 on the highway. Maybe only 25 around town but that is a lot of comfort, room and safety for a little more gas. Probably a comparable price between a low mile Cadillac and a new hybrid also.
battery I believe is 10 years ... my 84 eldo was a great cruiser at 28mpg highway and great in the snow
Re: 2010 Ford Fusion Hybird <-- HYBIRD ????? Amazing that you are thinking about driving around in hybrid cars :eek2: With fuel prices that low, cheap cars and almost no road tax to pay, I would buy a Roadmaster Estate Wagon for every day of the week....:3gears:
Re: 2010 Ford Fusion Hybird <-- HYBIRD ????? been there, done that for close to 7 years. The LT1 Roadmonster's only do around 15-17 around town and mixed driving. Only when on the highway does it break into the 20's. My Wife is what you could say, a professional driver. She's a visiting nurse travelling to people's houses all day. In a busy week she can do close to 1,000 miles. Her '05 Saab 92x Aero bought in august '06 with 6K on it now has almost 93K on it and it requires premium (being Turbo'd) - and thats on a stick with the third pedal:TU: She wants a hybrid when its time to upgrade b/c she's tired of filling up all the time (small tank ... and it only gets 22mpg at best) but the problem is she's now hooked on having some grunt under her right foot. My fault for buying her a pocket rocket and chipping it up to stage1
Re: 2010 Ford Fusion Hybird <-- HYBIRD ????? I'm not thinking about one. Just glad to hear the the cars are starting to become practical. "Alternative" fuels are not really an alternative until they become practical in performance and cost. Sounds like they are making headway. I don't do much in town driving and I don't like small cars out where the accidents can be bigger on the open highway. Personally if I were going to spend that kind of money on a driver, I would buy another nearly new Cadillac. As for the cheap fuel prices, that depends on what you do. My commute is about 70 miles per day (round trip). Not huge but it does add up. What I want is an economical truck that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to get that I can use in the woods on the weekends. It's nothing to burn $50 in my Dodge Hemi truck out in the woods on the weekend. Maybe an older Rover diesel?? Should get better MPG than the dodge!
Why does no one talk about VW turbo diesels, that for many years have been getting close to 50 mpg with a stick in Jettas and other smaller VWs? They've been making them for years and they seem to be well proven. My father bought the newer style VW Beetle with the turbo diesel and a stick, and he gets 50 mpg driving it on the highway.
I talked with an owner of one of those VW turbo diesels at the pump one day. He couldn't say enough good about it. He said he was getting over 60 MPH, not so sure about that.. I fell into the "sell the gas hog" and buy something with better mileage. I was driving 75 miles each way to work and had to fill up almost every day in my 1 year old 79 Ford Bronco. Loved that truck, but took a $4000 loss to trade it in on a new 81 Escort station wagon...When I bought the Bronco (Jan, 1979), gas was around $.50 per gallon and my commute to work was only 30 miles each way. When it went over $1.00/gallon, we gutted out the convertor, did a coupla other tricks and raised the MPG from 8 to about 15. When I bought it, I balloon noted the entire cost...Couldn't get financing on it as a used vehicle (even Ford Motor Credit). People were buying them at the first of the model year and making money on them when they sold them at the end of the model year (Ford A plan). That market disappeared overnight. We had to come up with $4000 just to sell it..Couldn't handle the $350/month payments AND the gas bill... Should have done the math on how much I was really saving, or better yet, how long it would take to recover the loss on that beautiful Bronco. It never came close... When we bought the Fusion SEL last Spring, the hybrid next to it was about $10k more....fool me once.....fool me twice......no way.
I remember the VW diesel being "THE" way to go for high MPG back say... 1990? The fact that they are still around and kicking butt tells me that the only thing they are not doing well is getting the word out about the mileage and track record of the car when the rush for economy hits every few years. Personally, I don't have any love for a small car like that even though I'm sure it is a fine car. I would rather spend the extra on gas and hit the open road in a Cadillac or a Suburban.
I just hope that today's turbo diesel is more powerful than the VW diesel of the early-90s. My dad's VW Rabbit, while kinda fun to drive under 40 mph (thanks to the gearing), couldn't get out of its own way above that. If you wanted to pass on a 2-lane highway, you had to lag back a quarter mile, wait 'til you saw an opening, floor it (don't forget to shut off the A/C!), and hope that by the time you reach the rear bumper of the car you want to pass that there's still an opening in oncoming traffic. Repeat as necessary until sucessful. Yeah, the diesel Rabbit could get 40 mpg if you drive it right. But for me, the accelerator was an on/off switch: either off or floored. When I drove that car, it didn't get anywhere near 40 mpg. That's true of most small, underpowered cars. And that's one of the things I love about big-old powerful cars: it doesn't matter how you drive them, they get the same mileage.
I read that Ford is spending 500 million up there in Michigan to do some more hybrid and other alternate fuel stuff for the future. ...smells like jobs to me this makes me wonder if the next American economic (JOB) revolution will be in alternate fuel and energy ...solar,wind,fuel cell stuff Anne This website used to be alot more fun and friendly whatever happened to that cowboy with the horse ...uh whats his name ? .
You might be right in that if these alternative sources of power become profitable and economic to run there will be new places that build what it takes to implement them. Problem right now is that most of the solar, wind and other alternate fuel jobs out there only exist on the tax dollar. Until they develop something that can stand on its own it's just another drag on the economy. I do hope that they get somewhere with these types of energy. Cheaper energy sources is one way that we can all keep a bunch of money in our pockets, which is a great way to help give the economy a boost.
Asia and Europe are decades ahead of us on alternative energy 1st time I saw solar panels on majority of roofs was in Europe in the mid 1980's General Electric is on the verge of big wind farms and a few other small companies also .... *sad part is the parts come from asia and europe *sad part #2 is they will be set up for the utility companies ....your electric bill will be same or more ....most likely more - to pay for their profit machines what I would like to see is salesman going door to door and then tradesman installing solar and or wind power gizmos on peoples houses...gizmos THAT ARE MADE IN USA just like yesteryear when there was boom in aluminum siding in California a few Lowes sell residential solar setups already ...plug and play types
The other side of that is that it is very expensive to have a system that can have any chance of keeping up with the average American's home electronic needs. As for the wind farms, those are tax subsidized. I have had dealings with bio-diesel and wind turbine projects and they would never even come close to being able to be built without heavy tax dollar contributions. I am still looking forward to practical alternative energy. I think that part of the deal may be figuring out how to take that mass of electronic stuff in our houses today use less energy, while still letting people use their T.V., computer and whatever else the way they do now.
I have a '10 3-liter SE that my daughter drives (she paid half). She wanted something she'd not worry about for roughly a decade. I drive it once in blue moon while she is out of town. The car is a little hot rod so watch that part carefully. Very tight all around even after 85k miles; some of those were daily rental miles too. When cold you'll probably find odd transmission behavior; I see it disappear after a few miles of heat up. I collected this from a dealer with two years left on a certified used warranty. The dealer had serviced brakes, tires, transmission fluid, oil, filters before putting up for sale. My only maintenance coming up is spark plugs at 90k; the rear bank will give me a little annoyance. I'd daily drive this thing used in a heart beat. It is a very nice car. Where were these things when I was 19?
