Here's a bulletin-type review for my new car I had recently bought, a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid.
Background: I've basically commited blasphemy to my family, who had been partial to Nissans and Infinitis. I grew up being driven by a 1996 Infiniti I30 until I started driving it myself. Then, I bought a 2001 Infiniti Q45 in 2008.
It was a small V8 flagship sedan back in the days of the new millenium. I had gotten it really cheap so the value was there, but I had to deal with a 17 mpg monster. It didn't bug me though. I was gonna deploy at the time I bought it, and in that deployment time would've given the vehicle a rest. But now that I'm not deploying, this vehicle is going to run down by the time I get out of the military. So I had to do something about the car. It's driving 100-miles per workday, I have to fill the 21-gallon tank almost 3 times a week, and it already has 107,000 miles, from the 82,000 miles I bought it at. So to save the vehicle, Lindsay and I decided to give the vehicle to her, and I get myself a fuel-efficient car.... oh great.
So doing my research, I found myself this car. My first impression when I saw this car in person was, hey, it's bigger than I thought. It is much more roomier than a Toyota Prius or a Civic Hybrid. It is FAR more efficient than the Camry Hybrid and Altima Hybrid at 41city/36hwy. The older Ford Fusions had been a hit car with the company. The hybrid technology is a little more updated. And so, I'm going to give Ford a chance. But, moving from an Infiniti to a Ford does come with a price. So, I'm making a series of opinionated-bulletin-type posts on the review of this vehicle to for my benefit as well as anyone else's who plans to buy a new hybrid.
PROSBIG
- The Hybrid drive is AWESOME in efficiency and function. Even though the vehicle is rated at 41/36, you can easily top that even with less-than-mindful driving. I drove on the streets and highway(about 14 miles) today and from the point of depart to arrival, I pulled off an average 42 mpg. There'd be other instances of high average mpg, and I have been able to top it off at 58mpg.
- EV mode is where the car runs entirely on the battery, even with ac, headlights, and sound on. It is set for the lower rpm ranges to assist with the efficiency while accelerating. People get the misconception of it not being very useful because they drive beyond those ranges very easily, but those people are stupid. EV mode really helps you from using the engine unneccesarily for small acceleration spurts like ones in the parking lots. Over here in California, there ARE some mighty big parking lots and shopping centers, and it's nice to know that I can track all of it without using one drop of gas. Real sweet.
- The car has all sorts of surrounding notification systems on it. There's a yellow light on the side mirrors if someone's on your blind spots. There's a back-up camera with a template for the perfect parrellel parking. And with the back-up camera, there's cross-traffic detection that'll beep to notifiy you that there's a car or person coming from the left or right.
- The Sirius TravelLink shows weather, 5-day weather, country weather map, gas stations and their prices, movie theatres and movie times, and sports.
- The vehicle is handsome! Buying it in Tuxedo Black gives you a black car with a shimmering detail to it! The black leather comes with white stitching that makes it look nice.
MEDIUM
- The right side of the shows realtime mpg. So, you get to see how you're doing at each stage of the acceleration and long runs. It is really interesting when you set the vehicle on cruise control and see how much or little it has to do to keep the cruise speed.
- The voice recognition control ALOT from navigation to phone calls to climate control to volume to radio station to whatever is on the screen.
- The car seems to be pretty aerodynamic or the hybrid battery kicks in as when you let go of the acceleration, it maintains it's speed pretty well, requiring less effort on the pedal.
SMALL
- There's a bunch of choices for ambient lighting.
- There's a volume compensation system that'll raise and lower the volume according to your speed to compensate for road noise.
- Car came with 17-inch low-profile rims.
- Moon roof has little side covers to help a wee-bit to keep wind noise down.
- The screen greets you with the correct time of day when you turn on the car.
- The car starts quietly. It can be tricky if you're not paying attention to whether you started your car or not.
- Navigation and phone calls are effective in not interrupting your music while you're listening to it.
CONSBIG
- It's either the Sony speakers are plain awful or they haven't been broken in yet (I'm hoping for the latter) but the sound system SUCKS. I'm part audiophile and I've grew up with Bose, one of the best products out there, and compared to it... well, there's no comparison. The tweeters are harsh and loud instead of clear and concise. The bass has no range. And, songs I once enjoyed in the Infiniti are unbearable to listen to in the Fusion. The system does get much louder than the previous car, but the quality is so much worse that it doesn't even matter. So, being broken in better be the excuse and I'm going to give it time to do that. Otherwise, "Sound Designed by Sony" is going to be "Sound Replaced by Bose".
- The standard 225/50R17 Michelin Energy MXV4 Plus tires SUCK too. Although, I shouldn't be expecting much from OEM tires. With little-above-average turning conditions, I don't feel too confident that the Ford will stay on the road, but more like it's going to tip on me. And, one of the tires had already blown up on me. But, I have been adulterated by the top rated Passenger All-Seasons tires that I currently have on my Infiniti. It's kinda expensive. But to me, safety and handling is nothing to skim on. I've traveled 3,000 miles with some rain, snow, and wintry mix and owe my life and Lindsay's to the Goodyear tires.
MEDIUM
- This is probably not a medium problem to most, but I use cruise control very often. One problem is that you cannot really tell if you cruise control system is on until you try to set it to a cruise speed. There's no blip or icon to let you know you can start your cruise control. So, it gets a little annoying when you try to set a cruise speed, but cruise control is off when you thought it was on.
SMALL
- No cancel button for cruise control. You have to brake or turn it off entirely.
- Steering wheel requires more effort to turn a mid-sized car compared to the steering wheel in the Infiniti that requires less effort to turn a large-size car.
- Trunk does not have auto-snug closing like the Infiniti. But then again, I am comparing to a luxury car. But then again again, the luxury car is 2001 and this is a 2010 car with less "luxury" features that would've been standard neat features by now.
- The steering wheel is a bit slippery. I had to put a steering wheel cover for me to grip the wheel better.
Alright then. More on the way as I come across more noticeable pros and cons.
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