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Ford did realize there would be people like you and they do allow you to customize many parts of that Hybrid gauge cluster. The leaves can be changed to a graph readout if you don'tlike them. There might be other options for that part of the display but I'm not 100% sure. I don't remember reading that Honda allowed you to make such a change to their 1985-looking leaves.
Can't wait for the Fusion hybrid to come out in about a year or so, as it should use the time-tested Ford Escape excellent hybrid system.
That V6 is the 3.0L V6 Duratec like in my '05 Freestyle, but I think the Fusion is different than the Freestyle version and has variable valve timing (VVT) and slightly different heads/valvetrain (?). Is that the case, Fusion owners? I know Ford tweaked the old 3.0L V6 to go into the '09 Ford Escape, increasing power without sacrificing fuel economy, so there is life left in that highly evolved, proven design for a 24V V6. (Aside: Did you know Porsche originally designed the Duratec V6, and a 2.5L version went into the Ford Contour / Mercury Mystique / Mondeo(Europe) 14 years ago?)
On the downside, Ford needs to get better MPG out of its 4-cylinder Fusion, since Saturn Aura is up to 33 MPG highway, and Hyundai Sonata is at 32 MPG highway to Ford Fusion's 29 MPG highway.
Yep! I believe it made 195hp in SVT form. Comparable to the Nissan Maxima.
Not sure what the torque numbers were.
It also gets the same new 2.5L I4 from the Escape and should net 33 city/34 highway - best in class. The hybrid fusion will beat the camry hybrid's fuel economy by 6 mpg (39 city vs. 33).
There will also be a 263 hp 3.5L sport version available with manumatic shifting on the V6 models.
Wow what a new car. Better than a Camry hybrid by quite a bit.
the snow was either fresh or packed down, not plowed, but the landscape was pretty flat.
didn't notice any wheelspin starting out or turning, so i guess it works pretty well.
you still have to be careful about stopping.
had to scrape my windows for the first time too, bought the car last march.
that is what i was used to.
my wife drives an escape with triple treads and she is extremely happy with how it handles the snow.
i'm thinking the fusion will be fine. one of the reasons i picked it was in a couple of snow storms when pretty much only 4x4's were moving, i saw a milan awd and another time a zephyr awd being able to handle the driving conditions.
It was a fun car that unfortunately had reliability issues. Great v6 though. Loved to rev with fuel cut off at 7200rpm and was an absolute blast to go through the gears. Got lots of tickets in that car. It just begged to be driven fast.
The '98 2.5 Duratec SVT v6 was 195hp and IIRC 165 ft-lbs of torque. It was bumped up to 200hp in 2000 I believe. It was a pretty high strung engine with the torque peak at 5500rpm and hp peak at 6600, but it would pull hard to 7k rpm redline and was smooth enough that if I wasn't watching the tach closely I'd hit the rev limiter at 7,200rpm.
Gee, I wonder why your mileage is so bad...
20 minutes? WAY too long in ANY climate to leave running. Save gas, time, and $$$, and give it (at max.) two minutes to idle before moving. The vehicle actually reaches operating temperature quicker when moving compared to idling.
Yeah, that kills fuel economy. Just idling an engine can burn close to a gallon/hr, so you've wasted a 1/2 gal before going out of your driveway.
I've noticed, just letting my '07 Expedition idle a bit more in the morning and when dropping kids off etc., along with single digit temps have dropped my avg. city mileage from 14 to high 12s. I never let it idle more than 5 minutes.
Does anyone know for sure when the 2010 Fusion will hit the showrooms? My dad's 2000 Taurus is pushing 200k miles and he's contemplating a hybrid as he has a 60 mile round trip commute for work that is basically stop and go with little highway. He's thinking a Fusion Hybrid may be a good option. From what I've read it looks like a promising car. I like the restyle.
Stop and go traffic and excessive idling is the worse thing for any engine.
Just start and go, everything I've read says there is no need to warm-up, just drive gently at first.
http://www.cartalk.com/content/columns/Archive/2007/April/06.html
i wanted slippey conditions and traffic.
it did really well. was really good taking off from a dead stop.
got by a struggling accord a couple of times when i was able to pull up next to them
at a light in the not travelled lane, then just went by them when the light went green.
http://www.fordfusionclub.com/index.php?topic=66540.0
"We're transitioning to a Fusion-Mondeo convergence," Derrick Kuzak, Ford's vice president of global product development said at the show. He confirmed that Ford EUCD platform, which the mid-size Mondeo is built on, will be the foundation for all of Ford's mid-size vehicles, including the Ford Fusion.
In the U.S., the Ford Fusion goes head to head with the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata, and Chevrolet Malibu in one of the most competitive segments in the market. The Fusion currently rides on the Mazda 6-derived CD3 platform, which is also used under the Mercury Milan, Lincoln MKZ, Ford Edge, and Lincoln MKX. Ford reduced its controlling stake in Mazda to 13 percent late last year.
Since Alan Mulally took over as CEO for Ford, he has made a push to globalize platform development. In the coming years, this will lead to European-engineered and developed models migrating to the U.S. market, including the Ford Fiesta, which will be sold for the first time in the U.S. market, and a European-derived next-gen Ford Focus. We can reasonably expect the next-gen Lincoln MKZ, Ford Edge, and Lincoln MKX to ride on the new Fusion platform as well, although the future of the Mercury Milan is uncertain.
Although none of the executives at the auto show would say when the next-gen global mid-size car would appear in Europe or North America, analysts and suppliers expect the car to be available in the U.S. in 2012 as a 2013 model.
you can see where the original platform was stretched in width.
i have been in an edge a few times, even driven 1 for a few days, but i never thought to look for the same platform underneath.
I think you pulled the weights from two bad examples. Ford's site says a 2008 Fusion SE FWD V6 weighs 3280 lbs while a 2008 Edge SE FWD weighs 4078 lbs. That's still a difference of 800 lbs but a lot of it is due to extra sheet metal, the aforementioned structural reinforcements/additions, more glass, more sound deadening materials, slightly heavier engine, larger wheels, etc.
I'm guessing the 2010 Fusion will be a little heavier since it will have more sound deadening materials and some other enhancements that seem likely to add a small amount of weight.
They modify it. I'm not sure it can be put any other way than that. Honda made the Pilot out of the Accord and Odyssey, Toyota made the Highlander and Sienna out of the Camry, Mazda made the CX-9 out of the Mazda6. It's not like they dropped the body of the Edge on top of the Mazda6 chassis and crossed their fingers that it would hold up. They do add structural reinforcements and bend a bunch of the chassis components to make it all work. The Edge chassis is based on, and loosely I'd wager, the Mazda6 chassis. It's not using the Mazda6 chassis intact.
I'm not sure anyone short of a Ford engineer can tell you exactly what had to be modified to make it work for the Edge.
I'm still not ready to jump into buying one, but just waiting on the news.
Complain to the EPA about that one. Ford has their numbers for sure but only the EPA numbers get put on the window stickers and it's up to them to get those numbers to Ford.
Came out of nowhere? Its just got different sheetmetal compared to the 2005 through 2009 Ford 500/Taurus, so its not that new of a car for Ford to bring out. The drivetrain has been out there for about 3 years, too. Comparatively, the 3.0L V6 in the 2010 Ford Fusion has had some semi-major engineering changes, so there is a lot new there. And its a 2010 model, theoretically, and its only Feb. 2009, so maybe a little patience? Still, the 2010 Fusion Hybrid is going to be sold in about a month, not that long to wait.
Fuel economy is measured under controlled conditions in a laboratory using a standardized test procedure specified by federal law. Manufacturers test their own vehicles—usually pre-production prototypes—and report the results to EPA. EPA reviews the results and confirms about 10-15 percent of them through their own tests
http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/how_tested.shtml
Are you serious??? It's got different EVERYTHING except the base drivetrain. Totally new interior and exterior AND a 365 hp SHO version. It's basically a new car (for once). It's closer to the MKS than the old Taurus.
Yes, I'm 99% sure. This page tells you that the mfr does not test every vehicle but the EPA does. The page you posted is therefore telling us that the mfr does submit what tests they do perform and the EPA still tests them too only verifying 10-15% of them which means they do not verify the other 85-90% of them and just posts their own results on their site and on the window stickers.
It doesn't say anywhere on their site why they do the verification. My guess is that they do it to police the mfrs testing methods and results.
For example, Ford's initial FE release on the Fusion Hybrid stated something like 38 or 39 MPG city. The EPA says 41 MPG city and that's what will be on the window stickers.
I could be misinterpreting this so any insight is welcome. :shades:
Not to mention the huge interior improvements. The Taurus interior is now darn near that of its sister the Lincoln MKS. Then there's the Taurus SHO which will use a more powerful version of the EB 3.5L TT that will go in other Ford and Lincoln vehicles.
I just saw both, Fusion Hybrid and Sport and Taurus Limited, in person at the Pittsburgh Auto Show yesterday and both were pretty impressive. The Taurus blew me away. Pictures don't do it justice. Unfortunately the Fusion Sport and Taurus Limited were on turntables so it was hard to get a great look at them. The FFH was on the floor, but locked, and it looked great inside and out. I'd buy either one but the Flex won my heart that night.
Young people were admiring the Taurus though and I heard many positive comments on it. Maybe Ford is on to something here?
If it's as bad as the Sonata, you might as well be playing a video game. Heck, I wonder if I could switch the steering wheel out for a force-feedback video game one, it would be an improvement over those things.
Hopefully it won't be too bad, or my search will have to continue.
Similarly on the autocross course, the Camry proved to be an understeering slug that was extremely reluctant to change direction. Turning the steering wheel was like using an old video game wheel with no force feedback. The effort was overly light and the angle seemed to have little relationship to where the car was going. One other steering problem the Camry exhibited was a tendency to run out of steering assist during the slalom where the sequence of left-right steering inputs demanded more than the power steering pump could supply. The electric power steering on the Fusion exhibited no such issues.