williape1

I have a FFH as a company car and a 2012 BMW 750Li as a personal car. I drive them pretty interchangeably and actually drove them back to back earlier today. Let me start with how much I love the Ford. I really think that the FFH is the best car in its class and miles above the Fords of yesterday. It has a distinctly modern and even European feel. Little things like the digital door locks (VW group has been doing this for years), electronic turn signal (depending on the FFH year), and general design are all very European. I love driving the Ford, I'm constantly reminded of how thoroughly modern the car is. The hybrid drivetrain is awesome, I'm sure the Energi is even more enjoyable. That being said. . . I drove my 7 for about six hours earlier today and then got into the Ford for an hour immediately afterwards. These are two VERY different cars. While the Ford is a nice car, it's not a luxury car by my definition. Admittedly it costs a quarter of what the BMW does, I just want to call out the differences for the purposes of the initial request. For example, every surface in the BMW is of the highest quality, even hidden components are top notch. Every piece of the driving experience feels very high quality. The Ford has some very cheap looking plastic on the dash front and center. They've spent the money in the right places, most items are soft touch or at least look nice but ultimately there's a ton of cheap plastic. They've tried to hide this by making it high gloss and attractive but I don't expect it to age well. The infotainment system in the BMW is top notch. Any reviewer these days will tell you that iDrive (most recent QNX version) is the best system out there. They had App integration way before the rest. It's reliable, easy to use, and extremely powerful. MyFord Touch by comparison is generally regarded as the worst infotainment system in the business. While it has the capacity to be fairly powerful, the hardware is very outdated, and the software is buggy. I can't imagine that this generation of MFT will stick around for too much longer. The suspension in the Ford is nice but seems to struggle with the weight of the hybrid components, I notice that it can bounce a bit around corners if you're not careful. This is something that I constantly have to keep in mind. The BMW at nearly 5k lbs seems to defy physics whereas the Ford seems to easily overcome its limits. It's a very different driving experience. When the weather is bad, I always drive the BMW as it's incredibly predictive. Ultimately they're just two very different animals. The Ford at the end of the day seems like a mainstream family sedan. The BMW is a good deal more upscale and much sportier (even in the least sporty guise). I really love my FFH and wouldn't trade it for anything however I think that's because I still get to drive the 7 when I want to. If faced with getting rid of it, I wouldn't go with the Ford. There are plenty of compromises between the two in terms of cost and driving experience. I think I'd lease a 328i or perhaps even a Volvo. Folks on the forum are easily getting mid 30s to low 40s mpg in the right conditions in the 328, similar to what many get from the FFH (non energi). It's much cheaper than a 5 but is luxurious enough while being fun to drive. There's also the Lincoln, although I'm not a fan you might like it. . .

Yea, I haven't taken it back to the dealer yet as I'm certain that they're going to chalk it up to an incompatibility with my phone/music. As any IT guy will tell you, this thing is absolutely designed terribly if a malformed file name can cause the entire system to crash. It should be able to ignore the issue or at least isolate the device. I have an appointment anyways to see what they say, I'm just not very hopeful.

So after waiting for month my 2014 Fusion Hybrid SE finally arrived. It's Sterling Grey with 502a (Luxury), Technology with MFT, 18in Luxury Wheels, Reverse Sensing System, and Sunroof. I messed up a bit when ordering this car by underestimating the price. I should have ordered a Titanium, it would have been within a few hundred dollars according to my fleet manager. Oh well. . . I was in a 2013 FFH rental for three months while I waited for my car to arrive. The rental was similarly equipped and I picked it up with only 2k miles on it. When I returned it, I'd driven it over 10,000 miles. So far I've noticed a lot of differences between the two cars and model years, some good and some bad. I'll list the differences below. -One item that really annoys me that's different is the turn signal stalk. The stalk in the 2013 was similar to the one in my BMW that's fully electronic. When you press it, it has an indent to let you know that it's engaged but it returns back to the normal position. The signal then electronically tracks the angle of the steering wheel to determine when to disengage. My 2014 has a traditional stalk that clicks into place when pushed down and then is mechanically released when the wheel turns past a certain point. As trivial as this seems it really makes a big difference both in feel and practicality. The electronic version almost always disengages at the perfect point, the mechanical one often turns off too soon or not at all. The electronic version also feels thoroughly modern and upscale. -Touch sensitive light controls. I know that this is discussed on this board some but I really hate that they did away with the touch sensitive controls. I think I hate it more that they replaced them with such ugly buttons. They could have at least done a better job with the design of the new buttons. -Sound system. I don't know if this is because the 2014 has MFT and the 2013 didn't but the sound is noticeably better. It's still not great but at least it's bearable. The 2013 was absolutely atrocious, it sounded really cheap and hollow. The bluetooth microphone also seems to be much better. The 2013 had so much road noise that I couldn't use the handsfree system at all, in the 2014 it's still noticeable but at least usable. -The tires on the 18in luxury wheels are much better than the Michelins on the 17in wheels in my opinion. Not only are the tires much quitter, they also ride better. The ride has a much more refined and slightly softer (not really the right word, perhaps smooth?) feel. -Fuel economy in the 2014 hasn't been great but I've only had it for four days and driven it for 800 miles. I'm getting about 36mpg now, I was getting about 46mpg in the 2013. I expect a slight dip because of the wheels but I'm hoping that this gets better. -The dash in the 2014 is slightly different. On the 2013 there was a line of foam at the base of the windshield, unfortunately once you saw it, you couldn't stop seeing it. This is fixed in the 2014 as the dash hides the foam. -MFT- MFT is absolutely the worst consumer electronics product that I've ever used. I read many of the complaints online but assumed that people just weren't tech savvy. I really liked a lot of what MFT had to offer so I made sure to order it. While I still prefer it to the base head unit, primarily just because of the way it looks, it's absolutely awful. With 2 miles on the odometer MFT began crashing every 5 minutes, without warning it would just reboot. It continued to do this until I pulled over and did a master reset, that dropped the crashes back to every 20 minutes. I found that unplugging my iPhone from the USB cable would allow it to go even longer between crashes, hours even. The odd thing is that I use the same phone and cable in many rental cars with MFT and MLT, I've never had an issue. MFT crashes when giving directions, when connecting to Sync services. Finally I pulled the fuses and did a master reset. This seems to have stabilized it for now although it does still occasionally reset when using bluetooth or Sync Services. Even when it's working the design is awful, small buttons on a touch screen in a car?!?! It's also quite slow. Chrysler has a really great infotainment system with Uconnect, it's blazing fast, the buttons are big, and it's stable as hell. Ford should have cut their losses with MSFT and abandoned MFT. Comparison to the Lincoln I actually had the fortune of renting a MKZ Hybrid in California recently for a week. I was really excited about it as I really wanted to see the "luxury" version of the Fusion. I was quite disappointed. The main gripe that I have is that despite being a brand new car with only 300 miles on the odometer when I picked it up, the car felt old and cheap. It's odd. I think the FFH is one of the most modern and well built sedans in its class. It has a very European feel to it, the Lincoln felt like an American car from the 90s in some places. The Lincoln had some nice features, primarily the headlights, dash design, and rear end but the finish was below that of the Ford in many places. For example, the steering wheel. I think the Lincoln version is hideous compared to the Ford's but to each his own. However, the steering wheel controls on the lincoln were tiny and cheap feeling. I think it's just a product of making the buttons smaller but it still made a huge impact. The car also had a lot more wind noise than the FFH. Not sure if the CD isn't as low on the Lincoln as on the FFH but it was very disappointing. The only thing I loved on the Lincoln was the sound system. It was much better than the base Ford system (obviously) and even comparable to a much more expensive system in my other car. That being said I would never ever buy the Lincoln over the Ford.

My car is apparently at the dealer (who knows for how long as they didn't notify me, I found out from the web chat at Ford.com). Taking delivery later this week after I get back into town from the holiday.

Haha, I went the opposite direction although now I'm really regretting it. I messed up with the math somewhere and the SE ended up being roughly the same price as a Titanium. I really wanted the SE luxury seats though as I'm in a Ford Fusion Hybrid SE rental now (I've put 10k miles on it since I've had it) and the seats are really comfortable. I drive two 6-8 hour trips a week and I'm always comfortable.

It's really terrible in my opinion, although my other car has a really fantastic Harman/Lexicon sound system so that might be part of why I'm so unhappy. I think many people will classify it as decent as it does reproduce a fair amount of bass but it's very muddy and quickly falls off, it really struggles with the mids and highs. It's definitely better than a stock sound system on a car 5/10 years ago but I'm in a rental car at least a few times a month and most manufacturers are doing a better job than Ford in the Fusion on this one. Even the base sound system in the Taurus is much better.

It seems highly unlikely that this would be the case. I'm not sure that most people understand how this technology works, especially in the case of the Fusion. Unless you're modifying the sound to create bass, especially in the range of sound that's normally emitted from the engine upon startup, there should be little to no impact. The only reports that I've seen of issues is when a subwoofer is installed and even then only in certain cases. Keep in mind that this system is only working to cancel a very narrow band of noise, it's not as sophisticated as many noise cancellation systems that are required to cancel a wide range of multiple evolving frequencies. I appreciate the legal advice but I'm quite familiar with my agreement with my company. I'm well within my rights to do this, especially given that they'd be genuine FoMoCo parts. I'm more concerned with compatibility. I'll just order the speakers, they're only $20-$100 depending on the location. Anything has to be an improvement.

Has anyone tried this? The speakers from the Lincoln or Titanium aren't terribly expensive, any idea if they use the same connectors? I know that I won't get the same sound as the amp isn't there but I really am only looking for a slight improvement. I'm mostly ok with the bass in the car (despite its muddiness) but the midrange and highs are just terrible, really any improvement would be great. I'm hesitant to do aftermarket as this is a company car and I'd like to keep everything as factory as possible just in case.

My car is on the train! Unfortunately I couldn't get them to provide the train number so that I can track it but at least I know that it's on the way. Estimated delivery of 11/29.

That's not bad at all. I'll give it a few days and ping the Ford team to see if they can provide a rail car number. Thanks everyone!

Mine too, can't wait for it to get on a train. I imagine being in NYC that a train bound for the northeast should be relatively quick to fill and leave soon (hopefully). How long does it typically take? A few days?

My car was also a fleet order for my company as a company car. I was told that fleet orders work entirely separately from normal dealer orders. Primarily that they work on their own priority system. This is because most fleet orders are actually submitted in a way to be timed with a replacement lifecycle. I was told that many fleet orders are held until the end of the year for a spring delivery as this is when the normal Fleet lease cycle starts. My car was ordered on September 4th, it was finally built today and should be here before the end of the month. That's about three months start to finish. Ford has since increased the lead time on Fusion Hybrids to 14-16 weeks for fleet orders, it was 9-12 when I ordered. I would expect that March may actually be a realistic if the order was just placed although likely late January/February is more likely.

Yea, my car is scheduled for production this week. Hopefully it'll be here before the end of the month. I'll believe it when I see it. It's looking good though given that they're listed on the order guide and that the Ford team is confirming.

Me too! Can't wait!

So according to the Twitter team, these are the tail lamps from the Titanium. They're included on an SE Hybrid (only the Hybrid) with 502a.

I ordered my car September 3rd. Manufacturer acknowledged on the 9th. I still don't have a VIN. Things certainly seem to be moving very slowly.

Ordered my 2014 SE Hybrid on 9/4, acknowledged on 9/9. Still waiting on VIN but hopefully I'll get it in the next week or so.

Ordered my 2014 SE Hybrid on 9/4, acknowledged on 9/9. Still waiting on VIN but hopefully I'll get it in the next week or so.

Perhaps but I believe that I've seen rear lamps in the non-lux FFHs that I've test driven. To add to the confusion, these "LED Rear Combination Lamps Ford High (Full Circle)" are only included in the luxury package on the SE Hybrid. On the SE non-hybrid model they're not listed as an additional feature. There's probably only one person in the world that knows what these are, the guy that wrote the order guide. I'll try to remember to update this thread if I hear back from Ford or when I get my car. Thanks everyone!

Yea, I hope so too. It's more curiosity at this point as the car is ordered and I'll find out soon enough.

I looked at the 2013 Order guide and these aren't a part of the 502a Luxury Package according to the order guide for 2013. They are specifically called in out in the 2014 order guide along with a few other new features such as a 4 way power passenger (instead of 2 way in 2013) and chrome surround around windows. Not sure if these were just omitted from the 2013 order guide or if they really are something different.

Ordering a 2014 FFH SE and noticed on my invoice that it calls out a feature of 502a (Luxury Package) as "LED Rear Combination Lamps Ford High (Full Circle)". Do the 2014 SEs with Luxury get the tail lights of the Titanium model or is this something else? I appreciate any info!

I wish the price difference wasn't quite so great between the two. Given that you can equip an SE with many of the features at a lower price it doesn't seem like the Titanium is a good deal. It's not a bad deal, the numbers roughly work out but it's not like you're getting a fantastic package discount. My company allows us to order the Fusion Hybrid as a company car but they only pay for a SE with Tech package. That's a great car but I'd like the Titanium, unfortunately that would mean paying the full price difference upfront out of pocket. I'll probably end up equipping an SE with Luxury, tech, and a sunroof and calling it a day.