Looks great! Congratulations and thanks for sharing.

Congratulations on the new car! I really wish I had been able to get the heated steering wheel in my MKZ. It's pretty much the only thing the car is missing that I wanted, but it wasn't worth having to pay over $3000 and getting a bunch of other equipment I didn't want with it.

That looks a lot better than I thought. It looks like just the seats and inserts are light, so it doesn't change the feel of the cabin as much as the dune interior does.

Talk about bad luck. I've only had my car two days, and I already got rear-ended waiting to pull out of a parking lot today. Thankfully it doesn't look that bad, but there's no doubt the back got pushed in slightly and I'm sure the bill will come out to a couple thousand dollars. If not for the fact that the car is brand new I'd probably live with it, but for now it has ruined all the excitement I had for it and getting it fixed is the only way to start anew.

I took delivery of my MKZ Hybrid yesterday. The color looks really nice, and I've already received complements on it.

There had to be some major technical hurdle to cross in order to offer efficient hybrid crossovers. I've always driven crossovers and SUVs prior to now, and I never would have bought a sedan if I could have bought a crossover that gets better than 30 MPG city for under $45,000.

I requested a Fusion Hybrid brochure and got the $750 on the first attempt. I had no problems getting it accepted for my MKZ Hybrid, and it knocked my monthly payment down by about $25 under what they had originally quoted.

I reserved a Sunset MKZ Hybrid today and am picking it up on Thursday. I had gone back and forth between it and Dark Side, but ultimately decided to buy what the dealer had on the lot. It really looked nice under the lights of the showroom as it should in bright sunlight, and in flat light it's still holds a nice deep red rather than being mistaken for black.

Medium Soft Ceramic is an all-new color, which is why it's impossible to know exactly what it looks like until vehicles start to get delivered with it. The swatches Ford is putting out makes it look considerably lighter than Medium Light Stone.

I have attempted to take a picture of the brochure swatches. Based on this, I'd say that link has Dune and Medium Soft Ceramic backwards.

I stopped by my Ford dealer today to discuss my potential order and take a closer look at the Fusion since it's been a few months since I drove one. They do have print brochures with a better color sample than what was shown online. I held the brochure up to the headliner in a charcoal Titanium and it looked like Medium Soft Ceramic was a pretty close match. It certainly looks more like a creamy gray than tan. It will be nice to see how it looks on a real car, although after today it's looking more like I'll be going MKZ.

I finally found an official Ford document that gives a color reference for Medium Soft Ceramic. It looks to be slightly lighter than Dune, still leaning more towards the warm tans rather than cool grays. If I had to base my decision solely on this swatch, I'd stick with Charcoal Black. http://www.fleetbusiness.com/fleet_guides/2014/ford2014fleetguide.pdf (see page 24)

Ford specifically called soft ceramic light gray, so I'm confident the tan swatch that those sites posted is wrong. If Ford would ever post the brochure for the 2014 Fusion we would know. The dealerships are supposed to have print brochures now - it might be worth stopping in and asking for one.

I'm sure they'll get it updated in the next week or two. In the past it was reliably updated on the job start date, but lately it's been trailing it slightly. Right now you can't even see soft ceramic on dealer orders - they show as black until you click through to the sticker. I'm sure you are anxious to see what the soft ceramic interior looks like, as am I. I decided to wait until the end of December to order so there's no surprises.

There's no way to say with 100% confidence that there haven't been any FFH fires. Statistically speaking, there's sure to have been at least some. They just are unlikely to capture the attention that Tesla fires do because the Tesla is a much higher profile car. It's high-profile new technology that draws increased attention, with plenty of opponents out there from oil companies to dealer associations. Many want to see Tesla fail whether they want to admit it or not. The fact is in all the fires that have occurred thus far, the car has provided enough protection for the occupant so they could safely exit the vehicle. Sure it's no fun to watch your $100k car burn up, but this is an insurance claim not a safety hazard. It's already been proven that the Model S is the safest car in crash tests. Perhaps if this continues to be an issue they can further reinforce the battery pack, but there's nothing that would keep me from buying a Model S if I could comfortably afford it.

I've only seen photos of prototypes with the cover. They obviously removed it for the production Fusion. It may end up going on the production Mondeo though, since that car is designed to be a bit more upscale to account for Lincolns not being sold in Europe.

Nice pictures Steve. I never realized how different they were aside from the chrome trim on the MKZ. I really like the diffused look of the light on the MKZ versus the Fusion.

Ford is doing the same thing with the MKZ. You can get a heated steering wheel on the Fusion starting at the SE Luxury level, but you have to go to the top-tier Preferred package in order to get it on the MKZ. What is an under $200 option on the Fusion winds up being a $3000 option in order to upgrade from the otherwise well-equipped Reserve trim level on the MKZ.

The SD card version is tied to the MyFord Touch version. To install the A4 SD card, your car needs to be running MFT version 3.5 or later, and any older versions of card will no longer work. Are they updating your whole system or just trying to install the new card? I would think they'd know better.

It largely depends on how much allocation your dealer has and how many orders are ahead of yours. Orders are scheduled every Thursday, so if you check with your dealer Thursday afternoon or Friday they should be able to tell you if there is a VIN yet or not. If not, don't even bother checking for another week.

You shouldn't have to use LO and HI. The car isn't going to heat up or cool off any faster than it would otherwise. Pick a comfortable temperature and let the climate control system work the way it was designed. You might want to adjust it up or down a couple degrees, but remember you are setting the ultimate temperature it will heat or cool to, and it's going to get there as fast as the system allows whatever the setting may be.

Job 2 is being scheduled now, so that won't add in any additional delay. Fleet ordering time may be 4-5 months, but that's not always indicitave of how long normal dealer orders take. It all depends on how much allocation a dealer has. If they have plenty of allocation, a customer's order can be prioritized at the front of the line and scheduled the very next week, built a month later, and delivered a couple weeks after that. I'd be interested to hear reports of actual timing from people who have ordered recently.