kram1984

It may also be possible that the dealer you took it to reset it to 40% for 4000 miles to get you to return early so they could be paid to change the oil again. (it has option of setting it based on 10%'s). Now if you had 6000 miles on your car, then it's more likely that the service station just did not reset the oil life indicator and was not trying to rob you. I just had an oil change done yesterday and they did reset it to 100%. However, they did put a "next" service sticker on the windshield at 15k miles though... I think that was more out of ignorance than wanting extra $$ by a twice as often as needed service interval, because when I came in he sounded surprised I hadn't had an oil change yet and was at 10000 miles. (FFH is every 10k miles for oil change/10k miles for every scheduled maintenance past the first 5k miles to just inspect things at)

I havent had that reprogram done yet.... but I had some repair work done ($4k from someone rearending me), and they reset my overall MPG etc... Im wondering if you might just have the display set to a different "mode", as they do not all show the regeneration icon. (The modes like enlighten/empower/engage/and theres another one I forgot the name of...)

Omg uhh... *hides in corner* wasn't thinking earlier of course it is just different cycle :doh:

Then how did you differentiate from diesel engines and internal combustion engines?

Yes the partial redesign has likely added several safety features and hopefully addressed many of the shortcomings of the previous design. As I said there real is no real world data for the 2010s (marketing "top safety picks" doesnt count), I specifically was commenting on the previous year model. Personally, I can see an incredible benefit from the BLIS -- I could see that cutting down tons of collisions.

The bi-directional remote start key fob beeps to show that the car received the command (it was in range), and then blinks green to show that the engine/car actually started.

I'm new to this as this is my first car, but does it affect the warranty if you don't have a dealer/service station do the recommended maintenances? Or does it affect also if/when you sell the car and the buyer sees you don't have records to show it was maintenanced as suggested?

I havent obtained/looked at the actual policy, I was going from the table shown at http://www.buy-ford-warranty.com/compare.aspx and assuming that they got that marketing material from Ford. They show that the Ford ESP "Covers wear & tear failures" (Maybe it's incorrect information though)

No I bought the car off the lot, it did not have a remote start installed. Paid for remote start up front on the bill of sale though but dealer had to order/install it. When it came in it took ~1week for them to install it they wouldnt tell me the problem when I called.. [rest is off-topic but responds to Davem's quote/reply about them not telling me which remote start it was when I called in while the car was in for the installation] found out afterwards one of the parts was bad and they had to wait for a new one to be sent. They also "forgot" to tell me to bring both key fobs, so I had to have someone make an extra trip ~30mi+ across town to deliver that. Anyways I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt for the miscommunication/poor communication and fill out the survey favorably as they had worked through it and I am still happy overall.... but I did get po'd about a week ago and havent decided how I will report the new problem. (This is all off topic though from the thread...), I went in for the 5k tire rotation and was approached and offered "a free tank of gas" if I brought in the survey unfilled to them instead of filling it out myself because they "knew there had initially been some problems" and "anything except a 5 each survey question is Failing". I'm going to have to find another dealer for any service related things now as now I am upset with them. I'll also have to find out where best to report their bribing/attempt to cheat the customer satisfaction survey to ford. It was insulting to be approached with the bribe, it insinuates that I would have such low moral standards as to accept it, as well as assuming I had no sense of value as a tank of gas was only around $30-$45 and the car was over $30000.

I've found it hard to find much info on the newer vehicles and the "star" rating doesnt say that much. One of the places I've looked (I'll look for some others later I don't remember where the others were) is the IIHS insurance losses statistics. The latest data it includes is for the 2006-2008 fusions. http://www.iihs.org/research/hldi/composit...-2008&cls=2 Medical payments are very high for those fusions at 1.34 X the "average". Compare to toyota camry hybrid at .82, or the Prius at .79 (lowest in midsize and lowest in small), or to pickups/suvs/minivans(incl crossovers like outback) which some show around 1/3 for not only medical payments but also for other loss categories. Of course, this data only shows up to 2006-2008 model years not the 2010 fusion "refresh" or the newer of the other vehicles as there arent statistics yet for the new ones. And of course there are other factors not shown there such as avg number of passengers carried per vehicle, which would be higher I'd suspect for fusion/cars than pickups for example (resulting in higher medical payments vs pickups), but probably not more passengers per car than per SUV. Anyways, point there is it shows much better for prius/camry than the 2006-2008 fusions in all loss categories, as well as compared to vehicles I was looking at such as the subaru outback. The europe NCAP crash test ratings are more "detailed" than the "star" ratings, but they only show 2003/2004 models, and of course most of the vehicles are different between US models and europe models. There's few vehicles with worse insurance ratings from the IIHS site I linked than the 2006-2008 Fusions.

Everything's a trade-off between convenience, safety, and money. I think I'd have other things to worry about in a "major accident", and it'd be unlikely the phone would be an issue. The fusion doesnt exactly fare that well in major accidents (from what data I've seen, at least from 2009's etc, compared to decent SUVs or even compared to prius), which was one of the few cons I found before buying the FFH. Really, if it was a rear-end or frontal collision, phone would only possibly try to go forward or backward, where no one's sitting, plus if it's in the cupholder it can't go forward or backward because it's recessed. Additionally, when the phone is plugged in it'd have to go "flying" with sufficient force to break the tether. Maybe if it was a side collision or a rollover (? it'd be very hard to roll a sedan though I would think), but even then the phone is somewhat lightweight. I'd be much more likely to stab the phone through a cup like the OP did -- just earlier this week got a weak cup from caf@work and i poked a hole in the bottom from the straw.

It seems like there are Not "multiple versions" when you order factory-installed. The multiple versions are only if you have it installed aftermarket from the dealer. (Anyone, correct me if I'm wrong here). Anyways, I got lucky as I did not know of the multiple versions when I bought my car. Dealer ordered the remote start, then I found out there were two versions when my car was in to have it installed. Dealer then refused to tell me which version they had (?) until I picked it up.

The ESP is supposed to cover wear and tear as well. And also I could see the nav or lcd dashboard having problems that would be Expensive to fix. (I don't know the backlight/make of the lcd on dashboard... hope it doesn't get "dim" as fast as some lcds, as I doubt they'd replace a dim but still working lcd). I also do not know if I will keep the car 7 years. If I sell it in 6 years, I think the ESP warranty will add value to the sale of the car (?), and you can't just purchase/add 1 year of the ESP at that time as far as I know.

Good point on the lower price. I'd checked both there and myfordwarranty before and for some they were higher, some were lower. I forgot to check that one again when I compared prices the other day. Hmm... on the "Buy Ford Warranty" site, it has a notice posted: *Just Announced* 10/15/2009 Ford announces pricing increase effective 11/01/2009 For example: Diesel EngineCare Plans to INCREASE by $400.00! Buy now at lower price! " I wonder if that's true....

I usually put my phone in that general area as well, in one of the cupholders. (AND I used to go to Sonic oO) The center console has grooves and I connect the USB cable inside the console, and the end that connects to the phone fed out through the grooves near the lid of the console. It's much easier/less wear and tear to not have to open up the console every time getting in or out of the vehicle. Maybe I should rethink placement of my phone.

I just got a quote through email from the myfordwarranty.com people: Hybrid Pricing 4 Year/60k(service every 10,000 miles)=$700 5 Year/75k(service every 10,000 miles)=$750 6 Year/100k(service every 10,000 miles)=$1000 hmm... still gonna go over numbers for an estimate later, but yeh that seems too high? I have 3-4k miles left until 10k so have to buy any warranty or maintenance by then. I think I'm going to go with either the 100 deductible 7/100k premium care ESP for 1200 or the $200 deductible 7/100k premium ESP for 1040.

I have one other suggestion that may or may not help that I didnt think to do before. You could also maybe (?) check with your local lincoln/mercury dealer for a quote since the milan is the same vehicle. Checking my local price with installation quote from mercuryaccessories.com, it shows a much lower price at my local mercury dealer of 424.06. (North Park Lincoln mercury, San antonio tx) It surprised me they show as so much cheaper, but maybe because they have the car prices inflated they want people to be happier with options/installation fees.

Maybe it just doesnt give labor quotes for every dealer. After clicking request quote from selected dealer on the popup list, the button changed to "Add to list" for me, and then where it showed the accessory details (just above it, no clicking), it has: Remote Start Bi-Directional 100 Series Part Number: 9G1Z-19G364-A Part w/ installation: $558.39 So, maybe it just doesnt have quotes for every dealer, sorry if that's the case. It showed me quotes for the 2 dealers I tried

If you go to the ford accessories site that I linked, and go to the remote start for the fusion, it will also show a quote showing parts+labor for the dealer to install it at a particular dealer, so you could also go compare the prices of your area dealers on that site first.

Wow, I think you've found a silver-lining (albeit small in comparison to the negatives of the high temperatures the rest of the year) of living in SA Texas, where we're lucky to get 1-2 weeks where we even reach 32 F during the whole year.

Yes my question was whether for the FFH if anyone knew if they've just made the components have a "decent" life with E10, or if it's an "equal" life to non-E10. (And also on fuel economy differences. If there's a 10% loss in fuel economy - Which I've found more than that reported commonly in other forums for cars such as the Prius on E10) essentially means all the ethanol has gone up in fumes with no benefit whatsoever and just extra weight to carry and/or causing more engine wear) I figured the higher octane wouldnt help but maybe the additives or fuel quality between midgrade and regular unleaded might be different as well (Other ford vehicles have posters saying that their cars "like" unleaded plus better, of course it could just all be in their heads) Guess I'll stick with shell unleaded for now... they just put up the stickers last week so unless they had ethanol in the gas already, I should be able to compare my commute easily, it's ~20m both ways with ~85% hybrid freeway driving, other 15% almost full EV mode and I get very consistent readings within the same tank of gas. Thanks all for the input.

I know I saw them there a few months ago but I've looked now and can't find them. Am I missing something? only option I see is select make/model/year then it goes through the options and offers only the car rental on top of esp. (I also still have to buy my warranty and maybe maintenances within the next 4000 miles)

jeffh, I'm in San Antonio, TX. My long-term mpg is around 36 and slowly creeping up. The 26 trips/bad tank of gas was not during cold were were at 95 to 105+ heat we had for a long time this summer, and I did have the air blasting and I do have remote start. It's the stupid Sirius TravelLink's fault... I wanted to test out the gas prices "feature", which seems pretty worthless except maybe on roadtrips and looks to have actual cost me $$$. I was attributing it to the heat first... but then I switched over to going to that one shell exclusively and saw an immediate improvement. Since then the sun seems to have gotten tired of blasting us with 100+ days and it's on a short vacation, and I've been getting a consistent 44/40 during communte for several tanks including around 40 on 2x~200 mile 70mph highway trips. The manual says anything with more than 10% ethanol will damage the engine so that got me concerned of the stations here all switching to ethanol mixes. I also do not know if the individual stations or companies mix the ethanol and therefore some may "accidentally" get wrong ethanol %'s. (I've heard they mix in some of the detergents/additives themselves and can get those wrong). rfruth, wish I'd kept a real detailed history I've mostly just looked at it each trip not written down. It hasnt lowered it I think I've seen at least 2-4 mpg better with the midgrade but that's just an estimate from memory. If it's 2 then it's not worth it but if I get 4, that's 10% and the cost is less than 10% more so it'd make sense then. I've never tried higher octane than the midgrade.

wstcoaster, Have they started adding ethanol at your shell, and have you tried multiple grades or just unleaded? what do you get in mpg for a roundtrip drive of > 10 miles? (I say roundtrip because it seems like that would balance out downhill/uphill/etc)

Ive got around 6000 miles on my FFH now. I started out not really paying much attention where i was getting fuel and always got unleaded. Mileage was fluctuating from around 35 avg from tank to 42 or so per tank. Then I got a tank that had some 26mpg trips in there (!) and around 30 for the tank.... So I went to strictly shell unleaded. I've been alternating sometimes shell unleaded, sometimes unleaded plus from the same shell station (havent kept exact records from every single tank), but from my commute ~20 miles to/from work I was always getting around 40/44 (40 there and then 44 the way back) The last tank or so from shell with unleaded has been 36/40 for the trips, and when I went to fill up this week they have a sticker now on the pump saying "Contains Ethanol". I havent tried premium unleaded yet as I'd heard higher octanes don't add power and only help if the engine is made for the higher octanes. What are other people's experiences? same mpg for unleaded/unleaded plus? Anyone "Tried" the higher octane unleaded premium? Best results with a certain company? E10 gasoline or ethanol containing labeled gasoline running your mpg 10% less? If E10 runs at 10% lower mpg, then it seems the E10 mixture is less than worthless... As if I could still get gas without the ethanol it'd only take 9/10 the amount (which is the same amount of gas Contained in the E10) to match the performance of the E10.