Steve R.

I took the plunge and had an after market HD radio installed in our Honda Odyssey. We live in a rural area. Frankly the HD radio sounds the same as our old radio. In more urban areas, it seems to sound better. The range of the HD radio is actually less then regular FM. When you are out of HD radio range, the radio automatically switches to FM. I guess the "big" benefit of having an HD radio is that it has a "line-in" and "USB" port. The USB port is really valuable, saves the CDs from getting destroyed/lost. In fact the CD is now obsolete!!!! The "line-in" lets you use any MP3 player. Of course if you have an iPOD, the USB port works with it. I really hate it when manufactures (Apple) do these dirty tricks to consumers. The radio should have been designed so that ALL MP3 players would work with the USB port. There is no excuse for this despicable behavior.

I would assume that the upgrade to HD radio is hardware (radio) dependent. What surprises me is the apparent lack of information concerning the availability of HD radio on Ford products. I would have hoped that some Ford representative monitoring (I hope they do), would have stepped in by now to answer the question.

Thanks for the updates. We have postponed our purchase till the 2011 model year, when the HD radio is supposed to be available. I did have an HD-Radio installed in our Honda Odyssey while we wait. Frankly the radio itself does not sound any better than the prior factory installed radio. Nevertheless it is great having a USB port and AUX-In. The songs off the USB, CD, and Aux-in sound great. It's nice not having to take any CDs on a trip.

Anyone know the current status of the availability of HD Radio on the Ford Fusion? Below is a link to a press release issued on Sept. 26, 2009. Ford Makes HD Digital Radio Available On Most Products Does this mean that the 2010 Fusions currently being delivered will have the HD Radio, but the existing inventory won't? Will the HD Radio option require a "special" package? Anyway, the local dealer here believes the HD radio is still unavailable.

It's a Samsung MP3 player. I have no idea what is on it, since it is my daughter's. But even if I did, at 1,000 or songs, it is difficult to know what is available and being able to navigate through your collection of songs would seem to be an obvious feature. So I am wondering whether the radio display face can or cannot do that. It won't affect my decision to spend $22,000+ on a car, but it would be nice to know when you spend that kind of money. Unfortunately the salespeople are technologically challenged. As another post discussed on HD radio, you get conflicting responses from Ford itself. So it would be good to hear from a real user. PS: We looked at the Accord and they did NOT have a USB connection for your MP3 player.

We are looking into buying a 2010 Fusion. Most likely the SEL version. We took our MP3 player to the dealership to see if it would work. It worked, but the salespeople were not really able to answer my questions concerning how to use an MP3 device. The Axillary input worked as expected. So no issue there. We connected the MP3 player via the USB interface. It "worked" through Sync, but the radio face did not show the playlist at all. I had assumed that the radio face would display your playlist and allow you to navigate around your MP3 device???? So how would we get to see MP3 folders on the radio face? (Basically, how can I operate the MP3 player without using Sync.) I see that there was a discussion concerning the Fusion radio having HD radio capability. Now that it is December, has this feature been added?

We are looking into buying a 2010 Ford Fusion. We will be faced with installing an amateur radio, the YAESU - FT-8800R Any advice/comments/pictures on the install?