acdii

I've got one better, a 30Gb USB drive, there is a second USB port behind the console. Load the HD up like you would an Ipod, with media folders, plug it in there and hide it under the console. I have a couple old laptop drives to choose from that work great. 30Gb beat 10 Gb any day.

But, but it doesn't record CD's to the hard drive!! :lol: :drop:

Just a note on his, beware that in cold weather, it can sap battery strength, and one morning you may go out and find the motor wont run up. Unlike a conventional car, the 12V battery is not the one that starts the engine, it's the traction battery. Been there, done that, wasn't pretty. I drove home and wore down the pack to 2 bars, and it got below 0 that night, the next morning, the pack was dead, had to have it towed 60 some miles to the nearest dealership that had a hybrid battery charger, and cost me several hundred dollars to get it running again. Don't go below a 50% charge when its going to be sitting out in the cold, or it may not start.

You could do it, but you would be better off trading in the car for one with it already installed as it would be far cheaper. You would need a new dash harness, dash panels, nav unit, computer, etc. to tie the unit into the car since not only does it do navigation, but it ties all the systems in the car together. It replaces the climate controls, the radio, the satellite radio, Sync, and ties into the cars PCM for the engine and traction motors display. You could easily spend $4000 or more to install it yourself, even more to have someone do it. If you really want NAV, then I suggest finding a buyer for your car first, then buying one with it already installed.

Not true, there are a lot of Gen I's around by me, I see them all the time. What's funny is before I bought a Prius, I never saw one, then once I had one, I saw them all over the place. The Gen one doesn't look anything like the Gen II, it looks like a bloated Corolla, it isn't until you see the name tag on the back that you realize its a Prius. As far as battery cost, think of it the same as you would a transmission. How much is a transmission repair these days? 4-5K on most cars now, they use to be only about $800 to $2000 to replace, but now with all the electronics in them, they are far more expensive to replace. The Hybrid doesn't really have a transmission, its more like a series of electric motors tied together with a planetary gear set, failure rates on them so far have been very low. As long as they are maintained properly they will last the life of the car. When you consider how long electric motors last in other things, like your furnace at home for example, you get a good 10 to 15 years out of it. The Traction batteries are computer controlled to prevent overcharging and undercharging, both of which kill batteries. With the proper cycling they get, they last a very long time, and as long as they remain clean, and cool, they should last the life of the car too. When you consider the number of Hybrids sold so far, going all the way back to at least 2002 with the first Prius model, there are a lot of battery packs out there, and had replacement been a big issue, we would have heard about it by now, you hear the occasional horror story from someone whose car ate 2 battery packs, but those are very rare.

You don't need to MOD the engine in any way, but there are tricks you can do to improve efficiency, the first would be to block off the radiator in cold weather, this keeps the temp up in the engine compartment, so the engine runs less. As someone mentioned before, tire pressure makes a big difference, but too much and you could lose traction. Keep the fronts 2 PSI higher than the rear, and I found 40 and 42 are good numbers on 16" tires, not sure what they are on the Ford, I had a Camry. Another trick, not really a mod though is to get a Scan Gauge II, this will read out 4 engine settings, and can be changed to show different readings, and using one of those you can determine how best to drive the car. A lot of Toyota Prius owners use this setup to get far above EPA ratings on their cars. The difference between the Scan Gauge and the dash on the car itself is the Scan Gauge is real time, with very accurate readings, the dash is not true real time, close, but not exact, it can vary by as much as 10%, which can relate into as much as 3 MPG. Of course if you need to take the car in for any service, remove the radiator block, and the scan gauge, even though it is not a programmer, they may consider it as one, and void the warranty.

I used to have a Camry Hybrid, and had a Prius before that, but couldnt swing the FFH, so I got the Sport to replace the POS Camry, but, here is my experience driving hybrids, it doesn't matter who built it, the Ford and Toyota systems drive the same. On the highway the Camry got 43 MPG, my overall lifetime mileage over 34,000 miles and 16 months driving it was 35 MPG, summer average was 38+, winter 33. The Prius with 24K miles and 10 months, 53 summer 44 winter, 65 MPG highway. If I were to have the Fusion Hybrid, I can bet the numbers would be closer to the 44 MPG mark. Cold weather saps power from the batteries, not sure if the Ford uses engine coolant for heat, but the Toyota uses electric for the heaters, which puts a faster drain on the batteries in cold weather, and the ICE rarely shuts down when it was below 30* unless I shut the heater off. It also has to run longer to get the converters up to temperature for emissions, so idling before driving does help a little bit, but isn't really necessary, the converters heat up faster under acceleration. When driving imagine an egg under your foot, and press down as if you don't want to break it once you are up to speed, accelerating to speed is the biggest waste of fuel, and on the Camry I basically gave it about 1/3rd throttle until I reached speed then feathered the pedal to keep it there, and that seemed to gain me the most MPG at anything above 40 MPH. In city traffic, you want to use EV as much as possible, and learning where it kicks in is the trickiest part and can take several hours of driving before you find the sweet spot. You also want to maximize regen as much as possible to keep the charge up on the traction batteries, usually by going at least 5 over the limit and coasting down to just under, and with practice you can do this all on EV. I usually got about 6 to 8 miles in city traffic on EV alone this way. Also one thing that I discovered, mileage goes up after you hit 10,000 miles, I gained about 2 MPG after the clock hit 10k. Use Mobil 1 synthetic for your oil too. I also have a Hyundai Veracruz, and saw a 1 MPG gain using Mobil 1. One other trick is to block off the radiator in cold weather, it helps hold in the heat so the ICE runs less.