lordyourjosh

I just renewed my Sirius subscription. I received a letter in the mail today offering me one year for $77 (auto-renewing at the "current" rate after a year, so I'll be careful with that), but I felt that was a more reasonable price. The TravelLink/weather/traffic stuff was an additional $6/month, but I already expected that. After tax and fees, renewing both comes to $172 for a year, or $14.33/month. I find that to be an acceptable price for the services offered. They waived any re-activation fee. If you went radio only, it would come to just shy of $8/month after taxes and fees. To be honest, I did miss the sat radio a little bit. I listened to a lot of news/talk stations to keep up on current events. Also, after going back to standard radio, while I enjoy the better sound quality over the compressed SIRIUS signal when listening to music, I did miss the lack of commercials. Now I just have to make sure my car is on and the radio is in satellite mode at 12:45 so the re-activation signal kicks in.

Just as an extra data point - I have a 2010 Fusion Hybrid that I got in March. I have about 7000 miles on it, now. I definitely drive "harder" than most hybrid drivers (I think), and I frequently use a heavy foot on the accelerator. I've never seen any type of smoke coming out of my car, and no trouble lights so far. I don't usually see 40mpg with the way I drive, but I'm enjoying the car and still getting far better gas mileage than I did in my previous vehicle. Did you guys drive so gingerly at the beginning that the rings never seated, maybe? :poke: :D All kidding aside, I hope you get the issue sorted out.

I received the same letter from Sirius - $38.85 for 3 months. It didn't sound like a bad deal until I called and found out that is for the music only and doesn't include the Traffic/travel link things the car currently has (well, had, as Sirius was disabled at 11:45am this morning). Being that the letter said "act quickly to avoid disruption of your SIRIUS service" and mentions continuing the "introductory subscription", I think it's a bit of bait and switch. Adding the traffic/travel link is another $6/month on top of it, so actually it's about $19/month. All of the other deals they tried to offer me on the phone were just longer terms with "free months", but still more money for the other features. It's possible I might just be cheap, but I don't feel it's worth that much to me, especially when taxes and other fees are added in taking it to $20 or more. I would have gone with their "a la carte" plan which gives 50 channels (I only listen to about 12) plus the extra $6 for travel link (back to about $12 or $13/month) but, of course, the radio in the Fusion Hybrid "doesn't support a la carte". Nice. Maybe they will give me a better offer at some point, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I'm starting to get concerned. I was about to start a thread about "worst gas mileage". I've commuted to work and ONCE gotten 34mpg (mostly highway driving but some city) but all other times I'm right around 30, even on a 50 mile mostly highway drive. I don't really see much higher than that in a city drive, either. This morning I shut it down and it was a terrible 26mpg after my work commute!!! I still love the car, but clearly I'm not doing very well with mpg and even though it's cold, 26 seems like a problem. I keep hoping it will improve since I only have about 550 miles on it.

It doesn't take much. I've had two rental cars (Both were not Ford vehicles, and neither were "low end" rental cars) that ended up with cracked windows from stones. I've also had cracks from a small stone chip in my Ranger. In fact, one small hit led to a crack that spread, so I replaced the windshield, only to have it get another stone chip 6 days later (which I had repaired before it spread). :banghead: Moisture and temperature changes can also really contribute to them spreading. Maybe all of the manufacturers are using thinner glass or something. It's annoying and expensive, but I don't see it being a poor reflection on the quality of the car.

I priced out a 4-banger with equivalent options to my FFH, which means a FWD 2.5L SEL to get all of the power seat/dual zone climate control stuff. The price difference was about $3670. Before purchasing mine, I did come fuel calculations and decided I would break even around 3.5-4 years, without any thought to resale value.

I will agree with #3 - I test drove a FFH in very cold weather (ICE started up the second it was turned on) and I hit the heated seat button the second I got in. It heated up and there were no issues at all. I get my FFH in about two hours, so I'll make sure to test that feature on mine. Too bad I have to get it in the rain. :banghead:

I know - I was talking about how the FFH is LIKE a traditional car with an alternator as far as the electrical system goes. I guess I should have added a disclaimer after I made that statement. :doh:

Well, there was clearly a delay. They missed the delivery date by a week. It came into the lot in Detroit on the 4th, but they didn't get it the last hour and a half to the dealership until this afternoon (by covered carrier, I hear). FINALLY, I get to head over there tomorrow to take delivery of my FFH! :headspin: And I guess the wait was worth it in a way - all the snow is gone. :happy feet:

Everything is powered by the "traditional" charging system like on another car: battery, alternator, etc. Everything draws from the battery all of the time, though it's a bit more complex than that since, as you said you are constantly providing charge to the battery via the dc converter, when the system is running. Still, if the battery is somehow bad, it's going to cause problems in the system as it helps absorb momentary spikes in power draw that are much shorter than 6 seconds. Computers are especially picky about having consistent power.

I never shut the engine off in my Ranger, though it's a manual so I can just pop it into neutral pretty easily. Unfortunately I don't have my FFH yet sicne Ford missed the posted delivery date to the dealer (it's still sitting in Michigan somewhere). Had I gotten it Saturday I could have enjoyed 4 nice, sunny days. Assuming it shows up soon, I get to enjoy taking my first drive in the rain... so it's good to know about these carwash issues ahead of time. :waiting:

So the "right way" would be to leave the car running (though the ICE would probably shut down) while you go through? Have other people done it this way successfully? I just want to make sure - I usually do my own washing, but it's good to know in case I decide to run through a car wash.

I'm not sure why you think the Prius is so "friendly" that you don't need to explain it. I have a friend with a Prius and he had several problems with people having issues with it when taking it to a car wash where they drive it around and in for you. Of course they have seen enough now that they understand how it works, but a "good design" is pretty objective. Anyhow, I'll take a nice looking car with a key over a car that has a start button and looks like a shuttlecraft from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Is the door 09/09/09, or just 09/09? They may not put it down to the specific day on the door itself.

It's hard to see if they are thicker in this photo, but according to the Ford website (go to build a Fusion), they have the "Fusion" logo on them. In my experience, the "premium" mats tend to be thicker.

My FFH is slated to be delivered next week! :happy feet: It took about a month from the order being put in until assembly, and then 3 weeks for delivery. Not bad. It has been a terribly snowy month, so I'm actually fine with not getting the car. Hopefully the warm spell next week will melt things off. Either way, I'm hoping to pick it up a week from today if all goes well. I'm quite excited. :headspin:

Thanks for uploading the videos, and I'm still sorry you're having these problems. One thing I want to toss in - I wouldn't slam the engineers of the FFH too much. If there were problems endemic to the FFH, we would have a lot of people on this forum complaining, you would read bad reviews in the long-term test articles in magazines, etc. This is also likely why they don't have an instant fix for you. First off, I'm not an engineer (I'm a IT guy, though) but from their standpoint "the system works fine as designed". That is pretty accurate since problems are few and far between on these cars. Trust me on that, because internet forums have a way of magnifying problems (people are more prone to come online and complain all over the place if there is a problem, so one person's issue can look like 100). Now they have to try to figure out WHERE the problem is you're having and what is causing it. Bad wiring? A bad sensor? Bad circuitry? Did it happen in assembly or was it "bad" from the time the part was supplied to Ford? Is the hardware good but somehow the software loaded with an error? I'm certain they want the answer as bad as you do. I'm just curious if you've called the Ford Customer Service line listed in the warranty book. You could also tell the dealer you want to talk to the person in charge of service issues for your region. That might help you out, though I'd be careful with lines like "remember the Pinto" - I think you'll catch more flies with honey in this case. Good luck!

Have you had an opportunity to post the video you took of the incident dashboard incident?

I agree. It might save me from the people who like to back out of their driveways at high-speed and not check to see if there is a person walking their dog on the sidewalk. :banghead:

:hysterical: Right now my dealer has my Ranger (fixing a shifter rattle before I officially turn it in and it's out of my warranty), so I'm driving a car off his used lot - a 1999 Grand Marquis. Only $4500 and only 166000 miles. It still runs like a dream - I can provide the dealers number if anyone is interested! It even has an aftermarket Pioneer CD player installed!! Even reading the issues one member is having, I'm still anxious to get my FFH - should be here in a week, and hopefully no more than two, as it was built a week and a half ago...

I'm not sure if other states are different, but I know around here "lemon law" is not as easy to use as you might think. It generally requires the same failure 3 times, and it has to be a major issue. By saying that, I mean the radio issue wouldn't count (though they still need to fix it). I, of course, would count your dash issues as a major problem that make operating the vehicle unsafe. I agree with the other assessments that it's all likely linked to the same problem - bad ground, bad harness, bad computer chip, etc. Hopefully they can sort it out for you now that you have much more obvious problems.

I wonder if that part is considered part of the longer powertrain warranty. I would assume it is, which means it gets the longer warranty instead of the short 3 year/36000 mile bumper to bumper warranty. I'm not going to worry, myself - this is just one failure we've heard about. If it was a common issue, then I might get concerned.

They admitted that much to me. I wasn't too concerned. I'm friends with the salesman and he has sold me many cars (as well as many of my family members). Sometimes he's hard to get in touch with, but he always gives me a good deal and he's a great guy. As it is, I REALLY want the car but I also want some of the worst winter weather to clear. After the foot of snow we received the last two days (and driving through tons of unpacked snow yesterday) I'll sort of miss my Ranger, but not enough to keep it. Anyhow, it looks like they are running about a week ahead of schedule for Fusion assembly. Basically, it was less than a month from the verified purchase to getting the car assembled.

I ordered with my dealer in early January but then they called me and said it would get built faster if they had a purchase agreement from me, so we had that sorted out mid-month. They got me the VIN and build date in late January (build date was the week of Feb 15th), but I was happy to see my window sticker show up this morning, and it looks like it was assembled yesterday. Looks like I should have it by the end of this month or early March, which is perfect since I'm hoping much of the major snow will be done when I get it. This is for a sterling gray/charcoal black leather 502A + remote start and premium floormats. I may miss my Ranger a bit (and the 4x4 in snow), but I'm excited to have a more "luxury" ride, and get better than 17mpg. :)

I placed an order for mine about two weeks ago (sterling gray with black leather interior, 502A plus remote start). I had the VIN within a week, but I don't have a build or delivery date. Then again, I haven't asked the dealer. Although I'm anxious to get the car, I'm somewhat happy waiting until after the worst of the winter weather is past. In the meantime, my gas guzzling (but very snow-friendly) 4x4 Ranger is doing just fine. In a way I'll miss it, but it's time to move up to better efficiency and luxury, especially since I just don't need a truck anymore.