funny

I agree with all of the above but will mention another hybrid-unique factor causing a mileage penalty in colder weather...even after the car has had a chance to warm up, the engine temperature can drop significantly in city driving esp. when idling in EV mode with heater on. if the engine temp. drops low enough the ICE will kick in even at a dead stop. That said, I am surely still getting better mileage than if I were driving a non-hybrid. Even so I try to use the heated seat alone instead of the HVAC heater as much as possible in city driving.

Hello and welcome to the forum. The Fusion is a great car and if you do a significant amount of driving outside of work, then definitely consider the FFH. However, depending on the amount of traffic and stops during your commute, you may not see even the 30 mpg that you are hoping for. From a cold start (even in warm weather) I usually get a little over 20 mpg for the first few (city) miles then it gets much better. That said, BECAUSE you have such a short drive, it really doesn't matter much, cost-wise, whether you get 9 vs. 30 mpg ... the higher figure would amount to a savings of just 60 gallons of gas or less than $200 every year which is not enough to offset the several thousand $$ premium. Also, you mentioned taking the car on road trips. Although the FFH does very well for me on the highway (40 mpg or more is not uncommon), the trunk is pretty small and trapezoidal so be sure to take that into consideration. Based on the info you have provided, the 4-cylinder non-hybrid Fusion may be a better alternative. Good luck.

LOL slightly OT but this thread reminded me of my friend's girlfriend a few years ago who walked into a Honda dealership and paid MSRP for a Civic. Apparently she didn't even try to negotiate a better deal. :finger: My brain nearly exploded. When I bought my car, I got a very good deal (X-plan) and a fair trade-in value (at/near blue book). But it took some work on my part. The initial offers from multiple dealers were highly variable, and ranged from $800 to $2500 (blue book ~ $3K). After negotiating, I was able to get all of them up to $2500-3200. While I didn't accept the low-ball offers, the next customer who walked in may have, resulting in the dealer easily pocketing the extra $2K. In the end, I chose professionalism over the absolute best deal financially (the manager who offered me the best trade-in value decided to do so while eating a sandwich with his hands and never rising from his seated position).

I do not think this car is any more "loud" under moderate to hard acceleration than any other 4-cylinder I have driven. Even the LEXUS hybrid that I test drove sounded like a cat being tortured when I was merging onto the highway. To the folks who feel as though their car is making too much noise, have you considered taking another FFH on a test drive for comparison?

Sorry - misread your post which was referring to mileage, not time.

I have not measured this but would guess that my own ICE percentage (time-wise) would be lower, maybe around 50%? This includes a lot of time stopped at traffic lights in the city, which may not really apply to your rural location. Would be nice if the onboard computer calculated this number for us. I may keep time on one of my commutes just as an experiment, but haven't yet as I pretty much figured that I would pass the 10K mileage mark before or around the 200 hr ICE operation mark for an oil change.

In comparison to the more powerful 6-cylinder cars that I have driven for the previous 10 years, I would not describe the FFH engine sound as pleasant. That said, the sound note it emits is what I have heard in the past from 4-cylinders subjected to hard acceleration. On the plus side it actually encourages me to drive more sedately and optimize fuel efficiency!

I would agree with your statement that from a purely financial standpoint, many drivers would be better off with a non-hybrid 4-cylinder, e.g. those with a very short commute or primarily highway driving pattern. However some can truly benefit from the hybrid. After factoring the $850 tax credit and the fact that sales tax in DC is waived for 40+ city mpg, the overall initial cost of the FFH was only two or three thousand $$ premium over a similarly equipped 4-cylinder Fusion with X-plan pricing. I drive quite a bit for work (> 15K miles annually, mix of city/hwy) and my overall mpg has tended to hover around the "city" EPA rating when driving non-hybrid cars. So I figure I would be getting only 23 with a 4-cyl Fusion vs. the 36 mpg which I am realizing with the FFH. At current gas prices, this represents a break-even point (for me) of 3-4 years, and I plan to keep the car at least twice that long.

I notice the exact same event every few days or so with the bar graph display.

ethereal, Can you give us a general idea of the distance of your individual trips throughout the day and how long the car is off between trips? I also have multiple commutes ... Every day I travel to anywhere from 2 to 6 workplaces and each trip can be all city, all hwy or mixed. The majority of my trips yield low 30s to low 40s mpg, with the very worst ~ 20 mpg and my best over 49 mpg. My combined long-term average is around 36 mpg @ 2700 miles. The worst numbers I get are with rush hour stop-and-go driving and short distances of only a few miles. Btw I recently dropped the leaves display in favor of the 60 min histogram which I find to be much more informative albeit much less pretty. In the pic I have attached as one example (cold start, 12 mile trip over 30-35 minutes, city->highway->suburb), you can see I am getting relatively poor mileage for the first 10 minutes or so, then it gets much better.

I have had my car for about 5 weeks now and have experienced a similar jerking phenomenon about 2-3 times. It is a bit unpleasant and different than the minimal sensation of the ICE transition. My initial thought was "transmission slippage" but was not too worried as the car is new.

They reduce the chance of getting hit by another vehicle or impaling a bicyclist when parallel-parked on a narrow street. Less of a concern in non-urban areas.

Ouch! Looks like only your bumper is damaged, hopefully will be fixed soon. And it's nice that you are able to maintain a sense of humor about this ... I would literally be crying (my car is one week old today). Good luck.