Another glowing FFH review

[mirak]

From TheCarConnection.com, "2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid: Honest-To-Goodness 40-MPG Mid-Sizer". An excerpt:

 

Of note to families and occasional road-trippers is that the 2010 Fusion Hybrid is a much more substantial car than the Prius, with a supple, settled ride, a roomy back seat, and great roadholding at Interstate speeds. The steering is well weighted and isn't at all discouraging when the road turns curvy. ...

 

Ford has done an excellent job with refinement for this hybrid powertrain. If you have the sound system turned up even a bit and you aren't looking at the gauges, it's easy to miss exactly when the gasoline engine starts up and when you're cruising on electric power alone. In the 2010 Toyota Prius, the Camry Hybrid, and even the new 2010 Lexus HS 250h, the gasoline engine creates more of a physical disruption when it starts; and even when you accelerate the Fusion Hybrid quickly the engine is a little coarse but still well isolated.

 

The verdict, emphasizing powertrain here, is that most drivers are bound to see great mileage figures from the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid and it feels just as refined, smooth, and responsive as a non-hybrid sedan. The hybrid system might not be as easy to 'game' for those high-mpg numbers, but it's better optimized for the way people drive in the real world. Drive it like any car and you're likely to approach—if not exceed—40 mpg.

 

And Freep.com agrees that the FFH has a smoother motor/ICE transition than the Prius.

[rfruth]

here is another ! (Sport vs hybrid)

[junehhan]

Here is another glowing review that was just done on the Milan Hybrid(you don't see many of these!).

 

http://www.automobilemag.com/green/reviews...brid/index.html

[ZaneMerva]

Hi folks- just spent a week in the Fusion Hybrid myself and thought you may enjoy reading my take on it.

 

2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid – the best executed hybrid yet?

[kens]

I'm not an automotive journalist, but here's a cut & paste of what I had to say in

response to a Ford customer survey. (I know such surveys don't really have any

direct benefit for me as a consumer, but I felt sufficiently strongly about this

that I wanted to give my opinion...)

 

The top part is about sales experience, and my thoughts on the car itself are at the end.

 

==================================================

 

Here are some rambling comments about sales and about the FFH in general.

 

I very much appreciated the approach taken by our salesman, <salesman name>. He didn't pressure me, and was very honest about his opinions. I also appreciated the fact that he took me seriously from the moment I walked in the door. I probably didn't look like a serious customer, and in fact I probably didn't even look like someone who could afford to buy a new car, much less pay cash for one. At some other dealers (both Ford and Toyota) that I shopped at, the sales staff pretty much ignored me. But <salesman name> was immediately helpful, and remained so over time, so we chose to buy the car from <dealer name>.

 

Also, I appreciated the fact that <salesman name> didn't try very hard to sell me options that I didn't want. He mentioned them, but didn't press the issue once it became clear that all I wanted was a base model. I know that upselling the customer is an important sales strategy, but it also happens to be a strategy that I absolutely hate, and if a salesperson (either for cars or any other product) gets pushy I tend to leave immediately.

 

The sales manager (I can't remember his name) was generally quite helpful. The only downside was that he tried to sell us an extended service plan, and used as an argument the claim that it is very expensive to replace regenerative brakes on a FFH. This struck me as somewhat misleading, because regenerative brakes last an extremely long time compared to regular friction brakes (something he didn't mention in his sales pitch, but that I, as a former Prius owner, happen to know).

 

On the other hand, I greatly respected the fact that the sales manager didn't try to push any loans that we didn't need, and that once we said that we didn't want the service plan, etc, he didn't make repeated attempts to sell them to us (which would have annoyed me greatly...).

 

He also was very helpful in getting the service department to activate the daytime running lights on the car. So overall, our experience with him was quite positive.

 

In terms of the car itself, we are EXTREMELY happy. We bought it for the combination of (relatively) good MPG, safety, and quality of ride/handling. And it has fully lived up to our expectations.

 

To put this in context. This is the first new car that either my wife or I has ever purchased. And it's the first American car that anyone in either of our families has bought in approximately 20 years (in that period, our parents and siblings have bought an assortment of Toyotas, Hondas, Lexuses, and an Infiniti).

 

And we are proud of our puchase.

 

The only thing I hope for is that in the future Ford will make a wagon version. (and no, I don't count the Escape hybrid, because its MPG is too low to be competitive from the perspective of buyers who care about the environment). I know wagons are unpopular nowadays, so call it a crossover, or whatever label is required to get it to sell.

 

The reason this is important is that the one major drawback of the FFH is the limited cargo space -- a major issue for parents of a toddler, and anyone else who ever carries anything other than people in the car. We came very close to buying a Prius instead, due to the hatchback design. So I hope that in the future Ford will make a wagon or hatchback hybrid.