Bought a 2013 Fusion Hybrid Titanium yesterday

[revelated]

Greetings all, new to the forum. I'll be asking questions for sure.

 

Background Facts:

• I am jumping ship from Nissan after 4 excellent years. Only ever had one major issue which was a brake master cylinder leak on my 2009 model. My car triggered the nationwide recall that ensued.
  • Funny story, this: I brought it in due to the brake light coming on too frequently. The mechanic saw the leak and let me know it was covered under warranty but they didn't have any in stock so they put me in a garbage Versa. Ordered the part from the factory, installed it, test drove it and it immediately failed spilling brake fluid all over the underhood. They got it fixed but yeah.
    • If Nissan had not discontinued the Altima Hybrid, I would have bought it. In a hot minute.
• The last new Ford I bought was a 1998 Ford Mustang.
  • Sad story, this: It was my first brand new car, I was basically swindled into it even though I had no business getting it. Was only $19k back then fully loaded but it was a waste for some kid working customer service. Brakes failed after 3 months, head unit blew after two weeks. Blew fuses, lamps, etc. Just a bad experience.
• The last used Ford I bought was a 1996 Ford Probe - at the time one of my dream cars - and my first manual transmission.
  • Nothing ever wrong with the car, did my own maintenance. But I should never have financed it. Especially considering I had no job or any other means to pay for it at the time.

 

New Facts:

• I wanted a Ginger Ale Fusion, the lot that had that color was incompetent with decades-old technology and a clueless sales rep. I thought that was just all Ford, until...
• I found a black one (not a fan of the color anymore since I hit my 30's for some reason) at another lot that was WAY more evolved.
• Great process for the most part except for a few stumbles that were self-inflicted.
• Not sure if it's just this lot or what it was but there was a LOT of reassurance and reiteration about making sure I test drove it, making sure I was satisfied, pressure low, etc. I asked and they said they got a lot of complainers who don't understand the tech. Since I work in IT, I'm sure I'll figure it all out.
• Now that I have the car it looks somewhat smallish. Maybe same size as my Altima. NOT a bad thing, but an observation.
• Suspension feels overall tighter than the Altima by a wide margin. It doesn't feel like the suspension system is "separating" from the tire, if that makes sense, and it doesn't bottom out over certain speed bumps.

 

What I Like So Far:

• The deal was low pressure and no haggle. They tried to give me the warranty at what I felt was an inflated price but considering I was getting the car at a lower price due to an advertising botch, I didn't blame them for the attempt (I declined it since the car comes with a pretty good warranty as it is, plus I can buy wholesale if I change my mind). They didn't pressure me on declining the warranty at all. I pretty much showed up around 5pm and was out of there by 7:45. They even left me alone with the car for extended periods of time. Totally unexpected experience and I have never been treated that way at a dealership. It was a positive.
• The car rides mostly smooth. The streets in Western Washington are screwed up but it handles most of these imperfections better than the Altima.
• Cabin noise is at a comfortable minimum. All I hear is the tires hitting the road unless I'm applying gas to pass or beat an incline. In full electric mode at low speeds it's like you don't even know the car is on. This was a huge selling point for me as I hate noisy cabins especially if the car comes with bluetooth phone.
• The included warranty is just not bad at all. 3yrs bumper to bumper, 5 years powertrain, battery warranty for a long time except normal wear and tear and a separate tire warranty PLUS 5 years Roadside. Not bad.
• Adaptive cruise control is a wonderful though somewhat slow responding feature. I still rode the brake because people can't drive out here, but I only had to take control the one time. Every other time it was on point. Monday will be a true test of this when the traffic gets stupid.
• The seats cup you nicely, and have a good amount of plush to them. The quality is superior to that of the Altima, more comparable to the Maxima, but of course the Maxi is over $40k where this is right around $32-$35k depending on amenities. Even if you tricked out the Titanium Hybrid you'd still come out way cheaper than the entry level Maxi, which is ridiculous. Yes, I know the Maxi is 6 cylinder. I still think car prices are way too high.
• Projectors AND fog lights - both of which were missing on the high end Altima 2.5 SL.
• Decent passing power when it's needed.
• Tax write off next year :-) Always a good thing, always needed, especially since my income went up this year.
• If Washington gets smart like California and offers HOV lane access to hybrid vehicles, I'm in like Flynn.

 

What I DISLIKE So Far:

• I'm not seeing the purpose of the "remote start" feature, since you're still forced to press the Start Button and the car does not get ready to drive any sooner. Is this for just warming/cooling the interior?
• There is a loud buzzing noise outside of the car that occurs right after startup. If all doors are closed and I'm inside I don't hear it. My question is what is it and should it concern me? If this is one of those artificial "deaf people can't hear" deals, I'd like to know so I can figure out how to disable it since it only triggers when the car is not in motion (thus pointless).
• The car FEELS heavy. It's not just the battery. The entire deal feels quite heavy, almost Chrysler heavy. This may not be a negative to some but coming from cars that felt light as a feather this was a bit jarring. I'll get over it.
• The parking brake has to be one of the least intuitive most brain jarring pieces of tech in the whole thing - and considering it's one little lever this is even worse. So you pull it up to engage it, it engages. You can press it down but that doesn't do anything. The console tells you to press the regular brake to release the parking brake, that doesn't work. You press the accelerator, it disengages (which should NOT happen from a parking brake stop). Huh??
• I'm a fan of new car smell, but they over did it on this one. It's so strong it filled up my entire two story place with it in the garage behind a closed door. I was afraid it'd set off my CO sensors. Also when I was driving back to the lot to drop something off I noticed my breath was visible, like when it's really cold? But it wasn't, it's quite hot. Not sure what that was all about.
• No tint strip along the top which would have helped TREMENDOUSLY for blocking glare on the touch screen. I'm shocked at such a glaring (no pun intended) omission on a car priced this high.
• Not really a fan of the rims. I'll have to do some shopping for alternates. I don't want low profile tires though nor do I want to affect the comfort of the ride.
• The projectors and the fogs both seem rather dim and yellowish. I'm wondering if they went el-cheapo on the bulbs for these. I'll have to shop for something that's a bit more white and bright. I do like the auto-switching high beams during pitch black segments (which happen frequently in Western Washington since they don't seem to believe in proper street lighting), but I want the regular lights to perform decently.
• Rear parking assist and front parking assist seem to be poorly calibrated and I can imagine old folks getting frustrated with it. It beeps even if you're nowhere near the target. I was backing into a spot that had just a curb, no signs or anything bumper level, and it started beeping like crazy when I got to the red. Went to look and I had a full 3 feet of distance yet.
• Though I like Adaptive cruise control I fail to understand why it reacts so slow given every other proximity sensor is near instant and efficient to a T.
• The Altima has a feature where when you first start the car, it cuts your volume down to a low level so you're not blasting out a quiet neighborhood or your own eardrums. The Fusion apparently does not have this. Wouldn't be an issue, except for that autoplay feature from Bluetooth streaming. The music I play in my Bluetooth headphones is NOT the same music, nor should it be played at the same level, as the music I play in my car.
• That bug where you can't put in a WPA2 password that has letters in it. Inexcusable design.
• The electric-only acceleration cutover - you know, the "sweet spot" between when the car will engage the gas engine and when it just uses the electric depending on how hard you press the accelerator - is disappointing. I'm not a lead foot. The CVT in the Altima is such that light acceleration is critical if you want any kind of decent gas mileage, so I'm no stranger to it. But the pickiness is just silly. It's hard to explain but I would have hoped that the car would have more "umph" when you take off from a stop, in electric only mode, if that makes sense. I mean we're talking zero to say, 40 in like 15-20 seconds. That's ridiculous. So I'll be on a straightaway headed to the store and the speed limit is 35. So I'm like ok, I can stay in full electric and just regen brakes. Well, the car takes SO long to get up to 35 when lightly pressing the accelerator that I end up just getting frustrated and press the accelerator hard enough, then back off and pulse. Really hard to explain.

 

I have other nitpicks, mostly due to Ford and not the car, that I'll reserve.

 

Anyway, that's my story. May sound like I dislike the car but as with any car, there things that seem like bad design decisions on what's otherwise a premium feeling car. That irks me.

Edited May 12, 2013 by revelated

[gkinla]

The parking brake has a drive away feature, when parked on a hill at a stop light, set the parking brake and when ready just step on the gas and the brake will release and drive away. Works on a flat surface too, when pulling away from the curb. The rest you will get used to as I had some of the same questions/issues also. Why the parking brake won't release when the applying the foot brake is a good question

[Toz]

That was a nice read. Thanks for taking the time for some well thought out feedback about the Fusion.

[LEM]

Congratulations for the new car!

When you said you are in Washington, do you mean DC? If so, since you had a good dealer experience, could you let me know where you got it? Thanks!

[tombarker13ffh]

Welcome to the forum! As for the parking brake, you have to hold the service brake and then push the p-brake lever to release the brake.

 

"You can manually release the electric

parking brake by turning the ignition on,

pressing the brake pedal and then pressing

the electric parking brake switch."

[jeff_h]

• The car FEELS heavy. It's not just the battery. The entire deal feels quite heavy, almost Chrysler heavy. This may not be a negative to some but coming from cars that felt light as a feather this was a bit jarring. I'll get over it.

You noted the additional battery weight in the back, plus there's additional weight in the front for the electric motor... did you test drive the car (or similar VIN) before making the purchase?

[revelated]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Congratulations for the new car!

When you said you are in Washington, do you mean DC? If so, since you had a good dealer experience, could you let me know where you got it? Thanks!

 

No, Washington State (they really need to do some renaming somewhere, remove "Washington" from DC or something, just call it District of Columbia, so it doesn't get confused with Washington State) :)

 

 

 

Welcome to the forum! As for the parking brake, you have to hold the service brake and then push the p-brake lever to release the brake.

 

"You can manually release the electric

parking brake by turning the ignition on,

pressing the brake pedal and then pressing

the electric parking brake switch."

 

 

I find that unintuitive. I realize what it's doing. it's like the whole AutoStick deal where it's trying to "emulate" a physical parking brake. But in a physical parking brake you don't need to press the regular brake, you just press the trigger and lift it to release (or step down to unclick and lift to release for floor). It should be as simple as "lift parking brake lever to engage. Press down to disengage". Also I still disagree with the fact that it'll disengage itself anyway if you just press the accelerator. Can you imagine some elderly driving this car and they forget to disengage it on a downhill slope and just accelerate without the thing stopping them?

 

 

You noted the additional battery weight in the back, plus there's additional weight in the front for the electric motor... did you test drive the car (or similar VIN) before making the purchase?

 

Yes I did, twice actually. The first time was to make sure I was ok with the feel of the car, and frankly I found it underpowered. But I felt the same way about the Altima when I test drove it, and it broke in nicely so I didn't hold it too much against the Fusion. The second one, the one I bought, had the same heavy feel. It's more an observation than anything.

 

When I moved to Washington State I drove it, from San Diego. It was packed to the gills with stuff, in the trunk, backseat, front seat, my lap, etc. Enough to cause the back end to drop. And even then the car still felt overall lighter than the Fusion. I don't think it's the engine and the battery I'm feeling. I think it's the actual body of the car, that there's more material. That's probably okay for purposes of noise reduction, steering performance, inclement weather performance, etc.

The Dodge Charger feels the same way as the Fusion - heavy. But I loved that car's interior and quiet cabin. I just didn't like the aggressive exterior, though it got a lot of attention. So it could be that the Altima just happens to be an overly light car. Driving through high winds in southern Oregon I could literally feel the car getting moved, it's THAT light ;)

[clummus]

I would rather have a heavier, more substantial car, so to me that's a good thing.:)

[corncobs]

I would rather have a heavier, more substantial car, so to me that's a good thing.:)

I agree with this statement; I rather drive a car that feels a bit heavier than a car that you feel like getting blown of the road.

[revelated]

I would rather have a heavier, more substantial car, so to me that's a good thing. :)

 

 

I agree with this statement; I rather drive a car that feels a bit heavier than a car that you feel like getting blown of the road.

 

For me it depends. And it may just be perception, that takes time to get my mind off of. In my mind, when I think "hybrid" i naturally think that the weight of the vehicle contributes to how efficient it can be. The heavier it is the more it has to do to get the car moving and keep it at speed. I wonder how heavy the previous year hybrids felt compared to the 2013. Same, lighter? If the 2013 is heavier is it possible it contributed to the difficulty meeting the quoted mileage?

[corncobs]

 

 

 

For me it depends. And it may just be perception, that takes time to get my mind off of. In my mind, when I think "hybrid" i naturally think that the weight of the vehicle contributes to how efficient it can be. The heavier it is the more it has to do to get the car moving and keep it at speed. I wonder how heavy the previous year hybrids felt compared to the 2013. Same, lighter? If the 2013 is heavier is it possible it contributed to the difficulty meeting the quoted mileage?

Sure that question in connection with being a hybrid is a good one...

 

@ acdii I think you are the perfect guy to answer the weight feel question between 10' and 13'

[acdii]

Sure that question in connection with being a hybrid is a good one...

 

@ acdii I think you are the perfect guy to answer the weight feel question between 10' and 13'

The 10 feels like a boat, its sluggish on curves, and a bit floaty, similar to the TCH, which CAN make it feel lighter. The 13 feels SOLID, crisp handling, firm grip on the road, which can make it feel heavier. With that said, when comparing curb weight, the 10 is heavier than the 13.

[hybridbear]

• Tax write off next year :-) Always a good thing, always needed, especially since my income went up this year.

What I DISLIKE So Far:

• There is a loud buzzing noise outside of the car that occurs right after startup. If all doors are closed and I'm inside I don't hear it. My question is what is it and should it concern me? If this is one of those artificial "deaf people can't hear" deals, I'd like to know so I can figure out how to disable it since it only triggers when the car is not in motion (thus pointless).
• The parking brake has to be one of the least intuitive most brain jarring pieces of tech in the whole thing - and considering it's one little lever this is even worse. So you pull it up to engage it, it engages. You can press it down but that doesn't do anything. The console tells you to press the regular brake to release the parking brake, that doesn't work. You press the accelerator, it disengages (which should NOT happen from a parking brake stop). Huh??
• Rear parking assist and front parking assist seem to be poorly calibrated and I can imagine old folks getting frustrated with it. It beeps even if you're nowhere near the target. I was backing into a spot that had just a curb, no signs or anything bumper level, and it started beeping like crazy when I got to the red. Went to look and I had a full 3 feet of distance yet.Though I like Adaptive cruise control I fail to understand why it reacts so slow given every other proximity sensor is near instant and efficient to a T.
• The Altima has a feature where when you first start the car, it cuts your volume down to a low level so you're not blasting out a quiet neighborhood or your own eardrums. The Fusion apparently does not have this. Wouldn't be an issue, except for that autoplay feature from Bluetooth streaming. The music I play in my Bluetooth headphones is NOT the same music, nor should it be played at the same level, as the music I play in my car.
• The electric-only acceleration cutover - you know, the "sweet spot" between when the car will engage the gas engine and when it just uses the electric depending on how hard you press the accelerator - is disappointing. I'm not a lead foot. The CVT in the Altima is such that light acceleration is critical if you want any kind of decent gas mileage, so I'm no stranger to it. But the pickiness is just silly. It's hard to explain but I would have hoped that the car would have more "umph" when you take off from a stop, in electric only mode, if that makes sense. I mean we're talking zero to say, 40 in like 15-20 seconds. That's ridiculous. So I'll be on a straightaway headed to the store and the speed limit is 35. So I'm like ok, I can stay in full electric and just regen brakes. Well, the car takes SO long to get up to 35 when lightly pressing the accelerator that I end up just getting frustrated and press the accelerator hard enough, then back off and pulse. Really hard to explain.

Anyway, that's my story. May sound like I dislike the car but as with any car, there things that seem like bad design decisions on what's otherwise a premium feeling car. That irks me.

Congrats and welcome.

 

To your comments above:

• How do you get a tax write-off for a hybrid?
• We have discussed this buzzing noise in detail here, it has to do with the system creating pressure for the friction brakes since there is no engine vacuum pressure to use a brake booster with like in a gas only car
• I imagine that the requirement to press the brake pedal before releasing the parking brake is so that you don't accidentally release the parking brake on a hill and have the car roll and put stress on the transmission, I like this feature. I also like the fact that the parking brake turns off when you put the car in drive and step on the gas. This means you can never forget to turn the parking brake off and start driving
• Isn't it a good thing that it picks up the curb so that you don't scrape the bottom of the car on it? Since you also have the camera in the HyTi you should soon get used to how the sensors function in relation to objects by watching the objects on the screen
• My Saab had this same feature and I miss it too. My wife tends to have the radio much louder than I do and I always get blasted by the radio when driving after she has, in my Saab it didn't matter what volume the radio was set to when shut off it would always start at a prescribed volume (or lower if volume was quieter when turned off)
• You are better off using the ICE to accelerate even when only accelerating up to city speeds. You will maximize your fuel economy long term by using the ICE for acceleration and then EV mode for cruising. There are a couple threads here that talk about this. Here is one that you might find helpful: http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/6606-why-hybrids-are-so-efficient/
• We all have things that we dislike about every car. No car is perfect for us, we just have to find the best option with the least compromises. There were compromises we made in choosing the FFH over the C-Max or a Camry Hybrid and it was a hard decision, but we're very happy with our FFH

[Fastronaut]

 

Welcome to the forum! As for the parking brake, you have to hold the service brake and then push the p-brake lever to release the brake.

 

"You can manually release the electric

parking brake by turning the ignition on,

pressing the brake pedal and then pressing

the electric parking brake switch."

 

Just pray you never get into the situation where the brake comes on by itself:

 

http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/6669-electric-brake-came-on-and-hyti-wouldnt-budge/

[elle]

 

• I imagine that the requirement to press the brake pedal before releasing the parking brake is so that you don't accidentally release the parking brake on a hill and have the car roll and put stress on the transmission, I like this feature. I also like the fact that the parking brake turns off when you put the car in drive and step on the gas. This means you can never forget to turn the parking brake off and start driving

 

Yep, what he said. For a day or two I was a bit confused that the parking brake would automatically disengage when I started to drive because that is what I am used to. Then I thought for a minute and realized it's a parking brake which is meant to reinforce the braking when the car is parked. There's no reason at all that it shouldn't automatically disengage when I drive, if the technology is there to make it happen. It's just what I have stuck in my stubborn little head about how cars should behave.

[revelated]

 

Congrats and welcome.

 

To your comments above:

• How do you get a tax write-off for a hybrid? Not for a Hybrid. WA you can write off the sales tax of a new car purchase on the 1040 (which for this car is nearly $3,000)
• We have discussed this buzzing noise in detail here, it has to do with the system creating pressure for the friction brakes since there is no engine vacuum pressure to use a brake booster with like in a gas only car Strange it must be a "buzz" rather than "whoosh" as with any other air or pressure type system.
• I imagine that the requirement to press the brake pedal before releasing the parking brake is so that you don't accidentally release the parking brake on a hill and have the car roll and put stress on the transmission, I like this feature. I also like the fact that the parking brake turns off when you put the car in drive and step on the gas. This means you can never forget to turn the parking brake off and start driving If the trans is in Park the car can't get stressed, that's what Park is for, just like any other car. Also for some reason my car stopped allowing the parking brake to disengage when pressing the accelerator anyway - Too weird to mess with.
• Isn't it a good thing that it picks up the curb so that you don't scrape the bottom of the car on it? Since you also have the camera in the HyTi you should soon get used to how the sensors function in relation to objects by watching the objects on the screen It wasn't the curb it was picking up. It picks up trees, dogs, whatever. In the case of parking it scraped over the curb before it started beeping, and that was after it was embedded in a bush that it should clearly have beeped for.
• My Saab had this same feature and I miss it too. My wife tends to have the radio much louder than I do and I always get blasted by the radio when driving after she has, in my Saab it didn't matter what volume the radio was set to when shut off it would always start at a prescribed volume (or lower if volume was quieter when turned off)
• You are better off using the ICE to accelerate even when only accelerating up to city speeds. You will maximize your fuel economy long term by using the ICE for acceleration and then EV mode for cruising. There are a couple threads here that talk about this. Here is one that you might find helpful: http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/6606-why-hybrids-are-so-efficient/ I already do this now because it's how the CVT in the Alti works (gun it to get up to speed then cruise).
• We all have things that we dislike about every car. No car is perfect for us, we just have to find the best option with the least compromises. There were compromises we made in choosing the FFH over the C-Max or a Camry Hybrid and it was a hard decision, but we're very happy with our FFH

 

[hybridbear]

Revelated,

 

When you park on a hill and engage the parking brake before putting the car in park you are preventing the car from rolling and putting that pressure on the parking brake mechanism and not on the pin that holds the car in Park. If you release the parking brake while not depressing the brake pedal the car can roll until it hits that pin which is potentially very damaging to the transmission.

[acdii]

Revelated,

 

When you park on a hill and engage the parking brake before putting the car in park you are preventing the car from rolling and putting that pressure on the parking brake mechanism and not on the pin that holds the car in Park. If you release the parking brake while not depressing the brake pedal the car can roll until it hits that pin which is potentially very damaging to the transmission.

I had a 79 LTD wagon that would be very hard to get out of park because of this.

[revelated]

I see a reference to a car that hasn't been on the road in over two decades., yes, I can see how that would have been troubling to a transmission. However, in this new day in age where a car can literally drive itself to and from work, I refuse to believe that the timing of applying the parking brake can seriously affect a transmission.

 

just for reference, the 2011 Altima that I traded for this Fusion, complete with its manual parking brake,never once had an issue with its transmission even though I applied the parking brake rather liberally. plenty of times did I park down a hill and not hit the parking break, feeling that slight roll and eventual stop of the car, yet the car managed to continue run perfectly fine.

[acdii]

Just because a car mentioned is decades old, doesnt mean it can no longer occur on a recent car. The car I mentioned also had 300K miles on its transmission, so there was some wear involved. As the car ages, and if you never used a parking brake to keep the car from rolling into the park pawl, eventually it will start to stick. Can happen on any car no matter when it was built. Less likely today, but can still happen.

[revelated]

Just because a car mentioned is decades old, doesnt mean it can no longer occur on a recent car. The car I mentioned also had 300K miles on its transmission, so there was some wear involved. As the car ages, and if you never used a parking brake to keep the car from rolling into the park pawl, eventually it will start to stick. Can happen on any car no matter when it was built. Less likely today, but can still happen.

 

Forgive me, but by that logic, one could argue that the A/C should never be turned on because the pump could blow, causing it to only do hot air. Extremely likely in the 90's and before; extremely unlikely post 2003. Can it happen? Sure. But looking at probability, you're more likely to need the system charged than actually experience a failure of said part.

 

The whole point of the newer cars is/was to advance the underlying technology. I still disbelieve, except in perhaps the case of a lemon, that the parking brake application can cause damage to a transmission unless you do what I believe the car won't allow you to do, which would be to apply the parking brake at high speeds while still applying gas. Slightly rolling forward a quarter of a foot into a fully stopped position on a downhill incline when the gear shift is in Park? Extremely dubious that's damaging. Otherwise what the hell is the purpose of "Park"?

 

Now, on the flip side, if your car is in motion and you shift it into Park, THAT I can see damaging, because things are still rolling when you do it and the impact on the transmission is more sudden - like some soccer mom barreling into a Wal-Mart parking space and shifting into Park while barely applying brake, causing the car to jerk to a stop. THAT, I can see screwing up a transmission. But that's not what I'm talking about.

[acdii]

Nope, not saying that, I'm saying eventually is COULD wear enough that it can stick when there is pressure against it. Just because technology has advanced, doesnt mean that the laws of physics changes! Every parking pawl I have seen whether its FWD or RWD, is a steel disk with square notches, and the pawl is a steel hammer that engages a notch. Eventually over time, that steel will wear, and IF, only saying IF, the car were parked on an incline every single day as in parked in a driveway that had a 3 foot rise, and the parking brake was never used, the car was allowed to roll back to engage that pawl in a notch, at some point there will be a groove worn into that pawl and it will start to stick. It will take years for that to happen, and it rarely does, but it can still happen.

 

 

BTW how did this get SOO far off topic? What was the topic anyways?

[gkinla]

Nope, not saying that, I'm saying eventually is COULD wear enough that it can stick when there is pressure against it. Just because technology has advanced, doesnt mean that the laws of physics changes! Every parking pawl I have seen whether its FWD or RWD, is a steel disk with square notches, and the pawl is a steel hammer that engages a notch. Eventually over time, that steel will wear, and IF, only saying IF, the car were parked on an incline every single day as in parked in a driveway that had a 3 foot rise, and the parking brake was never used, the car was allowed to roll back to engage that pawl in a notch, at some point there will be a groove worn into that pawl and it will start to stick. It will take years for that to happen, and it rarely does, but it can still happen.

 

 

BTW how did this get SOO far off topic? What was the topic anyways?

Not to belabor the point, here are pictures of the parking pawl and parking pawl notch, the pictures are for illistration only. I can only surmise that the 2013 FFH uses the same technology. When just using the Park function only, this is what holds the car from moving. And when the car is still moving and Park, not the parking brake is engaged this is what stops the car and keeps it from moving. That's why you see the car rocking back and forth when "some soccer mom barreling into a Wal-Mart parking space and shifting into Park" occurs. The pawl is not much bigger than your thumb and the notch is smaller than your thumb nail. This is all that holds a 3500 lb car from moving. Wear in the drum and the hammer will cause the pawl to slip, or the hammer will break and then the car is free wheeling. Knowing this, I always set the parking brake when leaving the car, on flat surfaces or hills.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2013 by gkinla

[acdii]

Good pics! See the angle set on that pawl? Thats the part I referred to when saying it wears a notch in it, and that is what can cause it to stick in park when pressure is on it. Thanks for posting the pics.

[revelated]

Either we're talking about two different activities, or you're grossly overstating the risk. One of the two must be true. I'm inclined to believe it's the former.

 

Again, I don't discount what you're saying when the car is/was in high speed motion and the brakes not applied properly or completely before shifting into Park. That can be damaging for the reasons you state.

 

What I'm saying is, the car is already in Park, with your foot on the brake, not moving, and you release the brake. There isn't enough inertia at that point to cause significant damage to the part. In the olden days when the parts were less durable, or in Volkswagen where they may even use plastic versions, yes, it's possible. My point is that for cars where durable parts are used (pretty much every other model), the likelihood of failure is about the same as an individual standing in a grass field getting struck directly on the head by a lightning bolt. Could it happen? Sure. But not with enough probability to worry about it.

 

As long as your car is completely stopped, you shift it into Park, it doesn't then matter when you apply the parking brake. Just make sure your car isn't moving when you put it in Park.

 

Since you should be turning wheels on hills anyway it's moot since you shouldn't be rolling anyway.