19th Aug 2017, 02:42
I wrote the original review here. The Fusion now has around 72,000 miles on it. My father and I traded cars again (I'm driving a 2007 Milan) and he commented at JUST how underpowered the Fusion is. "That car is a DOG!" were his words to me.
We've since been trying to use STP fuel additive and using 89 octane instead of 87 to see if there is any difference. We've used this technique for two or three tankfuls now and there has been some improvement, but not much. If the Fusion was RWD, it would run itself over. I was still getting in the ballpark of 17-20 MPG in the city; 23 on the highway when I switched with my father, and he gets 24 MPG now on the highway (a slight improvement, but nowhere as good as we'd hoped).
I also spilled a can of gas in the back seat, but that's not the car's fault :)
I'll let you know in October what happens with the power and fuel economy.
19th Aug 2017, 13:24
Thanks for the updates. I like your review, very detailed. I live in the UK and we have the Fusion here still badged as the Mondeo, classed as a large family car. Through its introduction in the 90s you could get the 4 cylinder version here as small as 1.6 or 1.8 litre. I have owned a few more modern 1.8 petrol, and even better 2.0 litre models of this car. I found the performance to be adequate, no fast car but not sluggish either (0-60 in 10 seconds and a top speed of about 120MPH).
Over here the V6 version is regarded as high performance (0-60 in 7 sec and top speed of 140MPH+) so my question is although you have an automatic, it should not make a drastic difference being a more modern car, I'd get the performance issue looked at (maybe compression is low?), no modern V6 should feel sluggish as you describe.
19th Aug 2017, 13:25
Would also like to add I realize you have a 4 cylinder; I thought the 2.5 was a V6. 2.5 is quite a big displacement for a 4 cylinder, but still the performance should be decent.
20th Aug 2017, 12:10
Thanks for writing. My Fusion is a four-cylinder model. I'm wondering if maybe it needs a tune-up? It feels so underpowered, even with just one body in it. Our 2007 Milan is a V6 and the difference is night and day.
18th Oct 2017, 06:06
ORIGINAL REVIEWER.
The Fusion is up to 75000 miles. Fuel mileage (mostly highway) has leveled out to between 22 and 24 MPG on nearly all runs. Very, very disappointing. Otherwise, no complaints.
18th Oct 2017, 20:25
22-24 MPG is about 10 km/L - while it is a fairly large car (by international standards) with a large engine, if it's mostly highway, I assume being in America that therefore it is fairly level with hardly any hilly rises, then that's quite poor. I'd expect a medium automatic vehicle to reach about 11-12 km/L on the open road (26-28 MPG). Do you drive with the air conditioning on most of the time, because the compressor does have an effect on the engine load quite significantly. Check the coolant temperature reading - if it's below the middle, you may have a thermostat that is stuck open, so the car doesn't warm up right and sends a signal to the computer to run the engine rich to keep legal emissions. One thing too - often, a stronger engine (like the Milan you mentioned, which is a V6?) under light throttle, will use the same or even less fuel than a smaller engine, as it is better able to carry the weight of the car plus the aircon load, it does not labour as much.
18th Jul 2017, 17:08
Hello, I wrote the initial review. The Fusion has now accumulated 70,308 miles, an increase of 5,088 miles since the last update. We've now had the Fusion for two years and nine months, with no major complaints. City-exclusive fuel economy works out to about 19 MPG.
I am beginning a new job soon where I will be doing some highway commuting to an office and making visits to clients' homes and offices. I still plan to run the Fusion to 150-200K miles as stated in the original review. I don't see any reason why the Fusion won't live to see that mileage (unless I tire of it beforehand).