'13 Ford Fusion Hybrid.. don't be in a hurry

My Magellan on shortest route was taking the exit off the interstate and immediately getting back on because it shaved, I don't know, a hundred feet off the trip.

 

Ann (Ford Fusion) | Fuelly

There's one person who gets over 50 mpg in the fusion hybrid according to fuelly. That's important because it shows that the vehicle can get good gas mileage. The next best gets 46 mpg. So my guess is that if driven properly the fusion can get good (> 45 mpg) fuel consumption. The other 11 reports on fuelly get from 30 to 44 mpg. Six of 13 get > 40 mpg.

 

I think key here is speed. The car and driver and other reviews indicated that the mpg drops off quickly with speed. If you stay at 60 or bellow you can get good mileage. If you are going 75 mph expect a big drop off. That was according to the ford slides as well.

More curiously is acdii's fusion. It seems to get 38 mpg even at 60 mph. Hopefully he'll be able to test out his theory on tires or something else soon. It doesn't look good.

 

And there are Prius members than can get 70mpg or more, but it is not realistic to assume it is possible without extreme patience and hypermilling.

One of my GF's relatives just got a new Ford Taurus SHO, and it is nice inside. However most new things are nice. It is how it holds up over time that is the problem. My GF's dad has a Ford Fusion. The door handle has fallen off or broke off twice, same with the gear shifter. Last I rode in it, the automatic transmission was making a horrible whine and jerk sound that to me sounds like imminent failure but I have been in other cars (like a daewoo) where that was the normal sound all the time so I am not sure. He gets mid to low 20's in his fusion...

But any hyrbid on the road is a good thing. Hopefully yours works for you. There are lemons of every car, even the Prius.

 

I'm guessing that 45 mpg is feasible for most people.

I won't be surprised if the average driver gets about 40. My '07 is rated 45 mpg and my lifetime is probably around 48-49 (because it includes at 6 trips with about ~1000 miles (and no patience for speed limit)).

It would be interesting to see how it performs at 60-70 mph compared to the Prius. The Li-Ion battery should help in hilly roads, but the larger engine might make highway trip very tricky and tempting.

 

The 07 Prius I had got 53 lifetime, and I did see a stretch of highway at 75 MPG. What was interesting was the 65 MPG I got after filling up the car when I drove from PA to IL where I got a stretch of 75 MPG on the dash. Somewhere I may still have the pics I took on that trip.

So, why am I having such a hard time getting anything near 40? Just does not make any sense at all. I also perused the Fuelly site and the .gov site, and only one driver got EPA or better, all the rest were below it, but if you look at the Camry, just about every driver got within the EPA range. This is what is going to do Ford in, there is no range, only one number, 47. Ford would have done much better had they put more realistic numbers for the EPA, those numbers sound fishy, especially being the same across the board.

 

As I understand it, your problem is that your consumption is significantly higher than the EPA advertised. Since you're an experienced driver with hybrids I would suggest coming into contact with the two fuelly members who have 46 and 50 mpg consumption figures.

Do you have scangauge II?

To be honest, it's very hard to measure, report and compare highway figures accurately. You need people using smartphone applications to compare terrain elevation and speed. Here's an example with elevation and speed



and

the trip data




So I would suggest that you take these measures if you want to fo something about it. I know you think it's not fair, but I'm assuming that Ford won't give you another car to try.

 

Please have a look here Two-Hundred Seventy Six mile highway trip with flats and hills: results | PriusChat to see how to document your mileage, it really is quite complicated. Reporting a 75 mpg segment doesn't really help us unless you document this.Just be very cautious with drawing conclusions about a new car that may require different driving methods than a Prius.

In addition to employing such methods you could contact with the two Ford owners that report 46 and 50 mpg. I tried to log in fuelly and have the poster with 50 mpg contribute to this thread and discuss his findings, but Fuelly failed to send me a verification email twice so I can't. You may want to contact them and invite them here yourself. That may tell you why you're having a hard time getting to ~47 mpg or prove that there's something wrong with your car.

Have you inflated your tires to the maximum psi btw?

 

oh I did try the tire increase, I pumped them up to 45 PSI and the FE got worse! They were 38 when I got the car, didn't get very good FE, pumped them up to 45, it got worse, lowered them to 34 and it got much better. The Goodyears apparently have higher resistance with less ground contact. Strange, but made a big difference when I tried it.

I have to admit though, they work extremely well in snow. I guess if I wasn't concerned about it getting above 40 MPG like it should I would be very happy with the car. The fact that its a chore to get anything decent, it takes away from the pleasure of driving the car.

It's a Hybrid, and I bought it to get good MPG, otherwise I could have got the Titanium Ecoboost and really enjoyed the car if I wasn't concerned about saving on gas.

That app looks good, what is it, what do I need, etc. I posted in the newb forum what kind of scan tool can I use to document the car.

 

I send that guy a fuellymail, so we shall see. I use the same nick there as I do here.

 

If you have a smartphone (I think it's only on Android) there's an application called torque that will give a lot of the more expensive scangauge. You would need an OBDii to microUSB cable adapter for your phone. I forget the name of the app I used.

Here's another good thread for this Pulse and glide at higher speeds (66 ~ 68MPH) beats super highway mode at lower speeds (50 ~ 55MPH)? | PriusChat

But I'm going to tell you something that you might not like. There is no way that it is physically possible to inflate tires and get worse mpg. Traffic, ambient temperature, weather, route, elevation, wind all affect mpg dramatically at high efficiencies. So I'm guessing that you need to get a hang of how to drive it more efficiently. Unfortunately early adopters do not have the benefit of knowing a lot of information for their ICE and battery operation.

For example, Prius owners have xgauges that show BTA, which clearly demonstrate when and how the car can be best use to regenerate. We also have empirical and theoretical knowledge on the "sweet spot" of the ICE. When I drive (even without scangauge) I make sure that the ratio of MPH/ instant MPG is about 1.1 to 1.7. When the engine is hot we know how to force the engine off at a stop light, so that we pulse and glide.

It really is complicated and you are an early adopter. So do not draw too firm conclusions from a few weeks of ownership...

 

few weeks? Only in the 2013, been driving hybrids since 2007, and got 53 lifetime in a prius over 23K miles, 35 Lifetime in a TCH over 36K miles, and currently, though it doesnt show it, 39 MPG in the 2010 hybrid

Take a look at my fill ups, Tires were at 38 when I got it, two tanks of gas, and I filled to 45 PSI, 12/9 was the first fill after that. Reduced the air pressure to 34 on the 14th, and that was the first time I ever saw it get 50 MPG on a 10 mile trip.

One thing that may be wrong with the car is the gauge programming, the actual gallons used vs what the display shows doesn't add up, unfortunately the trip 1 got wiped out with total gallons used, so I have to start over on the next tank, but going to hand document each tank and mark down what the dash reports vs actual gallons filled. The last tank fill didn't add up to what was reported by the tech, and if they added a gallon or two to top off the tank, then it really doesn't add up. He documented driving 108 miles RT, getting up to 44 MPG on the dash display, on the trip home, and 36-38 doing 70 and driving without the cruise on the return trip. When I filled the tank it came out to 33 MPG.

I should have a better idea after a couple more tanks, and since I drive almost 70 miles a day, should not take too long, considering I only get about 400 miles to the tank at best. The 2010 I fill once a week with reserve, getting over 600 miles a tank. Takes some getting used to the fuel gauge going down faster in the 13 due to its tiny 13 gallon tank.

 

Hello, I am the Owner of the 2013 Fusion Hybrid that gets over 50 mpg. My average speed on the interstate is 65 mph and also I am not using the AC in the car now. My MPG may drop in the summer when it is hot and the AC is blasting. I had a 2011 Prius and my MPG dropped in the summer and I averaged 43 mpg lifetime with that car.

 

Hi Kyle where abouts do you live and drive? Makes a difference knowing that.

Currently my 2013 is getting below what my 2010 is getting, and it gets EPA. I am struggling with the 13 FFH, and its getting to the point where I am ready to put it on the market, let someone else deal with it. I am quickly getting frustrated trying to even meet when I can get in my other FFH. The math doesn't add up when I fill the tank compared to what the dash tells me, and the dash is far below what I should be expecting to get.

I am Extremely tempted to go back to Toyota and tell Ford to KMA. It's too bad the Camry doesn't have the options I can get in the Ford. It's one of the main reasons I got another one, the BLIS, Drivers package, etc.

Had I bought a Titanium Ecoboost, I wouldn't be so hyped up on the MPG thing, but 34 is a FAR cry from 47. It wouldn't have cost much more than I paid to have a loaded Ti.

 

whoop whoop!!!