SVT_MAN

I'd agree with Noah if it wasn't for my dealer experiences. I've never been to a Ford dealer with knowledgeable sales staff. The dealer I go to to have my vehicle serviced tried to give me a sales pitch by having one of their salesmen drive my car up for me. This was when my throttle position sensor was replaced out of warranty. The pitch completely failed, not only because I am not in the market for a vehicle, but also because the salesman was a tool and he didn't know his product. First of all, he didn't know my car was a 2.5L I4 SEL. He said to me "Wow, that's a nice car, is that a Fusion Sport?" *roll eyes* Well, gee ... must have been too laborious to look at the rear trunklid, the lack of dual exhaust, or the front fascia, if nothing else. Moreover, if you can't tell the difference between a 2.5L I4 engine sound and a 3.5L V6, you shouldn't be selling cars. Period. From there, he went on trying to pitch me on the new '13 Fusions, which I told him I thought were nice looking but was not interested in purchasing a first year model car. Much less a new car in general since I was pretty happy with my current car, minus the TPS of course ... But I digress. Bottom line is that I've met too many Ford dealer salesmen who know less about their product than I do ... and I don't even follow this stuff as much as I did when I was younger. If the goal of free scheduled maintenance is to get more customer "face time," then it needs to be backed up by friendly, knowledgeable staff who understand how to make a sale without alienating or offending customers.

Update: Turns out it was all about the rubberized material being too hard to flex in the cold. (Probably didn't hurt that Ford decided not to put an overhead light on the engine bay and it was dark either .. *sigh*) I tried it again when it was 53 degrees outside and it didn't snap in easily, but it did eventually work.

Hey guys - Weird question for you all. I have a 2010 Ford Fusion SEL 2.5L I4. Tonight, I decided I wanted to replace my engine's air filter in prepartion for a trip to Michigan tomorrow. So I went to Walmart and purchased a CA10094 FRAM. But I couldn't get it installed no matter what I did. The three plastic lips on the top of my air box will not clearance the flanges no matter what I do. I tried manuevering the air box 100 different ways and it made no difference. I even removed the O2 sensor temporarily to see if that would help. It's like the rubber outer guard on the air filter is too thick or something? I thought I was going crazy, so for giggles, I put the old one back in. That one didn't go back in without a fight, but it went back in within 20 seconds. Tried the new one - one more time. No dice. No matter what I did I could not get it in! I am going to bed because I can't mess with this all night, but seriously ... does this air filter not work on 2010 models? By the way, why did Ford remove the overhead light on the engine bay? My 2006 had one. Really hard to work on a car at night without an overhead light. Back to the air filter though: maybe it's just that the rubber is too hard when it's 25 degrees farenheit outside? I don't know. All I know is I'm really frustrated and wishing I had had the guys at Ford change it for me the last time I was there. I'm kind of a DIY guy, but nothing is worth this amount of frustration. Adam

Something that is a little confusing is that AutoBlog claims that the old Fusion only got 3 stars in the frontal crash test. I think that is incorrect. The 2010 shown here says it got 5 stars ? Is this is a different crash test that they are referring to? http://autos.msn.com/research/vip/safety.aspx?make=Ford&model=Fusion&year=2010 I'm probably being dumb but it seems like AutoBlog is being a hater unless I missed something. I was under the impression that the Fusion was a 5 star rated vehicle since 2007.

Hello All. I own a 2010 Ford Fusion SEL with the 2.3L DOHC I4. The vehicle has around 45,000 miles on it. About 2 months ago, I started experiencing a bizarre problem. The car would intermittently start to run rough, the service engine wrench would come on, and I woud lose all power because the vehicle would go into limp mode. Very dangerous situation when you are on the freeway, or in the middle of an intersection (or roundabout, where I was). I took it to the dealer about a month ago. They drove it for 40 some miles and it was fine. They said there was nothing wrong and they said they couldn't fix a problem they could not diagnose. They were going to order a flight recorder for my vehicle so they could record it the next time it misbehaved. (When you reset the ignition, the code is cleared.) I drove the vehicle for close to a month without a single issue. But I knew it was only a matter of time until it happened again. Fast forward to last week. I was driving home on the freeway and the vehicle began to run rough, service engine light came on, and vehicle lost power. I coasted to side of road, put the car in park, restarted and went on my way. At this point, I decided to take the vehicle back to the dealer. On the way to the dealer, the vehicle died in the middle of a roundabout. Not a good situation. I eventually made it to the dealer, and this time they were able to diagnose it because it stalled several times on the tech during the test drive. In fact, the tech told me he wasn't sure he would make it back to the dealer because it would stall every time the car was at an intersection waiting. The tech told me he was worried about the safety of the vehicle too. The code that it threw was the code for the throttle body housing. Apparently the part was shorting. So they replaced that. Vehicle is ready to pick up ... but not for free because apparently it is not covered by any warranty. It is not covered by Ford's powertrain warranty and it is not covered by Ford's emission warranty. First of all, is the dealership selling me a bill of goods? Does the powretrain warranty really not cover a part as essential to engine operation as a throttle body? I was wondering why the emissions warranty wouldn't even cover it. I am quite upset because this car only has 45,000 miles on it. Should a vehicle with this low of mileage be experiencing such a dangerous condition? I don't think so. I've never had a vehicle have this kind of failure so early in its life. In any case, I am thinking about contacting Ford customer care and see if they may be able to help me. I think it's ridiculous that this vehicle can cause such hassle and danger and a essential part like this isn't covered under Ford powertrain warranty. What good is the warranty if it doesn't cover anything that breaks? Between Ford's lousy dealership experience and their questionable quality, I'm not even sure I want to stay with Ford anymore, as much as it pains me to say that.

Well, we now know that Dodge is out of the sport entirely next year. So we know that Andretti isn't buying the Dodge teams. It still hasn't been announced that Matt is at JGR yet due to contractual clauses that prevent him from saying anything. But it's basically the worst kept secret in NASCAR. Sorry to see you go, Matt. It was a good ride.

I tend to agree with Richard. Adding Penske will no doubt help - Penske has the technical know how and expertise to be a top tier team like Roush. But GM still has Ford teams outnumbered. As far as sponsorship, Jack obviously demands more money for sponsorship, but I also think that Jack just isn't as good at luring potential sponsors as some teams anymore. I mean, if you look at MWR ... they are running pretty well now, but they have been horrible for years before this. But Michael Waltrip can sell a ketchup popsicle to a person wearing white gloves and sponsors love him because he gets attention to their sponsor by making a fool of himself.

I would say that I am about 95% confident that Matt is going to be running Toyota's next year based on Jack Roush's comments. Jack Roush isn't going to call a Penske team the dark side since they run Blue Oval. (chromehorn already pointed this out, but I agree.) http://sports.yahoo.com/news/roush-surprised-kenseth-leaving-193010240--nascar.html I don't know. One way or the other, very sad news to me. If by some miracle Matt stays with Ford, I will probably still watch NASCAR. Otherwise, I guess I'll just move onto something else. As stupid as it sounds, it's one activity that my twin brother, me and my dad can watch and enjoy together - but it seems that none of us will have someone we really want to cheer on anymore. We all liked Carl pretty well until he started picking on Matt. The thing that is irritating to me is that Jack is such a lousy guy when it comes to personnel management. I know that is just his personality and he prefers looking at the technical - but that doesn't make him a leader. That makes him a technical genius who probably shouldn't be running a company. But why doesn't he have people who ARE good with people figure out the people side of the business? I mean, Matt seems pretty good at the people part.

This news was absolutely devastating to me. I live about 30 minutes from Cambridge, WI (where Matt is from), and this news is something I wish was a bad dream. I can't stomach Matt driving a GIbbs car or anything other than a Ford. I've been a loyal follower of Matt for years. I think this move is going to have a lot of backlash, and I honestly don't understand it in a lot of ways. Especially since just a month ago Matt said "I can't imagine driving anywhere else." And this was Matt's decision. I have no doubts about that. Shocked. In disbelief. I don't even know the words. How can the points leader and a previous champion who has been running awesome each week end up in a position like this? I don't know if I can watch NASCAR anymore, let alone cheer on Matt in a different make. I have been looking forward to seeing Matt run the new Fusion for months ... but I guess I'll never see it. Such a shame. I was ready to give NASCAR another try solely because of this: And now my favorite driver leaves Ford. Ford is just stupid. They lose talented drivers every year. First it was Jeff. Then it was Mark. Now it's Matt. Roush's elder statesmen is Biffle now. And that's just messed up. Roush's plans to promote within are fine ... but only if you don't do so at the expense of others!

1. Good to know. 2. Perhaps you are right. i don't know anything about the codes or anything like that, but this place is branded Valvoline. It is directly connected to the dealership though. It did strike me a bit odd that they have a Valvoline branded oil place though ... I mean doesn't Ford use MotorCraft? 3. Good to know as well.

I posted this late at night so I'm sorry misspoke / mis-typed (not sure what the correct term is for that?). My dad checked the oil originally after he drove the vehicle to his house. There's a possibility it was warm when he checked it, but it sat for a good 6 hours before I checked it - so there's absolutely no way it was warm when I checked it. That was my mistake for saying it the way I did.

I was under the impression that the safe zone was between the two holes (in the cross hatching region). Am I mistaken? The oil level was below the first hole.

Thanks for the info. As far as the oil level on the dipstick, it was actually below the first hole. It didn't even hit the cross-hatching. I'm a computer programmer by day - I don't know everything about cars - but I know a lot more than the average Joe. UPDATE: I called the service advisor this morning and told him about the situation. He made the mistake of answering the phone with his name .... The reason I say that was a mistake is because I told him all about the situation and he said, "I am sorry this happened to you. If I had been working yesterday this would not have happened." I rolled my eyes because the guy who answered the phone WAS the service advisor yesterday. Oops. It said on my invoice who the advisor was. When I called him out on lying about this, he started back pedaling and offered me a free oil change next time. Didn't really feel like making the situation any worse so I just left it at that. I am disappointed the guy never emailed me about the free oil change though. I told him I wanted him to email me so I had it in writing.

I didn't purchase the car because of the "forever warranty" ... I purchased it because it was the vehicle I wanted and it suits my needs. It gets great mileage (31+) and it's been reliable so far. I've also read good reviews on it. The forever warranty was a perk. I'm not that worried about this car's mechanicals - it's a Fusion. It's reliable. But it's still good peace of mind to have a powertrain warranty beyond Ford's 60,000 miles ... The price of this vehicle was lower than other comparables I was looking at, and it had the features and amenities I was looking for - I did not pay extra for the warranty and it is included as a perk of buying any used vehicle at this particular dealership. I'm not saying you were implying this, but I'm not a completely helpless consumer.

Noticed that it's Quick Lane not Quick Lube. Sue me. =) BlackHorse: I'll have to see if that is an option. I pre-paid for oil and service through a program through their dealership body. It's my understanding that QuickLane is their service place for all service, but maybe not.