So I got a 2010 Ford Fusion
Ford has handed us an example of the redesigned 2010 Fusion midsize sedan this week. It’s the car that you’ll probably know from the excessively-repetitive TV ads, and apparently we are among the first in the country to review one.
The overall design of the car is rather bland, possibly intentional to appeal to conservative buyers, although that massive three-bar chrome grille is rather extravagant, which we feel adds a lot of character.
The rear is as vanilla as they come, although a honey-comb pattern is visible in the lights if you squint hard enough.
While that grille is certainly cool, the upright number-plate holder on the front bumper isn’t doing the aerodynamics any favours.
The keypad thingy on the driver’s door is an American Ford trademark, and makes it onto the Fusion too. It will only come in handy if you lock yourself out of the car.
The interior is as plain as a shaved monkey. There isn’t even a hint that the centre console houses the most advanced entertainment system in the world, except for a small “SYNC by Microsoft” badge. But the cabin lights up pretty nicely at night, and the footwell ‘mood’ lighting can be changed to various colours. Even the cup-holders are lit up.
The overall quality is very good, with as much soft-touch trim as any other in this class, although we found a few cheap bits, like the flimsy coin-holder tray seen here, and some worn rubber trim on the exterior. The ergonomics are not particularly impressive either. The a/c fan buttons are just behind the shifter, and the trip computer buttons are below the coin holder, while the indicator stalk is mounted rather high and also made to handle the wiper functions.
The front seats are downright sporting, with matte leather and solid side-bolstering. No complaints here.
We found the rear legroom to be very good too, although it is visibly less than that of the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord.
The luggage trunk is abso-freakin-lutely massive for a midsizer, with no weird protrusions reducing the useable floor space. Now you know where the rear legroom went. That orange bag contains the fire extinguisher.
As we said earlier, the centre console provides very little clue that it houses the fancy SYNC system. Unfortunately we didn’t have much luck with SYNC, which could supposedly be used to make calls, play tunes and change radio stations just by telling it to do so. The instruction manual was missing, and the voice instructions belted out by the “female” computer sounded more like a philosophy speech. On top of that, the chick could never understand our stupid accents. We did figure out a connection to the Bluetooth phone and that worked perfectly using buttons.
All the tech stuff, which are supposed to be the selling points of this car, let us down in user-friendliness. Our special test car even came with a rear-view camera, blind-spot monitor and cross-traffic monitor for backing out of parking spaces, but the last two did not work as we expected them to, beeping and flashing at random. Incidentally, Ford is not going to offer any of these in the UAE, replacing them with regular parking sensors instead.
Ignoring the eccentricities of our test car, what really amazed us was the suspension tuning of what is supposed to be a family car. In all honesty, if your heart is set on a typical front-wheel-drive midsize sedan, it does not get any more sportier around corners than this, while still maintaining a comfortable ride. It is absolutely phenomenal in the “entertainment” department for a car of this kind, even with the inline-4 engine and the basic automatic. But more on that in the complete review.
Evening photos by Faisal Khatib
Comments
Nitin
Being a Ford user (Mercury actually) I know that the keypad is not only useful when you lock yourself out the car (which is quite impossible nowadays). Actually the main use of it is to lock the car with the engine running. Like for example if you want to just run into the supermarket and buy something, you can lock your car with the engine and AC running and come back to a cool car. There is a 5 digit code which unlocks the car. Works wonders in summer actually.
cAyaNide
Just wait till the time the codes system gets spoiled
RayanK
I’m loving the interior,never expected such an interior from Ford.
BJD (Boris)
how do you mean ‘code system get spoiled‘?
I also see the keypad as a very innovative feature here.
BJD (Boris)
seriously impressive car from ford. I think they are marketing it well too (ads on MBC).
Sting 316
the interior looks damn cool in the dark all lit up.
ivan
The interior is OK, but the steering wheel is way too ugly. Just make it larger then it looks like a truck’s steering wheel.
aaamohamad
the car in total looks very good…
and i liked the coin holder..its place is really good for me…
and the car seems to be longer than all its competitors..
and good job faisal…
eazy_mas
It actully made in Mexico and it abit expensive consider that is made there. It cost 85K which is an okay price but not competive as the dealers wanna make it look like. I still skeptic about the dealers and my scare over the spare parts issue really take me away of al Tayer motors. But for people who never owned a Ford or even a car critize Ford for being not reliable. I am a happy Ford Fiesta owner but my only problem is with the dealers.
Murf
love the seats!
vivek
The right man finally got the beast!!.. I’m sure you wud’ve remembered me while tryin it around the corners 😀
Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury
You are right, disturbingly enough. And why’d you take so long to comment here?
vivek
regret the disturbance..lol! :D…was away from the site since my laptop was awaitin it’s new power adapter…relied on my blackberry to keep myself online on the usual messengers and fb; but somehow my BB never liked ur site 😛 ..never loaded it properly! and only today I found out that the reason was an outdated fone OS!! 🙂
Maria
I’m a new driver and want to buy Ford Focus, can someone tell me if it’s easy (cheap or expencive) to maintain Ford in Dubai.
Thank you
mitch
Ford is not the cheapest car to maintain, but if you buy new you dont have to worry as it comes with warranty and free service.