2012 Ford Fusion
I think that for last couple of years Ford has had kind of a
bad rap, which was perfectly justified during the late 90s and 2000s. But for the past 3(ish) years I think they
have been trying to turn that around. I
find that you can really see it in their new SUVs and the new, totally revamped
Ford Taurus, but not so much in their smaller cars. Performance wise they seem to have taken a
lot of the kinks out of all of their vehicles, but it’s too early to tell the
longevity of any of the new models. That
being said I will dive into the underwhelming 2012 Ford Fusion. As per usual this post is about a car that is
used in a rental car fleet so all of the features are going to be standard, no
high-end fancy shmancy options here.
I like to start with the way the car looks
on the outside, considering that is the first thing you notice about a car, but
the 2012 Ford Fusion has little to nothing to say about the exterior view. It is not ugly but it does not stand out
either, which could be a good thing if you live in a place where you don’t want
to attract extra attention. If the Fusion was a person they would be Plain
Jane, not ugly but nothing to write home about either.
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| I wouldn't be able to pick it out of a crowd. |
Moving on, the Fusion has a nice sized trunk, and like the
exterior there is really noting special about it, not too big and not too
small. Going into the interior of the
vehicle is a different story. First, the
back seats go down, making more room for luggage or people or whatever you are
into, not unusual. What is pretty awful
are the seats themselves. The fabric
that was used in this car was just awful!
It is not nice to touch and feels almost scratchy, I can’t imagine how
horrible it would feel against the skin during the summer if you were wearing a
tank top and shorts. And that’s not all,
whatever foam or stuffing is used for the seats does not hold up well at
all. It felt like pieces of the foam had
broken off from one another and you could just pull it apart. The foam and the
fabric combine in a terrible way and the seats have started to pucker and
crease, making it look almost cracked. These
were obvious poor choices made by Ford, and considering this is only a 2012 can
you imagine how terrible it will look in 5 or 10 years? Granted, you can argue that rental cars see a
lot more action than a car owned by the typical driver, but I think that fact
gives you a good look in the future and see how the car will age, and these
seats will not stand up to the test of time.
Seriously bad choice, Ford.
Another bad choice made for the Fusion is the type of
material used for the floor of this car.
Devotees will notice that I have commented on this subjected quite a
bit, and most of the time the floor fabric is the same, presumably cheap
felt-like material that gets nappy quickly.
The reason why I bring it up now is because the material in the Fusion
seems to be even worse than the usual stuff!
If the usual stuff is cheap we can safely assume Ford found this material
from some guy hanging out in the back of an alley. It doesn’t seem to me as nappy, but it gets
matted and prickly and quite ugly. I
think if your shoes were wet and muddy it would probably destroy the floor of
this car.
The back does have an armrest/cup holder that comes down and
sits between the two back seats. The cup
holders have a rubber liner on the bottom that you can take out which is a feature
I like very much because it makes it easier to clean them, and I definitely
wanted to mention this because it is the first cup holders in the back armrest
that have had a liner in them that I have encountered. Something that I find very odd in comparison
to the other cars I have reviewed so far is the fact that there are no cup
holders in the back doors, which is a feature I was starting to assume was in
all of the newer cars, but jokes on me I suppose because we all know what
assuming does… I assume we all know that saying.
Moving up from the disaster that is the back, shows that
Ford made the same mistakes with the awful material for the seats, seat
stuffing, and floors in the front that were in the back. The middle cubby is lidded with a small sized
compartment, but what is odd about it is that the lid is covered in leather and
it is the only piece of leather found in the vehicle. It stand out as pretty strange and I don’t
know if Ford was trying to class up the joint, but it just doesn’t work. Another oddity of this cubby is that inside,
on the side that is closest to the front of the vehicle you will find a 12 volt
AC jack and an AUX port. I call it an
oddity because I think that is such a strange place for an AUX port, why not
just next to the radio? Why make it so
difficult to find? It’s a bother for me
because customers can never find the stupid thing and so they come back in and
complain that it doesn’t have one, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t
satisfying when I go out with them, show them where it is, and prove them
wrong. It is also a strange place for an
AC jack, but there is another one in the car we will get to, so it’s not that
bad. One important thing to know is that
there is no USB port in the 2012 Ford Fusion! The space between the two front
seats includes two standard cup holders (with removable liner!), shifter, and parking
brake. It is rather narrow but I like
that because it is no-nonsense and gives the driver and passenger more room on
the seats, even if those seats aren’t that comfy against the skin and the foam
is dying.
Starting at the base of the middle console is another 12
volt AC jack along with a very small and very shallow space that can really fit
nothing more than like 3 pennies, and I don’t think Ford even meant for anyone
put anything there, it must be purely design aka useless. Above that there are the temperature controls
which are easy to understand but are so clunky and take up so much space! The radio controls are equally large and
cumbersome, which leads me to believe Ford just ran out of things to put in
this car. The whole clunky button
ensemble makes it unappealing to look at and I wouldn’t want to pay money for a
car and not even like looking at it.
Above the ugly buttons is the actual radio display which feels very
antiquated given our modern cars. It is
very small and narrow and really only displays the time or the station you are
on (and presumably track number of a CD, but I don’t really know that because I
wasn’t listening to a CD). Some might
like harkening back to a simpler radio, others may think it’s too old, and
still others might not care at all.
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| You can see the clunky buttons and small radio. |
Above the radio is a
wide, shallow, square compartment that opens with a button, and is the only compartment
I have seen of that kind in a vehicle. Its size and more especially its placement
is what makes it unusual and for a little while I wondered what you would put
in it, but then I thought it was the perfect place for CDs, but really you
could put whatever you wanted in it, and pressing a button to make something
open is always satisfying.
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| Apparently Ford wants you to keep your sunglasses and some unknown object (school fire alarm?) in there. |
The steering wheel is large with buttons for cruise controls
settings on the left and media controls on the right. It is not an especially pretty lay out, but
it is easy to understand and ultimately that makes it effective. I mean, do you really want to struggle with
poorly placed buttons when trying to make sure you don’t rear end that jerk who
just cut you off even though you kind of want to because that would show him! The Ford Fusion has what is called Microsoft
Sync, which is what Ford calls its Bluetooth and you can find it in pretty much
all new Ford vehicles. I don’t care for
Sync though because it is not easy to use or set up, even when you Google it
you get a bunch of people asking how to even get it started. I don’t know why Ford couldn’t just make the
cars with an easy to connect Bluetooth system that you find in other cars like
all new models Kia.
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| Not great to look at but gets the job done. |
On the left side of the speedometer, gas, odometer, etc.
display there is a slide out ashtray; I mention this because it is so odd to
see a true, designated ash tray in new cars, which is a good thing because
smoking is nasty and smoking in your car makes it nasty, too. Rental car companies even put a little “no
smoking” sticker in the bottom of the tray that you see when you pull it
out. A word to the wise though if you do
smoke, do not smoke in a rental car or you will be charged a couple
hundred dollars – it’s no joke because it makes cleaning that car very
difficult. A small detail I like about
this car is that all of the display lights are blue, which I found is nice on
your eyes when driving at night.
I have a bit more experience driving a Fusion than other
cars in the fleet because I drove to training in other locations, so I spent a
total of 5 ½ hours in one. The steering
is fluid with a little resistance, but nothing that could count as difficult to
drive or that it feels like you’re pulling it through syrup (trust me, some
cars, like the Nissan Altima, do feel like that). While you’re driving you can feel the road in
your feet but it doesn’t travel up through the wheel, making it a comfortable
driving experience. The turning radius leaves
something to be desired, especially for a car that isn’t as big or long as a
Chevy Impala or Kia Optima, but you’re most likely not going to have to do three
point turns in the parking lot any time soon.
The physical act of driving is pretty good in the 2012 Ford
Fusion but there are so many awful choices Ford made with this car that are not
only ugly but they will also not last long.
The interior construction doesn’t seem like it will age well at all and
the design is not pleasing to the eye. I
am calling this a no go, do not buy this car.
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