VonoreTn

The bad news is I can't even see it under the hood, much less replace it. The good news is the owners manual says the filter will last the lifetime of the car. Not that I would ever consider it, but drafting a truck in the rain is hard on air filters....

Gambling is when you spend money with a chance of getting nothing in return. Everything else is an investment where you get something back.

By that logic, fire insurance on your house is gambling.

Here is my data on my FFH since it was new, as an attached file below (click to enlarge):

The average fuel cost per 100 miles has been $5.71.

The last 4 entries have been expressway driving with the AC on, where it is harder to keep the mileage at 40. I observe that hills are harder on the mileage than AC, since we went from Knoxville to Austin the southern route, (entries 3 & 4 through Montgomery, Al), whereas we returned through a more hilly route (entries 5 & 6 through Memphis, Tn.) . The readings of the Fusion computer were very close to the calculated numbers. Our typical highway speed was 65-70 mph.

I assume that the mpg's would have been slightly better if we were burning pure gasoline versus the 10% ethanol that you get almost everywhere, but of course, there is not much you can do about that.

You've been buying the wrong cars.

I hear that and agree. The cash for clunker vehicle I turned in for my Fusion HEV was a 2000 Ford Explorer 4WD Eddie Baurer ($4650 clunker value including the scrap value), with 186,000 miles on it, that I'd had for 10 years. In that time the only expensive repair I had was a fuel pump went out on the road at 175,000 miles, which cost me one extra day in Roswell, NM and $500 at the Roswell Ford dealer. Being an engineer, I did all the maintance myself including brakes, and nothing was ever over $100. And of course no one warranties a car at that mileage anyway. But that was a conventional technology vehicle. This HEV is a little scary with it's brand new high technology stuff.

Kirby,

What you are saying is that you are being your own insurance company, by tracking all the times you didn't buy the warranty, and putting the money in a virtual fund. That plan definitely has common sense merit, I do that with TV's and appliances, everything but laptop computers for my daughter when she was in college, because we came out way ahead with the extended plans on those.

However, I have a friend who had a 04 Toyota 4 runner SUV, where he didn't get the warranty. He takes good care of his vehicles, always maintained and in a garage. At 76,000 miles his navigation system got finicky, unreliable, and he was unable to control his radio and climate control with it. The Toyota dealer where he bought it wanted $6000 for a new one. He complained that he had only paid $2000 extra for the feature initially, and told them to take it out and give him a conventional climate control and radio. They said that would cost even more, because they would have to take the entire main electrical harness out of the car.

He was very upset about the situation, and over a period of maybe 6 months, and working with a different more sympathetic dealer, he got a special one time deal from Toyota to replace it for $1800, which he gladly took them up on. His next vehicle was a Ford product, which he is very happy with, but he did get the extended warranty. I guess my point is that these electrical devices have no easy fix when they go, and they are expensive.

Now I have a question for all: How good are these non-dealer warranties? Does your vehicle still get fixed at the dealer? Does anyone have experience with an actual claim? I didn't get one yet, but our FFH is less than a month old so I might yet get one, and these lower priced ones sound like a good deal.....but I wonder how they are implemented.

I just bought a brand new computer for $450. Parts are even cheaper.

 

I have saved well over $7000 on my last 5 vehicles by not buying an extended warranty. I'm more than happy to pay $3000 for a repair - I'm still $4000 ahead.

 

 

 

Speak for yourself.

That number will continue to get better as you put on more miles. I had the same situation, it took me awhile to get that long term average over 40, but it is now at 800 miles, a quarter tank down on my second tank of gas. You are probably aware that you can reset the average MPG that is displayed on the upper right of the IP using the reset function. It's just the long term that shows up in the one trip summary that has a bad start to it, probably from running the engine for some time at the plant accomplishing zero miles. I am not sure if there is a way to reset that number. If anyone knows, let me know. (disconnect the ICE 12 VDC battery?)

While I am pleased with the mileage I have to admit I am really curious how those professional drivers got 80 mpg in a production FFH. I don't see any easy way to get even 50 mpg on a tank, other than going only on a 45 mph flat road, where you can keep it in electric mode for maybe half the time.

It will be interesting to see if with time and development, they can move the 47 mph threshold for shifting out of electric mode up to like 65, so you could get outstanding MPG on the highway without causing a traffic jam. Any time you can shut off that ICE that's only working at 30% efficiency, it's a big plus for mileage.

I've only driven about 120 miles so far, and I'm less than a quarter of the way through the dealer's first tank of gas, so I can't provide a very accurate mpg.

 

I'm mainly doing short city commutes to/from work, at about 5 miles per trip, so my mileage probably is not as high as it could be. The computer says that my trips are ranging from mid 30s to mid 40s, but mostly around 41 or 42. 46.1 was the highest I've racked up so far.

 

I'm not sure how the computer calculates overall average mpg, but it is strange. I think this value started in the teens, and has slowly crept up from there. After 120 miles, I'm now up to 34mpg, even though every single-trip average has exceeded that. I wonder why it takes a while for the overal average to "catch up?" It's like I'm being averaged against some zeros, or something.

Jon,

I should have clarified that the 8 and 15 hp were the numbers we dialed into a windtunnel AC test as to how much drag to put into the drive wheel rolls. So it would be just the HP used to hold 40 and 60 mph, not including the engine HP used to drive the waterpump, alternator, powersteering pump, and the AC compressor. Also not including the driveline loss between the engine and the wheels. And of course not including the 70% of the engine energy that goes to heat, most of which is dumped to the air through the radiator.

One advantage the FFH has it it's electric power steering. Almost all hydraulic steering systems have belt driven pumps that run at a minimum of 60 to 100 psi, even when no steering manuevers are occuring. The torque on the pumps to maintain this pressure is a total waste, a true parasitic loss. It didn't used to be that high in the 70's with the old linkage PS systems. It's a bad way to get the stiff on center feel that everyone wants with a rack and pinion PS system.

My understanding is that the variable speed electric compressor actually draws less power from the hybrid system than if it was mechanically connected. This is mainly because the high-voltage system is already in-place for the drive components. The real question is how long are your driving segments? The most power is used for the initial cabin cool-down and engine warm-up. If your drives are short then you will see this mileage continue.

 

 

VonoreTn:

I know that 15 hp is the "gold standard" used in engineering for a compact car with good aerodynamics, but I don't know how big a compact car is when used for this formula. I would assume that a Fusion and Taurus would be more of a midsize. I've been trying to make the conversion from Amp Hours on the parasitic load side to hp on the ICE since all the energy comes from the ICE whether direct or reclaimed but it isn't that easy given all the variables.

 

Jon

Ok...now I'm jealous. I just rolled over 1,500 miles on my FFH and am still on my 4th tank. My average so far is 28.5. So I guess I win the award for lowest possible mileage. Now to clarify, it's been 110 - 115 degrees over the last few weeks so the a/c is on full blast 100% of the time. Even though my mpg is lower than everyone's, it is still double my last car so I'm very pleased. I can only assume that when summer ends, my mpg will increase dramatically.

My experience working at Ford as an engineer in accessory drive, air conditioning and engine tells me that you can be using 6 hp of power at the compressor, running your air conditioner on a day as you describe, 110F. Since it only takes about 8 hp to keep a Taurus running without AC at 40 mph on a flat road, and 15 hp at 60 mph, it is easy to see that a car air conditioner load will be in the same magnitude range as keeping the car moving. Now you add the inefficiency of running the air conditioner compressor with an electric motor instead of directly off the engine, and you have some serious parasitic loss. I'd say be grateful for the cold air and the 29 mpg, and hope for cooler weather.

We just got our Fusion Hybrid August 20. Only data so far is 526 miles, 12.29 gallons, 42.9 mpg. Impressions: The gas engine comes on when it's gonna come on, I don't seem to have much control of it. A light throttle foot correlates with good mileage, based on resetting the mpg gauge a few times in that 526 miles, despite speed, hills, traffic or other variables that can ruin your mpg on a regular car. When I say despite hills, I mean assuming your whole trip is not up-hill. You can't' fight physics. It has ample power for our purposes, basic transportation.

I am surprised at how little I can see of any part of the electric motor under the hood. There are covers on everything, they obviously don't want you messing with this powertrain. Even though I'm a engineer, and installed a supercharger on our Mustang, our second car, I have no plans to tamper with this car, ever.

There is like a fan that comes on before the engine comes on, I'm guessing its the AC condenser fan, and it seems to be really loud. I may have to have that looked at.

So far we like the car a lot. My Wife is really into trying to get the mileage as high as possible on every trip. Once we get used to this kind of mileage, it will be hard to go back to a 20 mpg vehicle. We have a 2000 mile plus trip coming up in a week, we should have more impressions and data after that.