2008 Ford Fusion SE 2.3
Summary:
Unreliable
Faults:
Oil pan gasket leaked at 17k miles.
Brake master cylinder failed at 20k miles.
A/C failed at 23k miles.
General Comments:
Brake master cylinder failed and was replaced twice ($400). Still the car's brakes will become soft at random. I suspect something is wrong with the ABS HCU.
Air discharge temperature sensor in the A/C failed at 22k miles, leaving me without cooling. It turned out to be a common problem for the Ford Fusion. The sensor itself is like $30, but to replace it you have to take the whole dashboard off, which is about six hours of work. A mechanic would charge about $600 for that.
Gas mileage is very disappointing for this four cylinder car. I am not getting anything near advertised. I get like 17-19 MPG in the city and 24 MPG on the freeway.
The car itself is heavy and underpowered.
The oil change procedure differs from other cars - it has a cartridge oil filter and drain plug behind two flimsy plastic doors. Service station people always break them or forget to put them in place. Also, with a cartridge filter it is possible to not to put an oil filter in and just screw the plug back in. That happened to me - I was running for half a year without an oil filter, to discover that only at the next oil change.
Overall Ford still needs to improve a great deal. The notion that "Ford have improved over last years" and "Fusion is a competitor to Camry" has no substance to it. I also own a Honda Civic, and it did not give me such problems for 10 years of operation. Should have stayed with Japanese cars.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? No
Review Date: 23rd December, 2013
19th Sep 2014, 12:38
Thanks for providing us readers with an accurate review of the Ford Fusion and providing us with information as to what owning one is really like. Sounds like the Ford products my family has owned in the past to me. Under-engineered and cost-cut to the point of cheapness.
21st Aug 2019, 13:11
Do you always make decisions based on one bad review? So the reviewer had a bad experience. I have read plenty of other reviews of owners calling this a great car. No matter what you buy, there's always a bad one in a bunch. And Ford has both good and bad.
21st Aug 2019, 19:51
That car was a big hit for Ford when that came out around 2005/2006. Sold 142,000 cars right out of the gate in 2006. And it's true the 2006-2009 had a few issues, so if you buy used those problems will have to be addressed. So you have to get it cheap enough to do all those little repairs to it.
Starting in 2010, the sales took off again to about 219,000 sales, so the factory was pressed to the limit and some of those models had a lot of issues. And comparing it to a bread and butter car like Toyota Camry isn't really fair. Toyota puts a ton of money and research into its new model Toyota Camrys. The Ford Fusion is a great little bang for the buck car when you get it cheap enough and do the repairs it needs.
19th Sep 2014, 04:26
Our 2008 Ford Fusion I4 has been the most reliable car I have ever owned and we love it. We have over 100,000 km on it and have only replaced the brakes once, but is in need of new rotors now and the battery was just replaced July 2014.
We have owned this car since new, and the only other problem is the driver's inside door handle has broken inside the door. A common problem and an easy fix.
I expect some issues to creep up in the next few years, like timing belt, CV joints, that sort of thing, but I can't say enough about this car. It has been lady driven, but I'm not sure that's such a good thing.
After three grand children and a lot of city driving, we couldn't be more pleased.