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General Comments:

No Milan reviews yet? Is no one buying these things? Wow, things are even worse for FoMoCo than I thought...

Well, I got this Milan after my 1995 Buick Riviera bent me over for the 4th and last time, before it even had 95,000 miles on it, so I said enough is enough.

I decided to lease this Milan after seeing the 0 down, 0 first month's payment promotion from Mercury back in April. I'm also covered bumper to bumper for the duration of the lease, so I don't have to worry about anything.

When I was carless, I had to walk past a Milan AWD Premier every day on my way to the subway, and really liked the styling. I did a ton of research online between this, the Camry, the Accord, and a few others, but decided the Milan was the car for me.

It's very comfortable inside, lots of room. My model has everything except the nav system, which I really had no interest in.

There are only three things I have minor issues with:

1) Mercury should have taken the leap and gone with push-button ignition. As the keys are in the steering column now, they bang against my leg and it's a little annoying.

2) The brushed aluminum accents can sometimes reflect a heck of a lot of glare - why this never crossed anyone's mind when they were putting the interior together is beyond me.

3) The driver's seat bottom is power-adjustable in every direction, but the seatback isn't - you have to pull the release handle and then manually adjust it. Even then, it doesn't spring forward automatically, so you have to reach back and pull the whole seatback forward.

Also, the view out the rear window is a little compromised, but that's dictated by the styling, and the sort of 'raised-rear' that the car has.

Oh yeah, the Audiophile stereo has bass to spare, but seems to lack a bit of high-end treble.

The trunk is huge, the rear seats fold down, and the front passenger seat folds down. There is no shortage of space to cram stuff into this car.

The Milan zips around and hugs the corners really well. It's night and day compared with my Riviera, which was great in a straight line, but bobbed and swayed on every turn.

I'm still getting used to the torque band and the shift points though. As it revs up to 3K on the tach in 1st gear, it almost feels like a 4-cylinder. When it gets up through the top of 2nd and into 3rd, you really get thrust forward, almost like turbo lag. I'm not saying this is really a bad thing, just that it's quite different than my Rivi's 3.8L V6, which felt like a V8 in first and 2nd gear.

The exterior has some great lines without getting carried away. Love the wheels - fancy enough to not be plain, but not so extreme as to look like ridiculous rims. One time, I was filling up and a car of 4 or 5 college-type people pulled up behind, and one said 'sweet Milan dude!', and gave me the thumbs-up. I was pretty surprised, since I didn't get the Milan as some trophy car or anything. The view from behind is pretty sweet though.

My one major gripe right now is the fuel economy. It's rated as 19-city, 29-highway. I realize those are government estimates, but I'm averaging 16.2 MPG in the 600 miles I've driven so far. About 60% of those miles were city, and the rest were highway and mixed. Hopefully, this is just because the engine is not broken in. I'm sure going to hope so. Even my semi-boat of a Riviera was getting 21.5 MPG.

Still, I'm very happy with this Milan. It's much easier of course to write about the negatives than the positives. If I had to list every positive, this review would be longer than a Strom Thurmond filibuster. Well, maybe not THAT long, but pretty long.

Parting thought - If other people are going to post on this new Milan entry, please please please don't turn it into a foreign vs. American debate!!! I had to weed through miles of that stuff on the Camry, Fusion, and Accord pages while I was trying to research which car I should buy. Thanks.