22nd Sep 2009, 14:48

I have had a new 2009 Milan AWD Premier for about 7000 miles. I love it! I was planning to get another Subaru, but the 2009 Legacy had a serious shortage of leg room. The Milan has all the comfy space we need and a bigger trunk.

I love the handling. The transmission chooses gears well enough that I'm surprisingly content with just D and L. (I haven't driven down long steep hills, though, so I'm still curious about that...) It averages 24 mpg in a mix of slightly more highway than city. Disappointing, but not sufficient reason to choose a different car. It does better on the highway, but only after it is completely warmed up.

My only real complaint is about the angle of the front head restraints. They are too far forward from the seat back, putting a kink in my neck. Does anyone else think this is odd? I had a local welder fix that.

Reliability ratings suggest this car should last a long time, and I enjoy it enough to keep it 10-15 years. I used to prefer foreign cars, but this Milan is better than most of my 23 previous cars, including the 1970 BMW. I like it more now than I did when I bought it.

16th Nov 2009, 13:37

Original posted here... Wow - I don't know if changing the headrest angle was a good idea. The increased angle was done for a reason: rear impact whiplash protection. It wasn't meant to be comfortable, it was meant to appease the insurance industry. Heaven forbid you get rear-ended and suffer a neck injury. It wouldn't look too good to have tampered with the headrests...

25th Jan 2010, 14:26

I recently acquired a 2007 Milan Premier V6 AWD in CANADA! I researched since last August, and waited and watched. I saw one on an auto site, but when I contacted the dealer, they apologized for leaving the listing up as the car had been sold. They seemed willing to import from the US, as they were very close to the border. I continued to watch, and finally found one less than 1 mile from my house!

I love this car! I've been driving a 1999 Contour SVT, so the Milan's performance, although reduced, isn't a big disappointment. The interior space, features and looks more than outweigh any slight reduction in performance.

27th Feb 2011, 19:49

One of my friends also has a Milan V6, and he's lucky to get 15 MPG (although he uses it almost entirely for city driving). It has almost 50k miles on it, so it's not because the engine's still being broken in.

Other than that, it's an awesome car though. :D

24th Jun 2011, 10:28

Original poster here for the final time. I feel the need to bookend my original post...

Sadly, my last day with the Milan was May 30, 2010. I was hit head on by a drunk in a '93 Olds while stopped at a red light at 2 in the morning. I was 15 minutes from home after a 12 hour drive from Toronto to Boston. The Olds' airbags deployed, but the Milan's did not, although I don't think they needed to, and I'm sure it was for the best that they didn't. Aside from some whiplash, I was OK. The Milan was pretty crushed though. Shockingly, it was able to start, and even drove off of the median it was pushed onto by the impact to reach the tow truck. The Olds was a mess of airbag smoke and spilled fluids.

At the time, I had over 12,000 miles and still no problems. After all the highway miles from my trip to Canada, it was up to 22 mpg.

All in all, an excellent car that I would recommend to anyone. After $10,000 in post-accident repairs, the lease was up anyways, so it was bye bye Milan. At this point, I decided to realize my childhood dream of a sexy two-seater, so I bought a 2007 Pontiac Solstice, which I love beyond words. I think I'll write a review of it right now, in fact...

25th Jun 2011, 12:21

I will look for your Solstice review. Take care of that car, as it may very well become a classic. My condolences on the early demise of your Milan. The Milan/Fusion/MKZ are all incredibly good cars.

With regard to the fuel mileage, I have to say that buying one of these cars with the V-6 is somewhat of a waste of money. My family owns both an I-4 Fusion and a V-6 Lincoln MKZ (which does not come with the 4). The I-4 Fusion has ample power for any need, and in fact in normal driving seems just as fast and nimble as the MKZ. The average fuel mileage for the I-4 Fusion (per tank at fill-up) is between 26 and 31 mpg. It has gotten as high as 41.1 on the highway, driving the speed limit on level ground with the A/C off. That was with premium fuel (regular drops it by 2 mpg). The average for the V-6 MKZ is 15-19 mpg. It has never topped 25 mpg.

In my assessment sacrificing over 10 mpg for a barely noticeable difference in performance is a waste of car-buying dollars. I think Hyundai has gotten it right by dropping the V-6 entirely from most of its lines. 200 horsepower is plenty of power for mid-sized sedans.

1st Jul 2011, 17:19

After posting comment 12:21 I decided to do an actual test of our V-6 and I-4 to just see how much difference there was in real-world performance. There is a long entry ramp to the interstate not far from my house that I always use for acceleration tests on any car I am test driving. It has a white line at the start of the ramp, and converging white lines where the lane merges with the freeway. It is easy to compare speeds, because it is a clearly marked stretch of ramp.

From the beginning of the ramp to the merging point, the I-4 hit 91 mph. The V-6 hit 95. To me that 4 mph difference is neither a hindrance in performance nor a reason to pay thousands more and get much worse fuel mileage.

In addition, it took me fully 4 attempts to make the run in the V-6 without getting caught behind some clearly faster and more powerful car that was poking along. This further reinforces my point that paying more for unusable horsepower is a huge waste of money. No one ever uses the full potential of any car in real-world driving.

19th Jul 2011, 12:56

Hey, original guy in reply here... I completely 100% agree with you. Both my Solstice and my wife's Yaris are four bangers. When I pull out on to the street and mash it to get with the flow of traffic, it's a non-issue. And I once had the Yaris loaded with four people and merged from a standstill onto Storrow Drive in Boston (a pretty nutty road) easily. This auto industry lust with horsepower in everyday commuter cars is such a waste of resources (of course, I'm not referring to the HP war when it comes to Vettes, Mustangs, Camaros, etc. - that is awesome). They should care about one thing - fuel economy. No schmoe on his way to the grocery store needs more than a 10 second 0 to 60.