Camride

Yes, these are mostly first year car issues. I'm not throwing Ford under the bus on this because first model years are always hard, it's rare for one to go really smoothly, especially for a car that's sold in the volume level of the Fusion. I will avoid first model years going forward though. I haven't had time to schedule an appointment yet with a dealer, I need to do that soon. I did have a very similar experience as JScullin a few days ago though. Same issue from 2nd to 3rd, except instead of hesitating it just did nothing, revs started to drop like I had taken my foot off the accelerator (in the middle of a turn). After almost 2 seconds it thudded back into gear and kept going but like I was barely giving it any gas. I let off for a few seconds and when I got back on the gas it went like normal.

No trans whining, but I do have a coolant leak now.

I don't have the room for two cars for myself (wife needs some room, I couldn't get away with kicking her out of the garage) so I need one car that it'll do it all. I'm planning on getting a 2008 BMW M5, but I'll have to sell the Fusion first. I'll end up getting some kind of cheap beater to drive until I find the right M5 as I don't want to rush into that purchase. But a 507hp V10 should do well enough to make my speed demon happy.

Not trading for a '14, I'll likely be getting another car. I'll sell mine privately so I don't get screwed out of a few grand trying to trade it in. I'm using this as an excuse to get a much better/nicer/faster (though slightly older) car. I had always been told not to get a 1st model year car, but I figured that was an old saying. Looks like it still holds true. And FWIW I'm not just getting rid of the car because of the issues. It's just not fun enough to drive for me. I don't have a motorcycle anymore to get my speed fix and I thought the Fusion would be ok, but it's just not fun to drive hard.

The issue is *almost* reproducible if I'm taking a hard left while it tries to shift from 2nd to 3rd. I have a traffic light that's near my house that if I'm first in line and take it at a decent speed (hard left) it will almost always hesitate and thunk into 3rd. It also looks like I'm losing coolant.... Went on a trip to SC and noticed before I left that the coolant was about an inch below "min". I filled it back up and I'm going to see if it drops again. If it does I've got to take it back to the dealer and see if they can check the trans issue again. Might be looking for a new car soon.

I wonder if the cooler weather is going to impact these issues or not. It seemed like mine was worse when it was really hot out, maybe the trans has insufficient cooling for the summer months?

http://www.blueovalforums.com/forums/index.php?/topic/54620-trans-issues/

Mine is getting pretty bad as well. I even ran the heat on high last night (with the windows down, thankfully it was cool last night) with the AC off to try to clear the smell out. Started the car this morning (with the AC still off) and it's still there. I've only taken it to the dealer once for this issue and they did the same as Riggo, sprayed some "disinfectant" and said they didn't smell anything or see any mold. It's odd to me that this is a common issue. Both my 2001 Audi A4 and my wife's 2004 Corolla have never had this issue, and we never turn the AC off except in the winter. I remember my dad telling me to do the whole "turn the AC off a few minutes before you stop" on older cars, but I assumed this was an issue that had been sorted out with newer cars.

Wow, they really engineered this car to make people take it to the dealer. That's the most complicated cabin air filter replacement I've ever seen. My Audi was simpler than that.

From what I've seen and heard so far it seems to be limited to the 2.0L EB (I'm assuming it uses a different trans than the 1.6L EB). I have a friend that got a Ti shortly after I did, I need to ask him if he's had any problems.

Jinx, no, the battery hasn't been disconnected ever as far as I'm aware. This didn't happen when the car was new, it started probably 2 months ago, so maybe ~9k miles? I have 11,000 on the car now. Mine is getting a little worse and starting to happen more often. I've never had a new car before so this is a bit disappointing to me. Also, completely unrelated, but I'm already noticing some small squeaks around the car and I'm getting the impression that the long term durability of this car may not end up being that great.

I thought I'd go ahead and start a thread on this. My car has started shifting badly on the 2nd to 3rd gear shift. It's absolutely horrible when cold, it actually feels like the car hit something. When it's warm it does it sometimes but not always (and not as bad). I did take it into the dealership when it first started doing this but it wasn't consistent and they said they couldn't reproduce it. It is getting worse, so I'm going to wait a few more weeks and take it back so that they can't dismiss it this time. I wanted to see who else was having issues. I heard from a friend that he's talked to two people that have new Fusions with trans issues, one specifically mentioning the 2-3 shift. I've heard some people here mention the Park to Drive shudder, though I don't often get that (and when it does happen it's not bad). I'm not going to lie, this makes me seriously reconsider keeping the car.

Well I have noticed absolutely no different in sluggishness loading screens. Most of the other changes weren't a big deal for me (minus being able to touch the entire quadrant on the home screen to get into a section) so I was really hoping the interface would have been snappier. Oh well, I guess I'll just hope the next update is better.

Mine does that sometimes too. My guess is that depending on what your last settings were the AC may need to stop blowing for a second to switch those settings from whatever it was doing in auto mode during the remote start. Total guess though.

Thanks! I got the update installed yesterday on the way home (it took a solid 30 minutes) and now haven't had a chance to drive it yet. I'll be looking forward to checking it out tomorrow though.

It still won't show the update for me. Anyone want to upload the file somewhere so I can grab it?

I'll try to remember to get a pic the next time I change my oil. The 2.0L is pretty horrible, there is barely enough space to get your hand on it.

Got my car back from the dealership yesterday, bit of a disappointing trip. I did get a base model Camry as a loaner, so I was very happy to get my car back (the Camry was a giant POS). Here are the things I dropped it off for and their response. Fuel Module Recall: Done Seatbelt sounded like it had gravel in it: Replaced Distortion in rear window: Said all the other Fusions on the lot looked the same and refused to replace it. After seeing someone here get theirs replaced and get one that was worse I think I'll just leave this one alone. Poor gas mileage/engine roughness under throttle: Their "gas mileage loop" returned 31mpg I'm sure they drove like a grandma. They also said they didn't notice any roughness or hesitation in the engine. Trans hard shift/shudder: Could not reproduce AC smell: Could not reproduce. Told me to turn the AC off for a few minutes before ending my trip but still ran some disinfectant through the AC. Now the ac smells like disinfectant, though I'm sure that will go away soon. Pretty annoying that I never had to do that with my 13 year old Audi. I'm going to do a quick look through the engine bay to see if there is maybe a vacuum hose leak or something, that's what it feels like when I'm decently hard on the throttle. As for the trans, I guess I'll just have to wait for it to get worse...

Wow, I wish you luck as well. I almost had to lemon law my wife's 2004 Corolla because they couldn't fix a battery drain issue. Four different dealerships and almost 3 weeks in the shop before the last one finally figured out the stereo head unit was bad. I'm honestly glad you're able to find something to lemon law the car with, the mileage alone should be enough.

Ahh, I never use the instrument panel for music, I leave that on AC controls all the time so I can change temp/fan from the steering wheel easily.

I've done mine once and as I have never needed a filter wrench/strap I had a hell of a time getting the stock filter off. I ended up doing the screwdriver trick and even with that it took forever since there is no room. I always do my own oil changes so I won't ever have to worry about that again, but it was pretty frustrating at the time. I plan on going about 10k miles between oil changes. I've done that with good oil on all my cars and have never had an issue.

They looked at mine today and said they couldn't see any mildew (though wouldn't confirm if they smelled it or not). They said they ran some disinfectant through just to make sure though, we'll see. He did recommend turning the AC off for the last few minutes while driving the car. I just realized that that might not even work as "turning" the AC off doesn't actually always turn it off. I've turned it off on a hot day and continued to get cool air from the car for a solid 5 minutes before I turned it back on (and felt no difference either time).

That has always annoyed the crap out of me, I'm glad that's fixed. This works when I use the stock media player or Google Music on my phone, but it does not work with Spotify. I imagine it's hit or miss with some apps. I think the failure point there is on the app side though, as the car obviously supports it, even in 3.5

Ok, I put a new ROM on my phone and it seemed to help tremendously. I still got a single hiccup when first playing music though, so I went through the settings and noticed that the auto download phonebook was set to on. I turned that off and no hiccup, the music plays as soon as the phone connects without issue. Can someone else that's having the problem try turning that off and see if it helps? I don't know how much of this fix was changing the OS on my phone vs the phonebook setting.

Stupid Sync page is telling me I'm "up to date". I guess they're not rolling it out to everyone at once.