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jeff_h

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jeff_h last won the day on December 7 2014

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  1. I agree with the above, I think the author of the article is full of crap on most of his claims. Our first plug-in was my wife's 2013 Fusion Energi, then I also got one so we had his-n-hers for a couple years, then I moved to a Volt, then Bolt, now Kia Niro. Our (mostly mine since I have a long commute) total miles among those since 2013 is about 430k miles total among those cars. 210k of those are in pure EV which is a lot of skipped oil changes and the only maintenance I do is replace tires at the same rate as an ICE car (just replaced them a few weeks ago and got 75k on the OEM set). The PP above is right, most EV owners charge at home at night with a L2 charger (and the author is full of it, a Tesla can charge on a L2 charger as well and do NOT need a 75A charger at home) and only need to stop at the high speed chargers on rare occasions. If you live in an apartment building or would otherwise have to rely on using the high speed chargers on a routine basis, personally I think you're nuts to have an EV as your only method of transportation. IMHO the best mix for a 2-vehicle household is an EV for one and an ICE or PHEV for the other so when it's time to take a long trip then you leave the EV at home. Probably the most common question of those who have never had an EV is "well don't ya have to replace the battery every few years?" because everyone's done that every few years in their ICE for forever so it's the mindset, but like the PP above stated it's only needed if there's some failure of some type. As long as the High Voltage Battery (HVB) is liquid cooled (we loved our Fusion Energis but the HVBs were air cooled and the heat killed their capacity over a few years, like with the earlier Nissan Leaf models) then that battery should last for many years. And on reliability, I think the author is also full of it there, at least from my own experience. Of all the miles we've driven the biggest EV-related problem we encountered was the HVB cooling fan went out on my Fusion Energi and was replaced under warranty and out of the shop 2 days later... so ours have been very very reliable. EVs are definitely not for everyone but for those who have purchased them most are very satisfied and this AAA survey said 96% of EV owners would buy/lease another the next time they need another vehicle (https://magazine.northeast.aaa.com/daily/life/cars-trucks/electric-vehicles/buying-electric-cars/) which is a pretty high rate and if an EV was such a PITA the rate would be far lower.
  2. Here's a pic from my 2010 FFH, as you can see at least one of the TPMS sensors had gone bad but the High Voltage Battery (HVB) was just fine. That pic is a couple years old and the car is now owned by friends, so it has about 325k miles now, HVB still fine. I've had plugins for 9 years now and when people hear "battery" they tend to think in terms of the 12V battery under the hood that needs replacement every 4-5 years, but that's not the case with the HVBs that are in hybrids and plugins and as long as something isn't defective they can last a long time.
  3. I think that depends on each state what they can deem as "new" - when I bought my Fusion Energi in MD it was a demo with 2k miles (I paid $11k under MSRP) and the finance guy showed me the form that said that in MD a car could still be considered "new" as long as it had less than 7,500 miles and had never been titled - but the finance guy is the one that told me the rule varies by state.
  4. I thought they recently stopped Fusion production at Flat Rock - the below page says that Mustang and Continental are current models and Fusion is a past model. https://www.at.ford.com/en/homepage/news-and-clipsheet/plants/na/flat-rock.html
  5. Thanks - from looking at online inventory of various dealer stock builds it looks like about 90% of them are built with the 2.0L and very few with the 1.5L.
  6. Thanks - we've already test driven both and both seem fine, but I remember a few years ago the Escape with 1.6L had some recalls and while I haven't seen any posts about similar things posted here on the forum regarding either the 1.5L or the 2.0L, I figured I would ask.
  7. I am planning on ordering a 2017 Escape for my wife, and wondering if we should spend the extra $1,295 for the 2.0L engine. We will order 4WD but not the towing package as we will never use it to tow anything, so I don't think we need the additional power. I'm just wondering if one engine or the other is better in the way of reliability and performance/smoothness. Thanks
  8. I guess I'm special as one of the 5% as I normally do retail orders, and yeah I know a dealer wants to make a sale today vs one in a couple months, but after I spend days/weeks/whatever searching online for specs and know exactly what I want, I don't like somebody else trying to talk me out of it. Back in 2012 when I ordered a Fusion it worked out perfectly: dealer was great and placed order same day, I got my cyberdman updates here so I knew the progress and things worked perfectly - all dealer had to do was input the order, do PDI when it came off the truck, have me come in and sign the papers and off I went as a happy customer and will be back to them. A different dealer on another purchase tried the same crap as noted on the OP's post, tried telling me why I didn't want this or that or should instead get X because it matched what they had in stock, I said no thanks and walked away and won't be back as I'm the customer and don't want to be told what *I* want. But I guess there are plenty of "I want it now" types that will just go with whatever so they can drive the car off the lot right away, to me that's fine for a rental car for a weekend but not for one that I will own for several years.
  9. This reminded me of a thread from a couple years ago (just looked back on it, 139 pages!) when another guy was waiting for his Fusion to arrive at his dealer near Chicago... and based on the way he wrote his posts he was probably not the type that was easy at all to get along with -- said his dealer was full of BS for not having the right info, had trouble navigating a locator thread with cyberdman, and then found some contacts for the trucking company that serviced that railhead to get his car to the dealer and told them how they better hurry up with his car, et etc... so instead of the typical 1-2 days or whatever (only based on watching various threads) for this guy's car to get to the dealer, he said it took 9 days. I wonder if calling everyone possible and demanding things had anything to do with that.... Anyway, I think now your truck is at the mercy of the trucking company while they schedule their deliveries to the various dealers in the area -- and hopefully yours is only a day or so away. Good luck.
  10. I used the below for my order, but that was over 2 years ago so things may have changed or no longer functional, but give it a try. When I got latest status on the cyberdman thread it did have the railcar number and I was able to call each day and get progress. Here's how to track your ETTX railcar. 1. Call CSX at 1-800-235-2352 2. When prompted for location or weight, press "1" on your phone for location. 3. When prompted for the car initials, say ETTX then wait for the next prompt. OR key in 32-81-81-92 (for ETTX)(letter and position on your phone) 4. When prompted for the car number, say or key in your 6-digit ETTX car number 5. When prompted for next car say DONE. And one thing I remember from someone else's post a while back, if the system says that it doesn't recognize the input and says it will xfer you to a customer service rep, just hang up as a customer service rep would say that they can't give out info for personal requests and that's that. Good luck.
  11. Yes a demo can be a very good deal - my 2013 Energi has an MSRP of $44k but I bought it with 2k miles on it for $32k, and then was still able to take the $4k fed plug-in rebate at tax time.
  12. There may not be that much contact area for the tape, but it is very sticky as I discovered when putting on one of mine and making slight contact with about 1" x ¼" of area and then needing to pull it back off and straighten it -- that stuff is super sticky. Once I repositioned it and pressed down hard and held for 60 seconds as it noted in the instructions, it felt very secure and in a couple weeks the blue one will hit the two-year mark and still on very securely. So people may prefer the appearance of one over the other, but I don't think the secureness of the adhesive should be a concern. That may change in a couple more years, who knows, but thus far it is still attached very securely.
  13. I visited there in 2012, stayed at the Comfort Inn (20061 Michigan Ave) that was about a mile or two away IIRC, hotel was in good shape when I stayed there and was about $80 per night.
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