2014 Fusion SE FWD 1.5 EcoBoost Road Trip Review

The midsize sedan segment is a hot, competitive one with many entrants vying to generate bloated sales figures. The Ford Fusion does a convincing job of winning me over. 

Perhaps the best aspect of the Fusion is how seamless the riding experience is. Driving long distances is a cinch with the Fusion's pleasant balance of noise levels, ride comfort and interior space. 

That's not to say the Fusion is especially impressive in any of those areas. The tires over the typical whine over grooved pavement, and wind noise from the side windows could be suppressed better. The suspension is steady and controlled, yet it doesn't blow the passengers away in terms of isolation; bumps are felt somewhat acutely. 

Overall, though, riding in the Fusion is fairly serene in that there is no obtrusive characteristic and the car gives off a solid feel. 

The drivers (my parents) said the Fusion was easy to operate, with the exception of the touchy brakes that made stopping smoothly a challenge. Power is adequate from the 1.5-liter, turbocharged 4-cylinder engine. 

After the roughly 600-mile trip involving an even blend of highway and city driving, the trip computer displayed an average fuel economy of 28.4 miles per gallon. That's fairly good for a car this size.

Speaking of size, there is plenty of space for all passengers. The dashboard slopes away from the front seats, and the high center console doesn't intrude excessively. A shorter door opening due to the sloping roofline makes entering the backseat a pain in the neck (literally), but there is acceptable headroom and generous legroom for adults in the backseat. 

The Fusion and competing Mazda 6 are sloping-roof buddies.

In addition, the trunk is ridiculously deep. Unfortunately, the sloping roofline shows its ugly head again and impedes on the opening size. The short rear deck means the opening is almost completely vertical, like a really stubby station wagon hatch. 

Most surfaces of the interior looks and feel expensive. Upper-level plastic panels are soft to the touch, and even the lower panels looks rich in terms of graining and glossiness. But the interior doesn't come without its gripes... 

Piano black plastic is used liberally throughout the car, which looks nice under most circumstances. It's downfall is that the actual trim is extremely easy to scratch. When we got the car as a rental, the pieces were already scratched like a cat coincidentally decided to maul all shiny black plastic pieces. Daily use of the car during our time with it only made the scratches worse. It's as you could scratch the trim just by breathing on it. I would definitely recommend getting plastic protectors much like people get screen protectors for their smartphones. 

There is also this metallic wood-looking brown trim that runs along the top of the door panel. I think it's supposed to exude contemporaneity and fashion, but it just looks like cheap jewelry gone wrong. It's not difficult to spot the tiny black dots that were used to make the pattern in a similar way comic books get shading. It's pathetic.

On a more practical note, the grab handles that hang from the ceiling forces my knuckles into the headliner. I'm fairly sure this isn't because my knuckles are excessively large because this doesn't happen in other cars. 

Finally, the door handles look like polished metal units at first glance, but they are, of course, deceptive pieces of plastic. What's worse is that they are hollowed out so that they're shaped like upside-down taco shells. If you kept the door handles sticking out, you could stuff them with meat and veggies and make yourself door handle tacos. The point is, it's easy to tell the door handles are just empty pieces of plastic because the edges reveal the the hollow-ness due to the taco shapes.You might as well stick signs on each door advertising cost cutting. 

But wait, interior gripes don't end at just the physical elements. Particularly frustrating during my time with the Fusion were the animations on the radio screen. If you want to do anything using the stereo screen, it required you to go trough the many menus and submenus. Every time you click on something, the pixels on the screen complete a leisurely dance. The frustration of waiting for the pixels to finish dancing mounts up when you're trying to, say, change the bass setting. If this simple stereo is already so slow, I don't even want to imagine what the highly-complex MyFord Touch system is like to use. 

The slowness apparently also extends to the speakers as music sounds noticeably muddled. Playing with the settings in the fantastically lethargic menus did not help clarity. 

American quality? The hood doesn't fit correctly either. 
Also, notice the orange peel paint. It's pretty bad on the
rear bumper, but I forgot to snap a picture of it.

And despite the goodies on my test car like satellite radio, bluetooth, USB, and auxiliary inputs; leather seats that are heated in front, a memory driver's seat, automatic windows in all four doors, an automatic-dimming review mirror and more, it lacked expected features such as automatic climate control or a backup camera. 

All things considered, my complaints are minor in the grand scheme of things. The Fusion offers a comfortable experience that looks expensive inside and out. I'd say it feels more expensive than the roomier Passat and quieter Sonata, both of which I have reviewed. The Fusion definitely deserves a look among midsize sedan shoppers.