jdiaz Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 Hello everyone! I just bought a 2010 FFH with 80,000 miles on it and I'm excited to get to know the car and get up to speed on everything about it. I did allen84's fix to restore the hybrid EV function, and as far as I can tell it worked. I heard a click and no error messages popped up. However, I'm still only getting around 29MPG on this car, when I was expecting to get a lot more. Like I said, I just bought the car, so I'm not sure if it has been well taken care of, so I was wondering if you all had some suggestions to boost the MPG? I've been reading up and so far I have the below: 1. Tire alignment 2. Tire pressure (what's the ideal psi for this car? Is it the Ford-recommended one?) 3. Cleaning spark plugs Please let me know if these are good ideas and if not, what you would do instead! I was able to get a decent deal on the car so I have some money leftover to hopefully get it to optimal condition! Just for reference, I'm in the Southern California area, and temperatures are around 75-85 degrees right now. I've also tried driving the car for a couple hours to get past the warm-up period, with the same disappointing results of 29ish MPG. Thanks so much! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbf2530 Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 53 minutes ago, jdiaz said: Hello everyone! I just bought a 2010 FFH with 80,000 miles on it and I'm excited to get to know the car and get up to speed on everything about it. I did allen84's fix to restore the hybrid EV function, and as far as I can tell it worked. I heard a click and no error messages popped up. However, I'm still only getting around 29MPG on this car, when I was expecting to get a lot more. Like I said, I just bought the car, so I'm not sure if it has been well taken care of, so I was wondering if you all had some suggestions to boost the MPG? I've been reading up and so far I have the below: 1. Tire alignment 2. Tire pressure (what's the ideal psi for this car? Is it the Ford-recommended one?) 3. Cleaning spark plugs Please let me know if these are good ideas and if not, what you would do instead! I was able to get a decent deal on the car so I have some money leftover to hopefully get it to optimal condition! Just for reference, I'm in the Southern California area, and temperatures are around 75-85 degrees right now. I've also tried driving the car for a couple hours to get past the warm-up period, with the same disappointing results of 29ish MPG. Thanks so much! Hi jdiaz. Congratulations on getting your 2010 Fusion Hybrid, and welcome to the Ford Fusion Forum. It is impossible to know whether your mileage is good or bad without knowing your specific driving environment, habits, etc etc. For example, A/C use will obviously lower mileage. So will using the remote start. For example, Hybrids get better mileage in city driving than highway driving, the opposite of conventional engine cars. To answer your questions best as I can: 1. Yes, have it aligned. 2. Yes, use the recommended tire pressure on the drivers door placard. Go a few pounds higher if you wish. No more than 3-4 psi higher. It can help with mpg's and the change in ride will not be very noticeable. I would not recommend going higher than 3-4 psi over the Ford recommendation. 3. Replace them. Do you know if the spark plugs were ever replaced by the previous owner? If you are going to go through the trouble of removing the plugs, do not clean them. Replace them. Be sure to gap the new ones properly. They are not always gapped properly out of the box. Let us know how you make out and good luck. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdiaz Posted June 9, 2020 Author Share Posted June 9, 2020 2 hours ago, bbf2530 said: 1. Yes, have it aligned. 2. Yes, use the recommended tire pressure on the drivers door placard. Go a few pounds higher if you wish. No more than 3-4 psi higher. It can help with mpg's and the change in ride will not be very noticeable. I would not recommend going higher than 3-4 psi over the Ford recommendation. 3. Replace them. Do you know if the spark plugs were ever replaced by the previous owner? If you are going to go through the trouble of removing the plugs, do not clean them. Replace them. Be sure to gap the new ones properly. They are not always gapped properly out of the box. Let us know how you make out and good luck. Hi bbf2530. I'm gonna go ahead and do those 3 things, but any other suggestions are welcome! I don't know if the spark plugs were replaced by the previous owner, but seeing as the car has 79k miles and Ford doesn't suggest doing so until 100k, I don't believe they did. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allen84 Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 (edited) It's not a full hybrid car. Picture it as a gasoline car with a hybrid assist. Which is entirely controlled by how heavy and light you press the gas pedal. Being a lead foot won't help. On, your dashboard, you should choose and be on "empower" mode. You will be able to see the green EV box in real-time. This way, you can control the red line with your gas pedal, to stay within the green box. It's like a game. So you will be staring at the green EV box, but you also should keep your eyes on the road at the same time. Be safe about this. It takes time to get used to it. When you're driving the same route every day, you'll get familiar with the terrain of the road. You will figure out when you can ease up on the pedal or coast on a slight downhill, or lightly apply gas or coast on a flat road. Your battery charge meter, when it's close to around 60-75% charge (the fill meter filling past the little battery icon in the meter, should be enough), you can stay up to 47 mph on EV for maybe about a mile or more. Slowly lift your foot ever so slightly off the gas pedal and/or maintain speed but also gradually slowing down as well to coast as the battery level decreases. Your green EV box will get smaller as you milk the EV as much as you can. When you can't anymore and your battery level is around 30% or so, then you can slowly accelerate or press to medium strength your foot on the gas pedal to activate the engine to recharge the battery meter back up. Also, braking recharges it as well. It takes about 3-5 minutes of driving to recharge the battery. When you get back to 75%+ battery charge level, repeat the driving process again that I've explained above. Anticipate changing traffic lights from a distance, if you see the light changing yellow to red from a couple of hundred meters or more, start gradually braking to charge the battery meter as well for more EVing when necessary. Or coming to a red from a distance, coast or slow down gradually, but you don't have to come to a dead stop if you don't have to. As you get close to the red light, and it turns green, you're maintaining your speed, since you never had to accelerate from a full stop. Edited June 9, 2020 by allen84 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbf2530 Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 6 hours ago, allen84 said: It's not a full hybrid car. Picture it as a gasoline car with a hybrid assist. Which is entirely controlled by how heavy and light you press the gas pedal. Being a lead foot won't help. Hi allen84. Just wanted to correct one thing in your reply: You are confusing "full hybrid" with "full electric". The Fusion Hybrid is most definitely a "full hybrid". It is not a full electric car. By definition, a Hybrid car is a car with a conventional engine and electric/battery assist (not "hybrid assist"). That describes the Fusion Hybrid (and every hybrid car) exactly. That is what makes them a "Hybrid" (a mix/combination of multiple things). Hope that makes the difference clearer. Good luck. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdiaz Posted June 9, 2020 Author Share Posted June 9, 2020 13 hours ago, allen84 said: Your battery charge meter, when it's close to around 60-75% charge (the fill meter filling past the little battery icon in the meter, should be enough), you can stay up to 47 mph on EV for maybe about a mile or more. Slowly lift your foot ever so slightly off the gas pedal and/or maintain speed but also gradually slowing down as well to coast as the battery level decreases. Your green EV box will get smaller as you milk the EV as much as you can. Thank you for your response! I've been trying to do something similar to this but even if the charge meter is around 60-75% the EV box isn't that big and I can only keep the car on EV up to like 20 or 30mph max. Hence my concern and (I think) my overall low mpg. However, I will keep trying to do this and experiment with turning off the AC and other things and see if I notice any improvement. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lolder Posted June 10, 2020 Share Posted June 10, 2020 Don't bother to change the plugs unless it's "missing" or you have a trouble code. Make sure you are in "D", not "L". Normal EV/ICE cycling is about 1/2 mile for each at 30 mph and level road starting with HVB SOC at the normal 50%. You can seldom get a mile unless the HVB SOC is very high. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdiaz Posted June 17, 2020 Author Share Posted June 17, 2020 Just wanted to update everyone who was nice enough to offer advice. I still haven't gotten around to replacing anything, but with changing my driving habits a bit and driving around more and for longer the car has been responding a lot better! I now constantly have mid to high 30s and sometimes 40s in MPG. Thank you all very much! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lolder Posted June 17, 2020 Share Posted June 17, 2020 While parked, read the Owners Guide and Quick Reference Guide from front to back twice and try all the controls. It will greatly enhance your ownership. Don't play with the buttons while driving 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.