Ford lost the mid-size game over twenty years ago. No matter how good looking, fuel efficient, reliable, or trend setting the current Fusion was over the last several years, the relentlessness of the Japanese automakers ensured that when the market shifted away from sedans, their products would be the ones left standing. Things may have turned out differently if gas prices remained high, but the bottom line is that in hyper competitive segments there is absolutely no room for error. And Ford messed up big time.
Is there more to it than that? Sure. A shrinking market can only sustain so many vehicles, and there are way too many mid-size sedans currently competing in the American market. Automakers like Nissan deliberately went downmarket in order to undercut the big players, while stalwarts like the Accord were able to maintain their relatively high transaction prices, although that is getting harder to do with each passing day.
A flashy, sophisticated, technologically advanced, and boundary pushing car could only do so much. Does it go upmarket and play the premium game in an effort to attract a different demographic in a segment often dominated by value-focused customers just looking for a reliable commuter vehicle? Or do you develop a basic, no-frills appliance that commands a lower price but offers a more simplistic driving experience?
The Taurus represented all those things at various points throughout its history. Originally praised for its Euro-centric characteristics, Ford’s mid-size eventually became the car for middle America. So did the Accord and Camry, but Ford didn’t realize that, and the end result was the 1996 Taurus. The stylish, flashy, dynamic car that Ford thought would appeal to very successful white collar customers flopped in spectacular fashion. And that wasn’t necessarily the fault of the car itself. But the market responds to very specific things, and that wasn’t it.
Where the Fusion fit in regards to the contemporary mid-size sedan market is the question Ford has been asking as they watched its sales decline. Their conclusion is that there isn’t a point in staying in a segment that failed to accept their product. Per Automotive News:
U.S. Fusion sales topped 300,000 in both 2014 and 2015, territory that domestic cars hadn’t touched for many years. But it never managed to loosen the iron grip Toyota, Honda and Nissan had atop the segment. Coupled with the buyers’ shift to crossovers and SUVs, Ford decided the Fusion wasn’t worth saving, despite the brand equity it had built up over more than a decade.
Looking back at the history of the Accord, Camry, and Altima demonstrates why Ford chose to divert its resources away from developing sedans. None of the Japanese mid-size cars experienced any sort of roadblock to their success; all three of them built upon their predecessors and engaged in steady improvement while not making any potentially catastrophic errors. That decades long buildup mattered when the segment began its rapid contraction several years ago, which is why they’re going to be sticking around for years to come.
Ford adheres to a similar philosophy, just not when it comes to cars. Whether its the F-150 or another core product like the Transit vans or the Super Duty lineup, Ford has maintained its competitiveness by producing vehicles customers actually want and building upon that with each subsequent generation. And also by simply not screwing up. Ford is going nearly all in on crossovers, utilities, and trucks because they’ve generally gotten them right.
In a market that still needed sedans, the Fusion would have thrived like it used to. But changing tides ensured the past was going to come back to haunt Ford. And by getting the 1996 Taurus redesign wrong the company sealed the fate of the Fusion as well.
If dealers’ wishes come true and the nameplate sticks around in some fashion, Sullivan suggested it could likely be similar to a Buick Regal TourX wagon.
“That’s your new family sedan,” Sullivan said. “It’s just not what we’ve traditionally known.”
What Ford has traditionally known when it comes to the mid-size segment is that it believed in more than just a car. It believed in an idea. The American sedan with European sensibilities that could appeal to everyone. But it could never do that in perpetuity, which Dearborn really didn’t understand when they developed the oval Taurus.
Like Jay Gatsby’s brief reunion with Daisy Buchanan, the Fusion was exactly what Ford wanted and needed, but decisions made in the past ensured that the ephemeral achievement of their goals was never going to last.
The first Fusion was pretty good when it was launched in ’06 and Ford’s built upon its virtues with each subsequent redesign/refresh, but you’re right about Toyota/Honda/Nissan: they had headstarts and they’ve been consistent. Oh, if only Ford hadn’t messed up with the Contour and Taurus.
I say the Contour AND Taurus because while the Contour replaced the compact Tempo, it was the size of the pre-wide body Camry more or less. And while Toyota and Honda just grew their mid-sizers and didn’t bother with tweener models, Ford persisted. That just split development money: even when the Camry grew for ’92, Toyota didn’t shove another car between it and the Corolla.
Just to show how much of a boondoggle the Contour was (the cost of Americanizing it was crazy!), they discontinued it and left it without a replacement entirely. See, pointless. Meanwhile, the Taurus had a larger footprint than it needed to (if, after ’96, less cabin/cargo space than it needed). Ford also deprived it of a four-cylinder option which is where Honda and Toyota found plenty of sales.
But the ’96 Taurus wasn’t a bad car. It just needed a visual redesign, which it got for ’00… plus even more cost-cutting, something they’d started doing pretty much as soon as the ’96 struggled to sell. And by then it was just a fleet queen anyway and Ford pissed away years of name equity.
If GM and Ford were serious about hitting the Japanese head-on, they should have dropped that weird two-pronged mid-sized strategy years earlier (at least Chrysler made the LH cars large). Eventually they did, but they’d spent not enough money on too many products to make cars that weren’t good enough and nobody really knew about.
IIRC the Contour had less rear seat legroom than the Mazda 323-derived gen 2/3 Escort, while the Chrysler JA “cloud cars” really went all-in on a spacious back seat for the class. Both were seen as at least trying to compete with the Camry and Accord of the time, while the GM offerings were for loyalists, fleets and people who bought the deal not the car.
The rear legroom issue is present in at least the smaller Euro-derived Fords (the current Focus is almost exactly the size of the Contour) which makes me wonder why Dearborn didn’t lay down the law to its’ German design team on how much room they’re expected to pack in, or at least slim down the front seats and console at the midcycle refresh.
I had a 2000s Taurus wagon for a short while. If you needed a low buck pack mule automobile it was hard to beat.
Bogman57, I agree. I drove a 2003 Taurus wagon as a company car and it was a great vehicle in all respects. Comfortable, roomy, and very competent in deep snow covered roads.
The 2004 Taurus sedan that replaced it suffered from obvious cost cutting, though that may be more due to my company’s fleet buying practices at the time.
Prior to that I had a 1996 oval-obsessed Taurus that replaced a 1992 model. As unattractive as the 1996 was, it was a much more comfortable car for long (very long) commutes.
I also personally owned a 1990 Sable Wagon that was a delightful car for about 4 years. Then it stated to develop one serious problem after another, all of which were out of warranty.
To Edward Snitkoff’s point, I think the inconsistent quality of various Taurus models would eventually turn off consumers, even if most of their Taurus experiences were through fleet vehicles.
There’s no guarantee a Toyota or Honda will be more reliable and less problematic over the long run, but if you do buy one, the odds of getting a good one seem to be in your favor.
It’s ugly and you can get a better engine in the Mazda 6. Buh-bye.
I think William Stopford pretty much nailed it. However, I think an argument could be made that Ford’s downfall started with the first FWD Escort. As a “world car”, a lot of time and money was wasted “Americanizing” the design. To the point that the European and the American cars shared almost no parts but looked reasonably similar.
Ford “built” on the Escort in the U. S. with the mediocre Tempo. Admittedly, today’s Accord uses a stretched Civic platform, but for Ford to marginally expand the Escort to create the Tempo, and then chop 2 cylinders off a 20+ year old engine design for it’s powerplant…
The Contour? I may be wrong, but that was a case of a pretty good car ruined at launch by numerous recalls (what was it? 2-3 recalls BEFORE it even hit showrooms?). Then the car magazines lambasted it for having a tight rear seat, something Detroit has done on several successful designs in the past (the RWD x-cars at GM were just as bad. I know, I owned one and drove a couple more.)
THEN, then, Ford muddled the marketing of the Contour, decontenting it as the design matured while the Japanese normally ADDED content as their designs aged.
Finally, after pulling the plug on the Contour, Ford sat on it’s hands until the launch of the Fusion 7 years later, a very long time in the auto market. Heck, that is 2 model cycles.
Imagine if the Tempo had been a true clean sheet, the Contour had had a reputation to add to/build on, like each successive Accord and Camry, and Ford hadn’t sat on the sidelines from 2000 to 2007?
Then I wonder if the Taurus debacle would have been so serious.
And yet, Ford has had a credible mid sized car in Europe for decades and it is struggling, though in Europe it is up against BMW and Mercedes Benz. With the addition of the Mondeo’s numbers, you have to wonder why Ford could still not make the Fusion “work”.
BTW, the Euro version of the Fusion includes a wagon bodystyle, manual transmissions, and turbo diesel engines.
I agree with you Dan on pointless Americanization. Look at the Focus: there’s really little changed between it and versions sold elsewhere (except for the interim Gen 1.5) and it’s sold pretty well for a compact Ford.
Considering the Fusion sedan looks almost identical to a Mondeo hatch, I don’t know why Ford didn’t just offer a hatch from day 1.
And I agree with you, too, on Tempo criticism. I’ve always thought that was a weak, weak effort from Ford. In Australia we had the Telstar, a rebadged Mazda 626. That was a much better car.
Ford didn’t offer a Fusion hatch because it wouldn’t have sold in sufficient volumes. There was a time when the Camry and Accord were available in hatches and they were dropped as Americans stopped buying them. Fact is Americans associate hatches with penalty boxes that they drove in the past because they had to, not because they wanted to.
I understand that but I was talking more about the current generation of Fusion. Right now, hatchbacks are finally beating back against sedans in the compact segment and there’s more variety than there’s been for years, while various premium models have adopted the format (Tesla Model S, Audi A7, Buick Regal). Considering the sedan and hatchback look almost identical, Ford probably could have just offered the Fusion only as a hatch to begin with. Would many people have really been turned off?
I’m glad to see Americans finally get over their hatchback prejudice, by the way. I always found that baffling… There were plenty of cheap, shitbox sedans and coupes too but they didn’t disappear en masse during the 1980s.
Yes a lot of people would have been turned off, you can count me as one that would not have been interested in a hatchback only Fusion. If you aren’t going to give me the security of a proper trunk then give me a wagon so there is an increase in useable cargo capacity.
Also, when the Contour arrived here. Chrysler stoled the show when they introduced the “Cloud-cars” with the Cirrus, Dodge Stratus and Plymouth Breeze who didn’t got a tight rear seat like the Contour.
I had a Contour, it was a very frustrating car. With the V6 and stick it was a blast to drive – when I wasn’t waiting for the tow truck or replacing the Intake Manifold Runner Control (first time took me all day, by the third time it was down to an hour or so). I put way too much money into keeping it going before I gave up.
I have to disagree with you on the Escort. Fact is a lot of the changes to Americanize the Escort was required due to the differences in regulations which were more dramatic at the time.
The other changes were not that expensive with the expected and actual volumes. With that volume level they had to produce it in the US and that required its own set of tooling. Since tooling like that is largely hand made, more so at the time and shipping it is expensive it made sound financial sense to have it produced in the US. Because that tooling was one off it didn’t really change the cost of producing tooling that was different. So it was down to the cost of engineering those changes both the regulatory caused ones and the ones to make it more suitable for US consumption.
Of course we will never know, but I doubt that if they hadn’t Americanized it to meet US tastes, it never would have become the best selling car in the US which would have also made taking the #1 selling car in the world title less likely.
I do agree that the Contour was a big mistake in many ways and a lot of it was due to not Americanizing it. It was also chasing a vanishing market. Fact is that the competitors were chasing the Taurus and made their cars more in line with the Taurus. When the Focus came out it had similar interior room as the Contour and effectively made it redundant and thus was dropped. The Taurus was supposed to carry the midsize torch but unfortunately it took a double hit. Styling of course was a miss but the other thing was they zigged when the competitors zagged. Toyota grew the Camry to be closer to the Taurus and cut the price to be more competitive just as Ford upped the content and cost.
Yes, the 1998-2001 Altima also suffered the same fate of a dated “mid size/compact” car. It was one ‘sin’ that made them have to get help from Renault.
Nissan only sold this generation 4 model years and brought out the true mid size 2002 to higher sales. But, then the Maxima was a “small mid size” for 2 years.
It will be missed. This area is so truck and SUV/CUV crazy I don’t know if my local Ford dealer even stocks many Fusions. There’s a decent supply of Fiestas and Focus, mostly in the lower specs (for those who shop on a tight budget) and the ST versions of those two for the enthusiast but the customer who has Fusion money can likely easily be steered into an Escape or lower trim Explorer for similar money.
Such is the current state of the industry.
BTW since Buick seems to have very little interest in strong Regal sales (likely given that it is being built in Germany under contract by Peugeot, I’m guessing the cost of bring it to North America is leaving a sour taste in GMs mouth) I’d be delighted to see Ford try a concept similar to the TourX. Just please give us the 2.0 Turbo and 2.7 twin turbo from the Fusion.
Ford already has a European wagon similar to the TourX in it’s Mondeo/Fusion wagon and/or hatchback. At first glance, since the story was about the Fusion, I thought the included picture was the Ford….the profiles are very similar.
Ford in Europe has had a mid-sized wagon since the Cortina (a small car that grew larger with each successive generation until it was replaced by the Sierra, which was available….AGAIN, with manual transmissions, diesel engines AND AWD.)
Last year at the Detroit CC meetup, we were behind a Ford Fusion that had manufacturer plates on it. It took us a minute to realize it actually was badged Mondeo and another minute to realize it was actually the liftback version which looks practically identical to the sedan, so obviously a European model over here for whatever reason. There is no good reason why the Fusion shouldn’t or couldn’t have had the more practical liftback form factor over here, and the same goes for any of the sedans with the coupe-like flowing shape that makes the trunk opening so shallowly shaped.
As for wagons, I understand that for whatever reason they don’t or didn’t sell as well over here, much of which I believe is more marketing related than product related. The Golf/Jetta wagon seems to sell just fine for example. So raise them up and put the cladding on, who cares, if it sells them a la Outback then great. Adding a wagon or liftback to the production line can’t be as complex as adding a whole different model. And incremental volume may have made a difference. I get that Ford was/is trying to reduce the number of different build/option combinations to something more like Toyota and Honda does with their sedans. I don’t like the reduction in choices but it seems to work fine for others so maybe that’s the ticket, it would certainly make it easier for a buyer to find what they are looking for out of the available combinations on a local lot rather than having to be discounted into something that isn’t exactly what they want but is available now.
The Honda Crosstour debuted a decade too early. Today that thing might actually fly. Sure, people say it was ugly but everyone on here says that CUV’s are ugly too. That doesn’t seem to stop any of their sales.
And I was advocating for essentially to sell a Fusion “wagon” as the sole model. If it needs to be “Outbacked” a little to do it so be it. I’m going to be car shopping in about a year and I’m going to seek out a TourX to test drive whether GM wants me to or not. I may or may not put my money where my enthusiast mouth is but I’m sure going to put my butt in the seat and give it a try.
Many have derided the TourX for lack of ride height but that’s what I like about it. It is truly a wagon at heart. I’d love it if Mazda would give the 6 wagon a try over here and if Kia would try the Optima wagon they’ve showed off at car shows.
Actual utility isn’t the reason buyers are opting for sport utilities. They like the image, the seating position, and the feeling of security. A hatchback vehicle styled like a sedan delivers none of that.
So raise up all the things. See Outback and Crosstrek, Golf Alltrack, and soon the raised Focus thingy. They aren’t distinct designs, they are the same exact thing as their lower to the ground cousins which, with the exception of the Outback in the N.A. market are still sold as regular height vehicles. Adding a Wagon or Liftback to an existing sedan line ESPECIALLY when the design already exists for other markets HAS to be much cheaper than a whole new clean sheet design. Incremental volume with the additional pricing power could make a difference. The cost of a longer shock and spring vs the shorter one is basically zero. The cladding maybe a couple of hundred dollars. Slightly different suspension tuning engineering again almost nil, the engineers are already being paid to come to work.
Yes, image is a very large part of it but utility is something to consider as well. That’s the main reason people tout for buying pickups, right? It’s also a perfectly valid and logical reason for a shift away from sedans, especially sedans that if anything have become less utilitarian with squashed rooflines and small trunk openings, one of the reasons why I believe the Accord is selling less well after its redesign.
It’s funny when you consider that the original first-year 1995 Outback actually wasn’t even raised. It was basically a tape and foglight package on a Legacy wagon. The raise came the second year and here we are twenty something years later and the FIRST US manufacturer to attempt the same thing on a semi-affordable basis is Buick of all people with a wagon that they sold the design to a different company for and now have to pay them to assemble it in Europe. It already has Chevy SS written all over it, there is no reason for GM to want it to do well no matter how good of a vehicle it may actually be. I myself should be all over it, I have had good experiences with Buick, I liked my Outback, I love wagons, but everything I hear about GM’s and their dealer’s attitude toward it is turning me off.
I will concede that in at least the US market the manufacturers have realized that they can sell a smaller but higher vehicle for thousands more than a larger, lower vehicle. Thus it makes sense to develop those vehicles. But it likely also makes sense to adapt the existing designs to the higher ride height and more utilitarian version mentality such as Subaru has done. They spent pennies to reap thousands per car without having to develop multiple “real” CUVs.
I was thinking the same about the 2014-present Chevy Impala: focused on comfort and refinement over “sportiness” at a reasonable price and doing a great job at it by all accounts, it’s the best ‘92 Camry (or ‘95 Avalon) that came 20 years too late for people to notice.
It was pointed out in a different post about the 1996 Taurus that Taurus buyers were older, less educated, and poorer than Accord buyers and that many Taurus sales were to fleets. So you can understand why Ford gave up after being unable to earn as much profit as Honda despite giving it their best effort. The problem was that after the 70s, American cars got a reputation for cheapness, one that hasn’t been shaken off.
Actually, one of the problems with the 95 Contour I have always felt was that Ford tried to bump up the price point of their mid-sized car too quickly. The Tempo was a cheap car, and sold as a cheap car while it has been reported in some car magazines that even though it was a world car the Contour was an expensive car for Ford and lost them a lot of money. To recoup their investment, Ford had to charge substantially more for a Contour over a Tempo. When “traditional” Ford buyers wouldn’t sign on, the de-contenting started.
Had the Tempo NOT been such a crappy and cheap car, and the Contour hadn’t been a near clean sheet design, maybe the transition from one to the other wouldn’t have been such a jump in price.
Maybe you’re right, look how well the Koreans managed the move upmarket.
I was going to chime in about the Koreans as well. They have successfully replaced Japanese brands low-mid market, with Honda and Toyota solidly above, at least as consumers see it. That is all that really counts in the marketplace, not a bunch of enthusiast bloggers.
I congratulate Ford for recognizing reality in North America and moving on. I look at CUV’s as just another iteration of the passenger car, and a generally more profitable one at that. The cost of developing a new body for an existing platform vs creating a station wagon or hatch model of an existing sedan is not much for a high sales volume vehicle.
The reason Ford gave up on the Taurus is essentially the same reason that they are giving up on cars now. They let the #1 car title go because they had the #1 passenger vehicle title and that vehicle had much higher profit margins too. That vehicle of course was the Explorer. Sure the combination of high gas prices and a big recession were a hard time to get through, but fact is that it was relatively short lived.
I purchased new a 2002 Focus coupe. The price was very low, but it was an all around good car with an attractive interior. Subsequently, I purchased a 2008. It too had a very competitive price. However, the interior had been very downgraded and it was overall a much less appealing car. I often wondered how much Ford saved by downgrading the materials and sound insulation. Two hundred dollars at most? And for that they transformed a desirable car into one Z
The ’86 Taurus/Sable were revolutionary products; a family size car designed to look and drive like an Audi at budget prices. The Camry and Accord were too small to compete against the Taurus. Note: I LOATHED the styling of the Taurus when it first came out, and it was just as hard to get used to as the styling of the ’96, if not harder, cos it was much newer then than the ’96 styling was. When it came out, it faced the GM A cars, which still continued to sell well, and the K cars, and the Camry, Accord, and Maxima (the Stanza was too small for a family car; the Maxima did well in the family sedan market.)
By 1990, Honda grew the Accord and Toyota did the same with the ’92 Camry. They were bigger enough to be family sedans now and begin to nibble at Taurus sales. How many people do you know who owned Tauruses, of any generation, which had to have transmissions replaced? Or had other problems in the first 3-5 years of ownership? Accords and Camrys didn’t get that reputation. Additionally, the Explorer took a lot of what had been the Taurus market.
The Chrysler LH came out and for the first time since the original K car, Chrysler had a much better family sedan than Ford did.
The ’96 Taurus redesign also came with a big price hike. Buyers flocked to the Explorer and Camry and Accord as well; They were large enough, the Explorer was trendier, and the Camry and Accord had developed reputations for bulletproof reliability. In addition, Chrysler had both the new JA cars and the LH cars which were either just as roomy but less expensive than the Taurus or much larger and comfortable at the same price as the Taurus. Not all of the sales failure of the ’96 can be attributed to the controversial styling.
Ford sat on the sidelines for many years because it was making money hand over fist on trucks and SUVs. Cars became a sideline, and now they’re gone.
For my money, if I were looking for a midsize sedan, would I consider the Fusion? It’s undoubtedly a good car. But is it worth my personal money as a consumer?
Consider the reputation for reliability and resale that the Accord and Camry have, and the performance, price, room, and value of the Charger/300. If I just consider driving dynamics, the Charger wins and is about the same price as the Fusion. They’re great cars, solidly reliable, and seem to be able to make it all the way down to the buy-here-pay-here lots without blowing up. If I don’t care about driving dynamics, I know, or think I know, that I can drive an Accord or Camry for 15 years and still get $4000 for even the beateriest Accord or Camry. Either way, probably not a Fusion.
Is Ford’s decision to kill the cars a smart one? Short term, probably yes, because it boosts the stock price and makes the company more profitable, long term, probably not.
You don’t grow a brand by killing product. I cannot imagine that cars like the Versa, Yaris, and Fit are profitable, yet Nissan, Toyota, and Honda continue to sell them here. One of the biggest problems for Ford and GM is that there are now a couple of generations of consumers who have no personal experience with a domestic product. Unless your brand is aspirational, only making vehicles that start at $35,000 (or whatever the bottom rung is going to be) is not going to draw new customers. The market will eventually shift, perhaps not back to sedans, but where is Ford?
The other side of that argument is that if what people are buying is SUVs, then it doesn’t take a Harvard MBA to say that’s what we should sell them. But there are still a lot of sedan buyers out there, even though the market is shrinking.
In my opinion, the best thing Ford could do to attract new customers is what Hyundai/Kia did, offer a 10 year warranty. That assuages a lot of concerns about quality. Perhaps cheap leases to get people in the seats would help too.
By 1996, the Explorer WAS the new Taurus.
Yup the Explorer not only outsold the Taurus it outsold the Camry and Accord too. The Explorer of course had much higher profit margins. I have a friend who’s dad was an executive in the district office for Ford until the early 00’s when he retired. He shared with me the fact that Ford was raking in about $5000 per Explorer when they made only $500 on an Escort with the Taurus profit being closer to the Escort than the Explorer.
Thanks for the excellent, well written article, Edward. You nailed the gist of Ford’s problem in the midsize segment.
The sum total of the Fusion “failure” was so many small things. We recently leased an Accord. The sales process was interesting to watch, versus the marketing of the Fusion.
For the Mrs., peer pressure from friends and relatives happy with their Accords and Civics counts for something. We had a second gen Odyssey, and it was a great ownership experience, except for the failing transmission just beyond the extended warranty. The Honda dealer replaced the transmission for free anyway. To her, Fusion is an unknown, and Taurus brings up memories of odd-styled fleet vehicles and rental cars. Not a good starting point.
At the Ford dealership, the Fusion seemed like a second class citizen. The showroom was set up to sell trucks and SUVs. It’s hard to build enthusiasm for something that the dealer itself didn’t seem too enthusiastic about. There was nothing wrong with the Fusion, but there were no “oh wow” features or elements to the thing.
At the Honda dealership, things were different. The Accord had equal billing with the Civic and the SUVs on the showroom floor. The salesman smartly focused on the Mrs. as the decider in the transaction, which was true. He did not look to me to help close the sale, but spoke mostly to her. The showroom environment (decorations and details) was much more feminine overall, with smiley faces, displays of car seats for children, and free light blue framed sunglasses, which seem a bit ugly to me, but I see the women wearing them around, now and again.
The car itself looks like a jewel box under the hood and all around, with every fitting and element perfectly fitted, shiny, and with no ragged ends or rough edges anywhere. A small thing, perhaps, but I imagine that it often registers in a subconscious fashion. No “oh wow” elements here either, but the front runner doesn’t need them so much to break through. Also no disappointments whatsoever in the car or the sales process. We have had the car for a year now, and it has been a pure pleasure to own.
Ford probably could not have competed with the Honda on price and quality, and still have done anything but lose money. The kicker? Because of the high resale value on the Accord, the lease is really cheap. How do you crack that nut, if you don’t have the resale value?
Your analysis of the Honda experience resonates with me. My wife had a 93 Accord, which she bought in 1995 and ran until it was stolen in 2004. Though unexciting, it was an exceptionally reliable car that got great fuel mileage and required very little in the way of repairs.
Fast forward to last year, with a Subaru Outback in the middle, she needed another car when the Subaru expired after 250,000 miles. After an extensive search she found a used 2016 Accord. As Dutch 1960 remarked, the engine compartment is immaculate, well organized, a thing of beauty. The car is more comfortable and, the engine super smooth and quiet, and gets even better fuel economy than its ancestor.
Though the Accord lacks the cargo space of the Outback, the trunk offers more secure storage than the back of a wagon. The Honda provides great visibility for the driver, is easy to park, corners better and is more comfortable than the Subaru. It also gets almost 10 more mpg. Though I like the rear space, ride height and all wheel drive of the Outback (I am on my second) for getting through snow and driving on forest roads, the Accord is a more reliable and economical vehicle, superior for most driving conditions to the Subaru and perhaps many other larger cars and SUVs.
Fusion in past few years is just to “upsell” to an SUV/CUV. “For a few buck more a month, you can have a truck, just like your neighbors!”
But also, as some writers have noted by another car site, contraction in a segment is “survival of fittest”. Loyal car buyers, who don’t want a “truck” are sticking with Cam-Cord and Cor-ivic. *Similar to minivans, where Ford and GM bailed out, and Mopar, Toyota and Honda have settled in.
*Paraphrased from TTAC site.
Ford pissed away even MORE brand equity when they took the 2005 Taurus and renamed it 500. Not even ‘Galaxie 500’ like my old ’73 model Ford, mind you, just ‘500’. Then they switched back for 2008. My 500 was a shitbox as far as reliability was concerned – I spent $1,400 on it in 8 months fixing what the ripoff extended warranty refused to cover – but it was really comfortable on trips.
The repair and treatment I got ten years ago really soured me on Ford, as I had very positive experiences with Subaru and Nissan. Car dealers can treat their customer like a customer who will return instead of a mark waiting to be fleeced, you know.
The Five Hundred was in no way a “renaming” of the Taurus. The mid-size Fusion replaced the Taurus, and the Five Hundred was a new FWD full-size car intended as a replacement for the antiquated Crown Vic (though the Panther’s popularity kept it around even after the Five Hundred had been renamed Taurus and that full-size Taurus got a new model).
I recently spent two weeks with a rental Fusion. It was a brand new 2018 model with less than 2K miles on it. And while I never thought I would, I really liked it. I think the Fusion is a very competent car and I would probably choose it over a Camry if I was in the market for a new midsize sedan. After decades of owning Japanese cars exclusively, this is literally the first Ford I might ever have considered, but by the time I’m in the market, it will be out of production.
First off, it’s OK to favor one brand over another. Ford could make the perfect car, but there are now millions who won’t buy it. They prefer another brand. It’s emotional, not logical. Consequently, attempting to determine why a great car fails has nothing to do with making mistakes.
We make a big deal over our car purchases, as though we were choosing a cardiologist. Then we create reason to justify our purchase. Its usually nonsense. We reached a point decades ago when 99.9% of all cars give reliable care-free service for years.
We avoid cars, regardless of perfection, for emotional reasons that no manufacturer can control. The Fusion is an excellent car. Period. There’s nothing wrong with it to justify its failure.
Just emotions.
Cost cutting the Taurus did Ford no favors. My family were pretty loyal Taurus/Sable customers for the first two gens. We were put off by Gen 3 initially but eventually gave in and had a good long term experience with a 1997 Taurus GL Sedan. When it came time for another, We looked at 2003 Taurus models, but the interiors by then became so chintzy and Ford nixed so many touches that made the car a pleasant place to spend time. I think the 06 Fusion was a decent effort but between about 1997-2005 Ford seemed to be phoning it in in the midsize segment which did hurt their reputation in the midsize segment.