Legacy vs Fusion AWD

Did anybody here cross-shop the Legacy vs the Fusion AWD? If so, what put the Legacy over the top?

Offhand, I’m thinking the Subie will be more reliable long-term with the NA engines and the Japanese engineering, better resale, seems like better ground clearance as well.

Putting a different spin on this ...

I had a 2008 Taurus SEL AWD (3.5L V6) for a company car from August 2008 to March 2012. In those 3-1/2 years, I put on 211,000 miles, and I can count on one hand the number of issues that I had with it.

1) The USB Port for the Sync System died at 4 hours (Microsoft Issue - Covered under Warranty

2) The head unit would randomly turn off about once every 5,000 miles. The dealer replaced the head unit under warranty twice before I determined it wasn't an issue I was concerned about (the solution was to turn the head unit on again when it turned off)

3) The Throttle Body died at 67,000 Miles. I could have had that covered under warranty, but since work was paying for it, I chose not to argue and just expense the $400

4) The Throttle Body died again at 104,000 Miles.

5) A Wheel Bearing went at 210,000 miles

That's seriously it. The other things I can say that required repair/maintenance:

I had the transmission flushed every 60,000 miles, I replaced the brakes twice (pads and rotors I think, at about 90,000 miles, and around 170,000 miles I think), Oil changes about every 5-8,000 Miles, replaced the struts at 160,000 miles.

The AC condenser/Transmission Cooler needed to be replaced as result of a bird strike at 80 mph in Idaho. The bumper got cracked from an incident with a Coyote at 65 mph in BFE New Mexico.

Maybe it was a freak event, but good god, I DREAM my Legacy was even close to that reliable.

By comparison in my Legacy:

I've replaced 3 of the 4 wheel bearings (two were under warranty)

Replaced 3 Lower Control Arm Bushings (two of them lasted maybe 60,000 miles)

Cylinder Misfires due to injector issue (somehow managed to fix it without actually replacing the injector)

3 Frozen Calipers

1 Seized Throwout Bearing (and grenaded clutch along with it)

7,348,522 rattle points

And really, as far as the AWD systems, I live in Colorado, and even with Bridgestone Turanzas on the Taurus and Blizzak LM-32 on the Legacy, I never felt like the Taurus was lacking for traction even when driving over mountain passes through blizzards to go skiing. The Taurus wasn't as fun, but it was equally capable.

Finally, I rent a lot of cars, and at least for initial build (I'd say up to about 30-40,000 miles is as much as I see), Ford is smoking the competition. Better driving, better infotainment systems, better transmissions, better controls than Toyota, Nissan, Chrysler (though I did like the 2018 Charger RT I had last week), GM or Hyundai (those are all the brands I remember driving in the last year or so). And the Fusion has been leaps and bounds more comfortable than my girlfriend's 2016 Outback 3.6R

So, while you're looking for why you should buy the Legacy over the Fusion, unless the Legacy is $5k cheaper than the Fusion ... I can't say you should.

I still very much like my 2005 Legacy, and to be sure, I'd at least look at another one when it comes time to replace my old Legacy, but I know that the Fusion is already #1 on my list if I had to replace my car tomorrow.

We did shop/test drive the 2016 Fusion before we bought the 2016 Outback 3.6R. Didn't care for the interior surfaces in the Fusion. Power felt a little on the low side too.

I don't believe you can get anything close to the eye sight system on a Ford either. Let alone the rear automatic braking on our 2018 Outback 3.6R

Putting a different spin on this ...

 

I had a 2008 Taurus SEL AWD (3.5L V6) for a company car from August 2008 to March 2012. In those 3-1/2 years, I put on 211,000 miles, and I can count on one hand the number of issues that I had with it.

 

1) The USB Port for the Sync System died at 4 hours (Microsoft Issue - Covered under Warranty

2) The head unit would randomly turn off about once every 5,000 miles. The dealer replaced the head unit under warranty twice before I determined it wasn't an issue I was concerned about (the solution was to turn the head unit on again when it turned off)

3) The Throttle Body died at 67,000 Miles. I could have had that covered under warranty, but since work was paying for it, I chose not to argue and just expense the $400

4) The Throttle Body died again at 104,000 Miles.

5) A Wheel Bearing went at 210,000 miles

 

That's seriously it. The other things I can say that required repair/maintenance:

 

I had the transmission flushed every 60,000 miles, I replaced the brakes twice (pads and rotors I think, at about 90,000 miles, and around 170,000 miles I think), Oil changes about every 5-8,000 Miles, replaced the struts at 160,000 miles.

 

The AC condenser/Transmission Cooler needed to be replaced as result of a bird strike at 80 mph in Idaho. The bumper got cracked from an incident with a Coyote at 65 mph in BFE New Mexico.

 

Maybe it was a freak event, but good god, I DREAM my Legacy was even close to that reliable.

 

By comparison in my Legacy:

 

I've replaced 3 of the 4 wheel bearings (two were under warranty)

Replaced 3 Lower Control Arm Bushings (two of them lasted maybe 60,000 miles)

Cylinder Misfires due to injector issue (somehow managed to fix it without actually replacing the injector)

3 Frozen Calipers

1 Seized Throwout Bearing (and grenaded clutch along with it)

7,348,522 rattle points

 

And really, as far as the AWD systems, I live in Colorado, and even with Bridgestone Turanzas on the Taurus and Blizzak LM-32 on the Legacy, I never felt like the Taurus was lacking for traction even when driving over mountain passes through blizzards to go skiing. The Taurus wasn't as fun, but it was equally capable.

 

Finally, I rent a lot of cars, and at least for initial build (I'd say up to about 30-40,000 miles is as much as I see), Ford is smoking the competition. Better driving, better infotainment systems, better transmissions, better controls than Toyota, Nissan, Chrysler (though I did like the 2018 Charger RT I had last week), GM or Hyundai (those are all the brands I remember driving in the last year or so). And the Fusion has been leaps and bounds more comfortable than my girlfriend's 2016 Outback 3.6R

 

So, while you're looking for why you should buy the Legacy over the Fusion, unless the Legacy is $5k cheaper than the Fusion ... I can't say you should.

 

I still very much like my 2005 Legacy, and to be sure, I'd at least look at another one when it comes time to replace my old Legacy, but I know that the Fusion is already #1 on my list if I had to replace my car tomorrow.

So you have proven that a car is meant to be driven and not sitting around like your Legacy appears to have done...3.5 years is not a long time for problems to arise no matter the mileage. Machines are made to work not sit in a garage.

I had a 2014 Fusion Titanium AWD that I traded on my Legacy.

The Fusion was a little bigger and it was faster. It could use 87 or 92/93 fuel. I used 93 at first, then realized it wasn't a race car and used 87 exclusively. The Fusion was very good in the snow, but the tires were way better than what comes with the Legacy. I was tempted to buy dedicated winter tires this winter, but held off long enough that I made it to Spring.

The Fusion didn't shut off when opening the door if using remote start. The Fusion was definitely better looking - in my opinion.

The Legacy has more safety nannies because of Eyesight. I guess that's good or bad depending on your disposition. The Fusion, although 4 years older was, technically, ahead of the Legacy. For example (although petty) you could put whatever picture you wanted on the center stack screen.

If the Fusion had changed even slightly, and if my Ford dealer wasn't so crappy, I may have got another Fusion. I am not unhappy with the Legacy though - at all.

Agree with you Joe - the auto-kill function of the door opening is an annoyance to me. I barely use my remote start unless there's visible snow/ice on the car and I want the defrosters to get going. My next car I'll probably skip remote start entirely, unless they have some type of setting that you can enable/disable the engine kill on door open feature.

The Fusions are nice - one of my coworkers has one of the plug-in hybrid versions. I'm just skeptical of the technology still, which means a lot, since I'm a big treehugger. When the infrastructure catches up to take about the same - or even double - the amount of time it takes me to get gas, I'll consider them...

My quasi-ridiculous idea was that instead of one charging port like a car has one fuel fill door, have one on every quadrant of the car, and then you connect four chargers to your battery, and the battery has to be smart enough to realize it's getting charged by 4 plugs and divide up the workload in real-time. I know the Tesla superchargers work in parallel for that, and if I was on a big highway trip going hundreds of miles, I'd want to be back on the road in no more than 10 minutes. Tesla's suggestion of getting a bite to eat for 45-60 minutes every hundred miles or so is ridiculous. I'll weigh 400 pounds by the time the trip is done.

Edit: Why did Brady get banned? Hopefully it was something more entertaining than a pro-Ford post...

Agree with you Joe - the auto-kill function of the door opening is an annoyance to me. I barely use my remote start unless there's visible snow/ice on the car and I want the defrosters to get going. My next car I'll probably skip remote start entirely, unless they have some type of setting that you can enable/disable the engine kill on door open feature.

 

The Fusions are nice - one of my coworkers has one of the plug-in hybrid versions. I'm just skeptical of the technology still, which means a lot, since I'm a big treehugger. When the infrastructure catches up to take about the same - or even double - the amount of time it takes me to get gas, I'll consider them...

 

My quasi-ridiculous idea was that instead of one charging port like a car has one fuel fill door, have one on every quadrant of the car, and then you connect four chargers to your battery, and the battery has to be smart enough to realize it's getting charged by 4 plugs and divide up the workload in real-time. I know the Tesla superchargers work in parallel for that, and if I was on a big highway trip going hundreds of miles, I'd want to be back on the road in no more than 10 minutes. Tesla's suggestion of getting a bite to eat for 45-60 minutes every hundred miles or so is ridiculous. I'll weigh 400 pounds by the time the trip is done.

 

Edit: Why did Brady get banned? Hopefully it was something more entertaining than a pro-Ford post...

I think the 4 port charger is an interesting idea, but realistically a single charging port should be able to handle the demands of the battery pack. A standard forklift port here at my work can input over 400 amps to a battery pack on a lift. I can imagine the plugs for a supercharger are much better than that.

The big problem is the amount of power needed to be stored in a pack for further range. I think the solution will be some type of ultra efficient compact generator or some type of NFC charging installed on the roadway.

7,348,522 rattle points

:lol:

Agreed. In summer commute is about 60 miles each way - and no way to charge at work. So, 100 miles won't work. I'd probably be skeptical of 200 mile "range" because of air conditioning and other things that pull amperage.

Interestingly my employer offered to put a charger in for plug in hybrids. And my university has them all over as well.

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That's cool. I'm sure it has something to do with heat, too. Excess heat will nuke the battery cells. Hopefully they're encapsulated or sectorized somewhat, so a bad cell doesn't make the whole battery self-destruct.

We have provisions in our management-labor contract that my employer has to provide alternative fuel options when people start to adapt such technology. Nobody wants to be the first with the Plug-in Electric, though.

In my experience, the first adapters of technology are the ones that get burned the most. Look at the iPod - you couldn't change the battery in that thing, right? Just throw it away.

Adding chargers to work would make it a game changer, especially for people with a longer commute. Big difference between 50 miles to work on a full charge that gets you ~150 miles compared to starting the leg home at 100% again.

Technology, technology, technology, and here I am looking at a BRZ 6MT. lol. There's an elegance in simplicity.

So you have proven that a car is meant to be driven and not sitting around like your Legacy appears to have done...3.5 years is not a long time for problems to arise no matter the mileage. Machines are made to work not sit in a garage.

Two of the three wheel bearings, control arm bushings, most rattles, went before the car was parked.

Misfires, Frozen Calipers (3 of them), Throwout Bearing/Clutch and Wheel bearing came anywhere from 3-6 years after the car resuming duty as a daily driver.

I didn't count the service that I did attribute to the car being parked. I forget what all was there, but after pulling it out of the garage, I had a trusted mechanic look it over and do about $700 of service including some belts and other stuff I don't recall.