Mercury Milan scores!

Conversation 27 comments

1. The Accord Hybrid takes top honors in the family sedan segment…too bad Honda is having such a hard time selling them.

2. no surprise that VW and MB have such low scores. why?! VW wants to be upscale and MB is a top brand!

   Kudos to Ford, though! (I guess now that SUVs are less popular they’re letting the Explorer and Mountaineer slide? What’s up with the V6 (and not V8) Mustang?

3. Did anyone else notice that almost the entire MB’s product line is under the least reliable vehicles? I’ve heard they have issues, but…wow!

4. of course the fords winn
   the nilan and fusion are about as good as a car can get

5. Nice to learn that Ford can build a decent Mazda 6, but let’s see how well the Fusion and it’s derivatives hold up over the next several years.

   I’d still take an Accord over ANY Ford vehicle.

6. Hey, douchefag is back!

   Um, Ford didn’t win, bud, it was what, number 5 on the list? Honda took top honors, pal. Get over yourself.

   Check out Ford’s scores later in the list. The absolutely most UNRELIABLE vehicles are your beloved Ford and Mercury SUVs.

7. The Ford Mustang is in the unreliable list, and the Explorer/Mountaineer are pitiful too; they’ve been on the market for 5 years now, you’d think they could have worked out the problems. Even Volvo, which is Ford owned, is worse than them!

8. Where are the usuall Toyota bashers? I’m still waiting to read your comments….

9. That’s good news for Ford. They can thank Mazda for it.

10. you put stars * by the R class and H3 and then didn’t leave a key at the bottom to explain what the stars meant…

11. iquack, you do have a point about long-term reliability but fords were/are usually unreliable out the gate. the first year of the Focus was pretty bad for Ford and the Escape was hit with some early recalls. So it’s a pretty good sign that reliability has started off well!

    an aside: according to CR, the Focus has average reliability and still one of their favorite cars. in their latest issue they recommend one if you want more room and a better ride than subcompacts of the same price (fit, versa, yaris, accent, rio).

    the only thing the Focus and Fusion are missing to me are great interiors.

12. Not a surprising list overall.

    I drove the Mazda6, er, I mean, Milan a few weeks ago. It is a very decent sedan with good road manners. The engine wasn’t as refined as I’d hoped, but it gets the job done well enough for most any driver. Skip the 4-banger. It’s abysmal. Honda, Toyota, and Nissan beat both engines, but their 4-cylinders are miles ahead of Ford’s.

    Aside from the nasty Ford corporate radio and HVAC controls the interior is a nice place to be with good quality materials. The buttons were easy to use, but those square control units just look stuck in with no effort for design harmony, because the rest of the dash is fine. GM has been doing a better job in the corporate control unit department.

    I especially liked Milan’s handsome two-toned seats and door panels with contrasting stitching. A classy touch not seen on many other cars.

    I hope this car sells well for Mazda, er, I mean, Ford. They needed a good bread-and-butter car since the Taurus expired and the 500 isn’t breaking sales records.

13. Consumer Retards,

    That should be the name of that “special needs magazine”. When retards categorize reliability as bad gas mileage you have to wonder. But as long as the mentally challenged continue to pay for a copy who am I to bitch.

14. Consumer Reports is a pile of crap, the only way I would pick one up is if I was out of charmin, totally worthless fish-wrap.

15. honda fit? toyota yaris? they haven’t even been on the market for 6 months – how could consumer reports have possibly found them to be the most reliable??

    from that i can assume the whole list is a joke – more toyohonda propoganda….

16. Good job Ford/Mercury. You guys still have a ways to go though. Hopefully the new big cheese there can find a good path for the company and keep them on it. I’m actually considering a Mercury Milan but with AWD and hopefully a 3.5l engine in the future. I wish they would come out with a manumatic. Does anyone know if Ford will come out with a manumatic? Help me out Vince.

17. Corky said…

    But as long as the mentally challenged continue to pay for a copy who am I to bitch.

    Is that a rhetorical question?

18. Built in Mexico from Japanese parts… Detroit/Ford/UAW should be proud. Where there is no UAW, Ford can build a competitive car.

19. Anonymous said…
    honda fit? toyota yaris? they haven’t even been on the market for 6 months – how could consumer reports have possibly found them to be the most reliable??

    from that i can assume the whole list is a joke – more toyohonda propoganda….

    6:16 PM
    —————————

    You are correct.
    The Kia Rio has been out since Ocotober of 2005, and the Accent(4 door) out by the end of 2005. Basically, about a year,(and they never left the subcompact market, and since Hyundai/Kia started to gobble up the youth market 3-4 years ago, Toyota brought out Scion, and the Yaris, and Honda the Fit, markets they abandoned what, late 90’s, in USA?).

    As for the Kia Sportage,got unreliable, but not the Tuscon( it’s twin?) “SUV”?
    Both the same thing, pretty much.

    Right.

    I agree about them saying “MPG” can be a negative, or positive thing in the reviews, About Reliability! Yeah, that’s just not right at all.

    You’re testing quality, not’ the ashtray might rattle, if you hit a pothole at 55MPH on the road”(roll eyes).
    MPG being low or high does not = reliability, either.
    I’d rather drive the SX4 from Suzuki, than most of the stuff CRZ recommended.

20. guys, Edmunds is more reliable in their ratings(as is Motorweek) than CR. Vince is more on target(well, CR & Vince,said Cobalt is not a good car… go look at his April? review—april or june, can’t recall, thing looked wrecked, then fixed haphazzardly,on the pix Vince showed).
    CR may be alittle correct, but some of their methods are questionable; the way they rank things.

21. actually how many years has ford owned mazda? the mazda 6 is a ford product period ford gets one win at something and of course the japanese car nuts kick them down lol, but on to my point, i dont have much faith in consumer reports because one-some of the cars switch list to often, one the 911, and corvette among just a few. or why isnt the xlr on the list of least reliable(), or many other cars that use the same parts platform and engine as those cars on the lease reliable list in most cases they are built in the same factory!….the data is inconsistent and really makes no sense. to someone like me that takes these reports off more than just face value they are useless, but for people that will believe anything thats written down it sells.

22. WAY TO GO VW!

    I sure want to pay a premium for your shit…

23. Douchebag : You continue to surprise me with your SARCASM.

    Am I the only one to understand that?

24. As a quality manager for a small Australian component supplier I have noticed a difference between the Japanese philosophy and the USA philosophy towards quality.
    The Japanese organisations I deal with are all about preventing problems and (when they occur) fixing them.
    The US philosophy is all about making it very clear who is responsible and making them pay.
    They have little interest in helping to fix problems.
    (Ford are not the worst at this).

25. The Fit and Yaris have been out in Europe and Asia for at least 5 years. Both have been at the top of reliability studies there. The Fusion is a rebadged Mazda as well. This is how CR is able to place these vehicals at the top of their reliability study.

26. The Yaris is a brand new model and from what i’ve read a new platform. They base reliability on a completely different model and platform that’s sold overseas? I don’t think so.

    The Ford Fusion is not a mazda 6. It’s based on a mazda platform (revised including increased length) and is built in a completely different factory than that Mazda 6. There is no way they can base reliability of the Fusion on the 6.

    Sorry – not buying into this…

27. How long does a new model have to be out before it can be considered for CRs reliability study ? The new Yaris has been out for almost a year inother markets. If you want to consider long-term dependability you should look to J.D. Power or German ADAC results. I trust German ADAC the most.