I spent a couple hours today looking through the ford challenge site and looking at videos of people who were supposedly fooled into doing market research and driving a Ford for a week. I have always been a fan of Ford, I’ve always admired their style and power especially when it comes to their F-series trucks. What i was not a fan of was their recalls and the gas mileage to power ratio of their engines. I drive a 2005 Nissan Altima; Besides its good looks and world renowned engine, Nissan is a dependable car and holds good value. They don’t just sell over 400,000 Altima’s in 6 months for no reason. So back to the Ford Challenge i was looking into the Fusion because my favorite type of car is a mid-size sedan. While i was “building and pricing” the new fusion i decided to open another tab and build a 2007 Altima at the same time and i realized something was very wrong.
A lot of things i had seen but never bothered to think about were coming back to me again. Cars like Chevy offering 0% APR, Chrysler offering outrageous cash back offers, and then Ford, with this campaign, already low price for a car, and and additional $1,000 off for the ford challenge. On the other side where the other big 3 reside, Nissan, Toyota, and Honda, i had noticed that the prices for their cars have increased, not just a bill, but at least $500. I built a Fusion and an Altima that were as equal in options as i can get them and the Nissan was almost $2,000 more. For someone like me, that is a lot of money, that’s money you can put towards the payment of the car!
I was excited for a little bit thinking if i can get $10,000 for my car, then it’ll be easy to finance the remaining 8 or 9 thousand, that is until i remembered i still owe $6,000 on my Altima. Then again i felt ashamed for even thinking of trading in my car for a Fusion. It’s the money. I think Ford is offering a hell of a deal on their cars, but when you already have such a great car like a Nissan, it’s worth those overtime hours i put in for two months. I will admit i have not driven the Fusion, i’m sure it’s very comfortable, in fact, more comfortable than my Nissan, but, there’s still that but, there’s something missing, i’m not sure what it is. What i do know is my next car is going to be manual, i’m done with automatic, even in Los Angeles traffic conditions, manual still beats, auto, cars just feel different with stick. Ford, if you’re reading this, i’ll be willing to drive your fusion for a week. let’s see what you got.