Bill Roper (billroper) wrote,
Bill Roper
billroper

Living On the Edge

All this talk about Ford discontinuing their sedan line causes me to remember that I owe you all a report on my Ford Edge, which is now a bit over four months old with 2000 miles on it.

Mostly, I like it. The thing to remember about the Edge is that it is really just a tall Fusion (or Mondeo, if you're from Europe). As such, it gets about the same mileage that the Fusion would get -- just a little bit less due to the extra weight.

The big advantage is that I sit up high and have headroom. I'm an outlier in terms of my body shape, because all of my height is in my torso, so headroom is always at a premium for me. Even with an Edge, I don't dare think about their "Panoramic Vista Roof", because it takes away an inch or two of headroom that I must have. This also knocks pretty much all of the Japanese and Korean cars off my list of possibilities. I would like to be able to get into and out of the car without fighting with the roof line.

(One of the worst experiences I had was getting into the front passenger seat of a late model rental Camaro at a science-fiction convention I was at. I thought I was going to have to remove my head, hand it to the driver, and then reattach it after getting through the door.)

But the car handles like a small peppy sedan. It has a turning radius that is not measured in miles. It is just a tall car that I step up to get into instead of trying to fold up to get into.

And I admit that I have been enamored of this particular form factor since I first saw it on an Infiniti not too long after I bought my old Ford Five Hundred. It just took a while to be able to (vaguely) justify buying a new car. :)

The things that are most difficult to get used to are the push-to-start and grab-and-unlock features of the car which mean that the key never needs to leave my pocket. I have finally started to get used to leaving it there. This is only occasionally a problem when I am sliding under the steering wheel and the panic button contacts the wheel in such a way as to set off the alarm. Oops.

The Sync 3 system works tolerably well with one exception. It takes a bit more work than I might prefer to switch sources from one radio band to another. I suppose they just want me to leave it set to Sirius. :)

The exception is that the contacts list from my LG G5 phone seems to not get picked up all of the time by the Sync 3 system. This means that when I say "Call Gretchen", it doesn't. Most of the time. Except when it sort of randomly decides to work. This random behavior makes me crazy.

Note that I have already been through all of the steps that should cause this to work, including giving access to the list to the Sync 3 system via Bluetooth. It simply doesn't work.

Unless it does.

I can, however, call Gretchen by saying "Dial" and reciting the digits of her phone number.

*sigh*

So far, this is the worst problem I have with the car.

I can live with it.
Tags: cars, home, musings
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