Mike Rowe

Pay me a bunch of money and I'll say whatever Ford wants too. :)

Chas

In the commercials he says projected resale value. It is guess used by companies that write leases. Ford doesn't make up the numbers. Not gauranteed to be true by anyone.

Cars.com uses the same sort of data to come up with a 5 year toal cost of ownership.

For a 2011 Fusion, based on the MSRP ( not the actual selling price), they claim total depreation will be $10,399 against an MSRP of $19,720. So 5 year depreation is 53% (i.e., a 5 year old Fusion will retain 47% of it's original MSRP) [see

] For a 2011 Camry, they (cars.com) claims total depreciation will be $12,058 against an MSRP of $19,720. So 5 year depreciation is 61% (i.e., a 5 year old camy will retain 39% of it origianl MSRP). [see ]

And given that I am sure I could actually buy the Ford for significantly less than the Toyora, the situation is even more favorable for the Ford - IF - the deprecation is even close to what CARS.COM is showing. It is a big IF. For at least the last 15 years, the situation has been reversed (the Toyota depreciating less against MSRP than the Ford). It is and always has been a crap shoot whether or not the projected resale vales hold up. And since the deprreciation is calulated against MSRP, not actual selling price, it has always been somewhat misleading.

Only time will tell if it is true. I have a 2007 Fusion. It currently has

78,000 miles on the odometer. Never had a failue (well except I needed a new battery this year). The car has been great. I paid a shade over $22K for it in late 2006. I priced Camrys with similar equipment (except none of them had AWD) and they were $3k more even though they did not have AWD, were slower, noiser, and had the usual cramped Toyota drining position (why can't Toyota let the seats go back another couple of inches?????). I am sure the Toyota would have gotten better gas mileage. My V6 AWD Fusion only averages around 21 mpg (65% city / 35% highway) and I've never seen it get over 30 under any condition. My SO's RAV4 gets the same mileage day to day and better mileage on the highway depsite being a lot less aerodynamic and weighing slightly more (but it is a 4 with only 2WD). Ed

Only time will tell. And at the end of that time, if Ford is as good as they say they are, Ford's reputation may get a gold star.

Toyotas are still good cars, but they had better not make the mistakes that GM and others did. When a company starts disregarding the comments and feelings of its clients, it has disaster on the horizon.