The 2014 Ford Fusion Hybrid has a DANGEROUS EMERGENCY BRAKE SYSTEM! Most cars have an emergency brake lever or pedal that we all know how to use and how it makes the car react. The Fusion does not. It has a small button that is hard to find and activate, and when you do use it it reacts in strange ways.
First the button is a small lever style activator which is hard to find in an emergency. Then, you have to pull it up to make it work. It looks like a button you are supposed to push, but no, you have to grab the front of it and pull it up. Then it takes a couple seconds to apply the brakes while you listen to a quiet electric motor hum to apply the brakes. If stopped, and using it as a parking brake, it works fine. However you can't release it without the key turned on and your foot on the brake. Again this is OK when stopped and using it for a parking brake, and good to keep anyone from releasing the brake without the key.
BUT, when you are moving and need it to act as an emergency brake, WATCH OUT!!! I found out the hard way about this!!! If you need the emergency brake while you are moving it has completely non standard operating dynamics. First, if you pull it up to try to make it set the brakes while moving, the antilock brakes are activated on the rear wheels, and if you let go of the button, (like to steer), the brakes will automatically shut off and you keep rolling. KA BOOM!!! Even if you hold the button up the antilock brakes are activated and stay activated, and do not provide enough stopping power. In fact it provides almost no stopping power!! It's like a car with no e brake or at best a defective one.
How to use it is hard to remember and use effectively, and makes it really hard to stop the car. Give me a standard lever E brake any day of the week!!!! Anyone who got in this car without a course in how to use the E brake is in for a bad surprise!!!
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
The 2014 Ford Fusion Hybrid has a DANGEROUS EMERGENCY BRAKE SYSTEM! Most cars have an emergency brake lever or pedal that we all know how to use and how it makes the car react. The Fusion does not. It has a small button that is hard to find and activate, and when you do use it it reacts in strange ways.
First the button is a small lever style activator which is hard to find in an emergency. Then, you have to pull it up to make it work. It looks like a button you are supposed to push, but no, you have to grab the front of it and pull it up. Then it takes a couple seconds to apply the brakes while you listen to a quiet electric motor hum to apply the brakes. If stopped, and using it as a parking brake, it works fine. However you can't release it without the key turned on and your foot on the brake. Again this is OK when stopped and using it for a parking brake, and good to keep anyone from releasing the brake without the key.
BUT, when you are moving and need it to act as an emergency brake, WATCH OUT!!! I found out the hard way about this!!! If you need the emergency brake while you are moving it has completely non standard operating dynamics. First, if you pull it up to try to make it set the brakes while moving, the antilock brakes are activated on the rear wheels, and if you let go of the button, (like to steer), the brakes will automatically shut off and you keep rolling. KA BOOM!!! Even if you hold the button up the antilock brakes are activated and stay activated, and do not provide enough stopping power. In fact it provides almost no stopping power!! It's like a car with no e brake or at best a defective one.
How to use it is hard to remember and use effectively, and makes it really hard to stop the car. Give me a standard lever E brake any day of the week!!!! Anyone who got in this car without a course in how to use the E brake is in for a bad surprise!!!
- Mike U., Hopkinton, MA, US