The Allusion Of Luxury, 2010 Mercury Milan Review #Blogpost

Full disclosure, the starter in the Lincoln has gone out and will soon be repaired. But my parents were kind enough to loan me one of my siblings’ cars to get me around while I wait for a chance to replace the starter. I was hoping for the Tahoe, but, the Milan has surprised me. The Milan is, not what I had anticipated it being. So I’m going to share my findings with all of you.

Let’s start off with what kind of numbers this car puts out. This Mercury is equipped with a 2.5 liter 4 cylinder engine mated with an automatic of the possession of 6 forward gears and 1 reverse. It allegedly produces 175 horsepower (nobody on earth has dynoed one of these).The car is front wheel drive only whereas some models got the awd option to satisfy anyone who wished to get a little extra traction in poor weather conditions. The car weighs in at a smidgen over 3300lbs from the factory but in true form it is closer to 3400lbs when considering the trunk full of sports equipment and half drunk water bottles (which I removed in disgust). The car gets overall good mileage to the tune of 22mpg city and 31mpg highway. But this car as I’ve driven it really never found myself concerned with any of the numbers the car produces, more so I find value in other places with the car.

As I have been driving the car, I chose to let the way the car feels decide how I would judge it. Numbers really mean nothing as I’ve driven this.

The first thing I noticed while driving the car was the surprisingly strong response I got from the car when I opened up the throttle. It has enough torque to easily get it out of its shadow, and revs freely to over 6,000rpm. It feels strong enough that until I decided to get pictures of the car, I had assumed it was the V6! I legitimately want to drive the V6 Milan now just to see what the car could to with even more grunt under the hood. The only oddity to its power delivery is the first gear, it’s weirdly aggressive. If you aren’t used to it (me), your initial acceleration is much harder than you need, until it either shifts, or you let off. I’m left wondering if the transmission was originally intended for a car with significantly lower power.

Up next is the way the car rides. The car on smooth roads is pretty complacent, you don’t notice the seams in the road aside from the noise from the tires running across them. The seats though aren’t doing the car any favors, on this model the car has leather seats reminiscent of the leg press I use to use in our high school gym. It’s meant to hold you in place, not really to make you comfortable. And you notice the firmness of he seats even more when you begin to run across bumps in the road. The dampers are good in the sense, that they return to their normal position rather quickly, not wafting up and down endlessly until it finds level again. They felt abrupt yet sure in their movement, like a mother whose young boy keeps trying to grab at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition in the checkout aisle of the grocery store.

The Milan has a surprisingly confident feel when it comes to handling however. Body roll is surprisingly small for a standard road car. The brakes don’t have any weird tricks to using them. And the steering, while numb, was tight and completely predictable. Under normal road conditions the car is an enjoyable experience to move around. Put on a racetrack or on a canyon hoon I would imagine the car falling on its face faster than a English bulldog running down stairs. But on the road it’s completely capable of getting you where you need to be without any surprises.

But no car is free of issue, and the Milan has some which need to be noted. My biggest issue is one which I’ve seen on a number of newer cars. And that is the size of the rear view mirror. To cope with growing blind spots and increasing amounts of technology in the car, manufacturers are loading the rear view mirror with tech that bloats it to the point of having to duck down just to see what’s ahead of you. In a world where safety determines design, one would think forward visibility is something manufacturers would want to retain.

A cheap feeling is also felt throughout the cabin. The car is a Mercury which I think is the biggest reason for this. Mercury as a brand is the awkward teenage years for people. Fords can have cheap interiors and its okay because they are economical to buy. If they have nice interiors then “It’s a nice Ford!” Lincolns if they feature cheap interiors are reviled for carrying a premium price without premium amenities. But Mercury was supposed to fill the gap between the two major marques under the Ford umbrella. But what expectations did people have for the brand? For a higher base price people got a car which rivaled a higher specced Ford without many discernible differences. A well-optioned Mercury may be quite nice but what stops people from ponying up for the typically more desirable Lincoln? The inside of the car finds you cheap plastics well within arms reach and a radio which is out range before the station is out of sight. If the car which happened to come into our family’s possession was a higher specced model, perhaps these things would have been replaced with soft touch plastics, a more reliable radio, a more premium feel to accompany a more premium price.

My impression of this car is not most attached to my issues I have found with it. But rather how it has felt while I am using it. I am very fond of the way the car drives. If it isn’t already abundantly clear, the Milan shares its platform with the Fusion. And if Wikipedia is accurate in this claim, the platform was designed by Mazda! Which may have something to do with the more than just a commuter car feel I find while driving it. The car has a very simple yet attractive design which anyone should be happy to be seen in. The car is free of any gaudy tack on design elements to try to push the premium feel of this premium-lite car. The car is perfectly suited to do the kind of everyday driving which this car is most used for. It’s for the most part comfortable. Anyone can feel confident in the maneuvers they make on the road. As well as turning in mileage which doesn’t break the bank and leave you looking at a focus as a next car.

Overall I am left with final thoughts on the Milan much in line with my title for this blog. The Milan is not really a luxury car. It really just hints at luxury. It must have been a ripe choice for the entrepreneur seeing their first successes, choosing to treat themselves to something more than the Focus they’ve grown accustomed to accepting. Driving a Milan will not get you noticed at the country club, but it won’t get you mistaken for the caddy either.