Noah Harbinger

I had to look that up: http://adamgoldfein.com/the-top-10-states-for-hybrid-sales/ So, California would be 0.79 out of every 3 hybrids, vs. .39 out of every 3 cars, if that source is accurate.

So a funny thing happened: Gas prices didn't increase! According to GasBuddy, prices (which are reported by users as the advertised price at the station) were on average exactly the same on 7/1 as 6/30. Strange how demand is dictated by price, forcing the multi-billion dollar corporate suppliers (with record profits despite the jobless "recovery") to absorb the majority of any tax increases. MMMMM

I figure everyone was too busy BBQ'n and watching fireworks to post. (And hopefully not getting their bags randomly searched while doing so :doh: yay freedom )

I didn't get a car until I turned 23.

Some day our vehicles will all have RFID transponders, and then license plates will be unnecessary.

Just a little brain trigger: If you press lock twice, you should hear the horn chirp. If you don't, something's wrong!

I can dispute whether the sun will rise tomorrow, but without concrete evidence to the contrary, it's baseless speculation. And that's pretty much what everyone is doing who lacks the capacity to reproduce the EPA tests. Including you.

Can't wait to test mine in the Central Valley (of California). I'm no speedster - I'd nearly always run less than 5MPH over the limit in the 70MPH zones. I'd get 30-32MPG on my ol' '01 Elantra. Come to think of it, the 1 would be more fun.

For me I feel like I am getting shin splints. I wonder if it's possible to adjust some spring or something to offer more resistance?

I suppose I'm already seeing enough C-Maxs that it's getting less exceptional (I've seen another 3 I didn't bother to mention in the last week). But I did get a bit excited to see another SEL Candy Blue C-Max, waiting patiently at a "No Turn on Red" stop light near UC San Diego. As I was on foot at the time, and the driver was a tad elderly, I thought it would seem weird to wave or give a thumbs up.

I'll definitely have to bring this up sometime - not sure if I want to wait 10,000 miles for the first oil change, though: By then, the weather will be cooler and I won't be using the AC anyway!

There could very well be a dead cell in the battery, in addition to some other problem: If the battery is not being charged properly, or discharges excessively, then it will damage the battery - and before the emergence of a pattern of excessively frequent dead batteries that cannot be traced to a bad batch, it would be perfectly reasonable for a dealer to test the charge capacity of the battery, see that it is insufficient, and conclude "Whelp! Bad battery!" It's only once the pattern emerges that such a conclusion would become suspect - and in this case, though far too common, it is still infrequent enough that a dealer would likely see enough to believe with high confidence that something is amiss: With something like 40k C-Max Hybrids sold in the US, and 2000 dealerships, each dealership has likely only sold 20. The average dealerships probably sells more F-150s in a month than they have ever sold C-Maxs. It would really take the Corporate Overlord to integrate the various experiences of the dealers to establish statistically that "Yup, something's up!" So if a few dealerships still don't have the message that "hey if the battery is dying, there's something bigger going on", I wouldn't be too surprised.

But doesn't that stop it from auto-playing when I plug it in? I want it to do that - just on the right song (or even playlist). Anyhow since you've invalidated my dislike, I get to pick another: The left door handle creaks when I rest my left leg against it.

Like: Steering: Turning feels so light and precise Dislike: Whenever I have used my iTouch since the last time I was in the car, it auto-plays the first song alphabetically on the device, rather than figuring out what playlist/song it was last on. I am coming to loathe that song.

I think I watched it a couple months ago… but it seems to me that most of the people who talk up diesel a) don't realize that a UK gallon is 1.2 US gallons b) the difference between US and European diesel emissions standards, and 3) the difference between US and European test standards. The Passat 2.0L TDI runs 61.4MPG on the combined cycle in the UK - which drops to 51.2 once you adjust for the size of a gallon, and then it's still rated 50% higher than the Combined EPA rating on the most similar engine in the US (35MPG).

I've noticed when running in split-power view that even though the engine will start to warm itself up, it will run at very minimal power for as long as it can, and the propulsion will come almost entirely from the electrical motors. Which, come to think of it, would generate heat in the battery and warm it up. HMMM….

What you need to do is have someone ELSE do it: Flip a coin; heads = premium, tails = regular. Write it down - but they can't tell you! Then after the tank has been used up, try to guess which it was. Do this 10 times or so.

You're right to be mad but I'm not sure how much the dealer is to blame. There's been tons of people with problems, especially those who bought it when it first came out. For a few years it seemed like Ford'd licked the new-car-problems, but the last couple years with all these cars on European platforms they've been just dropping the ball. (I've heard people in very different fields say Europeans value features over dependability, and Americans the reverse). I am glad mine is OK but I think it's just inexcusable that so many have had problems. The only latch recall I've heard of was on the child safety locks disengaging for maybe a couple thousand C-Maxs. Are you talking about a Hatch Latch? Seems like you could at least tie it closed until they can get the parts to fix it. I'd hate to be without my car for long, even if I were having problems. When my car was in the shop (there was some paint damage I didn't notice until the final walkaround that they fixed for free - made me nervous but they did a damn fine job fixing it) they tried to stick me in a Chevy Sonic at the dealer-affiliated Enterprise - you think the Fiesta is small! There's no way I could fit in that. I expressed consternation, and they said it wouldn't be much more for a larger car - for $2/day, I ended up in a Chevy Equinox, which was plenty roomy. I'm not particularly happy at paying for the upgrade but it was little enough that it was worth doing. So all that's just to say, if they can't give you your car back until they get the part, well, maybe they can give you a bigger car. If they value your business, anyway.

It's a win win: Higher gas taxes encourage those stuck in gas guzzlers to go green, while sustaining the income to maintain and expand our transportation infrastructure. I wish we had gas taxes at the level of Europe, personally (another, what, $4/gallon?) By the way, it's ironic that "Governor Moonbeam" lasted as a criticism. It was first applied when he pushed for California to invest in satellite communication systems. At the time it seemed pie-in-the-sky futurism; less than a decade later, keen foresight; today, prosaically obvious. Yet somehow, it is still used as political japery.

I noticed that there are times when it seems like it makes the noise, but the AC isn't running (although it is most reproducable when it is running) - I wonder if it's possible that there's something else making the noise?

It's funny - nowadays, Argentinian beef is considered top-rate. Of course, not when it comes in a tin.

Yes, YOU could possibly make one or $10 in material. Ford, who carries extensive liability, must engage in significant testing, must use higher-quality parts and plastics, has to present it to the customer in appealing and unconfusing packaging, must provide service documentation and support, must make available replacement parts for a decade, must offer recalls if any safety problems are found… cannot.

I don't think that's ever really been true, at least not in my experience.

Didn't read the rest of the article, but I totally agree with the segment you quoted - at low speed, the brakes are super touchy, and the motor doesn't cut in linearly. Parallel parking is just a pain. I dread having to do it in a narrow spot on a steep street in SF (there's a friend there I visit).

The problem is that new cars are generally so trouble free that it's hard to differentiate them. That's where all these questions about preferences and minor niggling problems comes in - to add a way to differentiate cars with a better ownership experience.