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Stripping isn't a Torx issue so much as a torque issue... plastic nuts are not durable and you'll spin the screw unless you do it by hand. No drill/driver torque setting is low enough to avoid it; I tried. I just hope the plastic inserts are cheap and easy to replace, given you need to remove that cover for every oil change. Frank

This is wrong on so may levels... I don't mean this as a criticism, but you can't do a "power slide" with FWD as there's no power to the wheels that are sliding. Handbrake turn, perhaps, judging by the lack of rear wheel rotation in the slide, except... The C-Max has RSC - roll stability control - which hits the brakes automatically if the car senses you're about to slide. Very scary as it brakes hard right when a skilled driver least wants it to, up to 0.5g per Ford's 2013 product brochure. I'm curious if RSC still kicks in, in a hand brake turn. After all, you're not going fast enough to exceed adhesion limits, you just locked up the rear wheels. And finally, did Ford do what the enthusiast press does when skid pad testing, and disable RSC (and ABS along with it) for that shot? Or is the 2014 RSC recalibrated so it's not so intrusive (and dangerous). But yeah, it looks cool... glad to see they're hyping the fun-factor! HAve fun, Frank

Today may be too late if you've already gone to the dealer, but I'd also check your configuration in ETIS http://www.etis.ford.com/ I've got "multi colour ambient lighting" and "less footwell lights" listed in ETIS for an SEL with 302A. Just a thought... Frank

It's a big Torx bit, T-30 as I recall from finding a bunch of useless T-25 bits when I did my air dam... ended up using a flat-blade screwdriver bit, but the engine cover may use something more robust than plastic on the frame side. And I seriously doubt any of us are going to find a second heater location that you don't already know about, Paul... you've been under this car more than anyone I know! HAve fun, Frank

Actually a jump from 90-99% brake score would have very little total impact, The total impact of regen in my driving is about 10% in rural driving (1.5 miles in 15), but only 2% on the highway (0.2 miles in 20) because of fewer stops. 10% of 10% is 1% - tiny at best. That said, the 10% regen contribution off-highway is nothing to sneeze at... wouldn't want to drive without it now that I see the brakes as even more of an enemy (they are still the enemy of spirited driving!) HAve fun, Frank

Now is when I miss Laurel...

It's 8" too long... Grand C-Max must have had a much larger tailgate before the most recent redesign. I'd need to heat mold it to the right shape, or cut through the surface features so it'd never fit flat. I'm not that desperate. I've at least got the vendor talking by e-mail... at least the nice one is. Mr. crabbypants is still taking 5 texts to send 9 lines and insult me 5 times. Doesn't understand that prior documentation is actual evidence, not a baseless assersion. Of that he might have gotten some business out of this if not for the inept handling of the order. You don't take payment for something and run away... at least an honest person doesn't. If you can't deliver, like a backorder, you inform the customer, at minimum, and good vendors never take the money until they can deliver! They also can't spell Citroen, regardless of umlaut. Thanks for letting me vent, Frank

And that's a very good thing in a low drag vehicle. Air flow reduces air pressure. It's how airfoils work to produce lift. Air flows faster over the top of the wing, so it exerts less pressure than the air flowing under the wing. The excess atmospheric pressure under the wing is "lift." A high air velocity on the rear window and tailgate would create a pressure reduction that opposed the direction of motion. That's drag. But there's more. I did a tuft test to see how that all works on a C-Max. Above the wheel wells, flow on the side and roof is very smooth, what we call "laminar" or "attached." Coming off the roofline are twin vortices you'll see in a lot of diagrams that result in a general flow down the rear window, which is slow and attached in the C-max. Tufts placed on the glass didn't wiggle much (slow flow), and they stayed mostly straight (attached flow). I was impressed that at the window's side edges, high velocity air from the C-pillar didn't affect tufts at the edge of the glass, inches away. A very clean break. Below the rear glass is a completely different story. Air coming off the sides, around the tail lights, is still attached, but doesn't detach cleanly and you get turbulence. At wheel well level, there's no longer attached flow coming off the sides, so the situation is worse. Tufts below the rear glass are chaotic; you can't see them because the move fast in varying directions. This turbulence is due ot the hole the car makes in the air, and the fact that a truncated airfoil doesn't fill the hole smoothly. I get a lot of dirt at the lower lip of the tailgate, too. Bottomline is this is the price we pay for a low drag vehicle. It could be fixed, but at the cost of increased drag and higher fuel consumption. Check out other aeor cars, like Prii and Volt, especially in winter when salt patterns exacerbate the effect. You'll start to appreicate that Ford did there homework with the C-Max! Have fun, Frank

Well the bumper guard finally arrived Saturday and they sent the wrong one; prior model and Grand C-Max to boot. About 8 inches too long. Glad I documented the web site link here! I'm now in support-hell trying to get what I ordered. Gotta love vendors who tell you you're wrong, over and over. Especially when they only do support by plain SMS text messages (and FaceBook?) using software that ignores texts with photos, splits messages into seveeral pieces, and delivers them in random order. No email or phone contacts available, and their texting errors are, not surprisingly, my phone's fault! I sincerely hope no one else followed my lead into this black hole of a vendor. So much for sticking with a domestic supplier... Frank, who's not having fun.

You missed my point. I said I would not buy them "based on any of the data I see at Tire Rack." Your statement may well be true, but the available data included only 1 manufacturer's low CRR tire line, which is how you stack the deck. Had the test included Energy Saver/AS or Ecopia models, one could reach rational conclusions regarding relative CRR. It didn't, so no rational conclusion can be reached. The real issue I have with your posts is a propensity for confusing opinion with fact. Repeat baseless opinion long enough and folks will start believing it. I live in a fact-based world whenever possible, and will identify baseless opinions as such whenever possible. And I'll note that I have a long-standing bias against Michelin summer tires, and for all types of Conti's, but personal bias is just another baseless opinion! HAve fun, Frank

That depends... our own Jus-A-C-max saw a real difference, statistically speaking, in urban driving. At the same time, the difference observed are consistent with the variation I see in day-to-day commuting. I remain sceptical, even as I leave mine on! Frank

The issue is comparisons are unclear when no tires or vehicles are common between tests, and Tire Rack doesn't make it easy to find. Clicking the tire links in a test should bring you to that tire, but not so... right to "tires by brand." The Conti test is particularly useless as there are no other LRR tires; Potenza, Primacy and P7 are not expected to equal Energy Saver/AS or Ecopia tires. I also see minimal difference; 0.33% and 0.1 mpg to second place, and only 0.7 mpg best-to-worst, a 2.33% range. The Prius used in the LRR test had a 3.8mpg range, a 7.5% difference. I have owned may Conti tires over the years, but I would not buy them for a LRR applicatoin based on any of the data I see at Tire Rack. Frank

Places you may want to go, virtually, of course... Ford's electronic techincal information site. Click Vehicle, enter your VIN and see what ti says: http://www.etis.ford.com/home.do Sign up for support, including vehilce health reports and online access to the owners' manual. http://support.ford.com/ And browse this forum for information, capabilities, or to join the "mileage wars," as well as direct contacts with Ford (Ashley and Rebecca) in the event of car problems. These are complex machines, but the majority of us have had a trouble-free experience! Welcome! Frank

When my wife went car shopping a few years ago, I advised against a hybrid based on my mechanic's agrument that you could get similar mileage for less expense with a conventional drivetrain. We drove that car (Hyundai Elantra) for two years before the C-max came to us, and I had no problem getting EPA-rated highway mileage the one time I drove it alone. All I did was shift to 6th when I got up to highway speed, and turned off the defrost (and so AC). She averages about 90% of rated highway mileage and constantly complains about her rotten mileage around town... especially when I tell her what I'm getting. Blames me for the bad advice. If she could get in and out of the C-Max easily (arthritis), we could trade and see who gets what, but I suspect I know the answer...it's not the car, it's the driver (and this car has changed the way I drive!). Have fun, Frank

It was 17 years from date issued, 1971, but now 20 years from the date of application filing. 14 years is for design patents, now 15 years. Yes, all large companies, like mine, cross-license patent portfolios reciprocally with other companies. No one has all the knowledge... Frank

And lest we forget where Toyota got it... https://www.google.as/patents/US3566717

+1 I think that's one reason Ford seems bamboozled... Our SEL has been 100% problem free... nothing but oil changes and the configuration updates until I clipped a granite curb and holed a sidewall. Can't blame Ford for that! Frank

Paul, my average for the rural route without block heaters is 42.6 mpg when temps are in the 20-30F range. 36.5 mpg on the expressway... car-based readings, not pump-based, so perhaps a bit high. The problem is that temps are rarely that warm in winter... move North 1000 miles and we'll talk about what to expect in Winter. Frank

At least South of the Macon-Dixon line...

Correctamundo! Give that man a kewpie doll! There are two approaches described in Hucho. - add rear side force - design in high drag in crosswinds The first is the rear fin approach, exemplified by the retractable spoiler on recent Porsche 911 variants. A sidewind hitting the front causes a yawing (spinning) force rotating the car away from the wind. That same wind, hitting the rear fin, causes an opposing force, rotating the car into the wind. Net result is a little side slip, but no change in the car's direction of travel. The second is neat. It calls for a low drag shape in the absence of crosswinds, but one with increasing drag as the crosswind angle increases. As it works out, you don't change drag much until the crossing angle hits a threshold, above which angle the drag increases quickly, and rotating torque drops off. After looking at car designs for the last year or so, I think the crosswind stability feature in the C-Max is the windshield in relation to the A-pillar. Notice that the windshield is recessed a little lower than the A-pillar, which has fairly sharp edges. This clearly collects water off the hood/glass and onto the roof, rather than around the A-pillar and onto the side windows in the absence of crosswind, and in straight ahead wind, does little else. As the wind direction turns increasingly off-axis, this recess starts to disturb air flow off the glass onto the side of the car, eventually causing to to separate from the surface rather than wrap around it. This separation is a transition from laminar flow to turbulent flow, the latter causing the desired drag increase as the wind's angle of attack becomes more severe. I suspect all of us with grill blocks, air dams and other aero improvements owe a great deal to Ford's engineers, for giving us a design that we can safely alter, if we choose. At the same time, I can't see the rear window add-ons of the '14 and later models lowering drag, but I can see them reducing crossswind sensitivity! Have fun, Frank PS Paul, you're thinking verticalheight... the instability is due to rotation about a vertical axis, in the plane of the road.

How is dirt on the glass compared with dirt on the tailgate below it, license plate level? My sense is the tailgate gets dirty, the glass not so much on my '13, due to a gentle laminar flow spreading gently to the sides (per tuft testing). The air deflectors may have altered the nice clean break seen at the edge the glass where it meets up with the high-speed laminar flow off the C-pillar. I had tufts in the areas coverd by air deflectors, and there was nothing bad happening... easier to see in the video, I'll admit! HAve fun,Frank

If you's like to extend your fluid dynamics education, get a copy of Hucho, Aerodynamics of Road Vehicles: From Fluid Mechanics to Vehicle Engineering. A very good read for those not put off by Physics. Frank

No question we humans figured out low drag shapes a long time ago, in the age of lighter-than-air craft. Also no question that the car you linked will be highly unstable in crosswinds, rendering it undrivable. Porsches and Zeppelins have tail fins/spoilers for the same reasons... they provide a countering torque in a side wind to prevent the car from turning away from the wind... and usually off the road.We want aeordynamically stable cars... HAve fun, Frank

You still haven't... Vehicle Health Reports are delived by phone, not internet. If you don't have a phone sync'ed to the car, you can't do a VHR. It it truly needed internet, I'd never get it set up right... Frank

+1 no issues with my SEL, just oil changes and the recalls/updates as we puch 25K miles, 8K since we took ownership (inherited from Father-in-law who had no issues either). Frank