kostby

Welcome! Lots of great information and helpful people here!

Good to know the price is the same, because it's certainly not true for all glass suppliers and all insurance companies in all states. When the rear window shattered on my Vibe in 2011, my insurance company claims service recommended a different glass supplier (who shall remain nameless for the moment) who would have charged a total of $662 and taken a week to replace the glass while filing the insurance claim: $162 billed to my insurer and $500 to me for my deductible. Safelite did the job the next day for $330 without filing insurance.

Try Safelite.com online to get a quote without insurance if they serve your region. Glass is often SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper without insurance than with insurance, though installation fees are probably the same. If the first $500 is coming out of your pocket anyway, it's worth getting a quote.

Congratulations!

Check dealerrater.com for that dealership's ratings, so you might go in with some idea of what to expect. Many C-MAX owners have spoken about their dealer experiences here. In short, yes, there are still way too many rip-off-artists employed at what you would hope would be reputable car dealerships. Never underestimate the power of two feet as a negotiating tactic. As in walking out, if you even suspect they're taking advantage of you. Don't let the excitement of a buying a new car overwhelm basic common sense. Even after you THINK you have a firm price negotiated, beware of the smiling F&I (Finance & Insurance) people. Even in highly-rated dealerships, that's the room where many dealers still use "tactics" to boost the bottom line profit margin, and where you end up paying a bottom-line-out-the-door price hundreds or even thousands higher than you thought you negotiated with the salesperson or sales manager. If the bottom-line out-the-door deal they ask you to sign in the F&I office isn't exactly what you want, don't be afraid to leave without signing anything. Even if it means a 4-hour drive back home without the new car. Your momentary disappointment will subside when you eventually get a great deal from a dealership who actually earns and deserves your business! Beware of these dealership profit-building-add-ons and charges of little or no benefit to the consumer, UNLESS YOU STRICTLY AGREE TO PURCHASE EACH ONE OF THEM: *market-price adjustment = We think we can make the people in this area pay an additional $500.00 for every car we sell, so we're trying it with everyone. *pin striping = $10 worth of tape, expertly applied in 5 minutes, and you're charged up to $100 *window serial-number etching" = Yes, it could help authorities recover the glass from your car after it has been stolen and stripped. *paint protection (Not the vinyl applied to painted nose and hood surfaces which truly CAN protect surfaces, but a wax treatment sprayed on and then buffed. You can wax it yourself.) *nitrogen-in-the-tires. Air is already 78% nitrogen. Yes, racing teams use 100% nitrogen. Unless you're racing your C-MAX, you probably don't need to. *ridiculously overpriced dealership documentation fees ($349.00? Really? To type in my name and address and the car VIN number on the computer and then press 'PRINT'!) *non-Ford extended warranties with extremely high profit margins, high deductibles, and a fair chance that they won't be honored where you would naturally take your car while traveling out-of-town, for what should be a 'covered' repair. I purchased a genuine Ford extended warranty for a vehicle I knew I would be driving a lot of miles, and indeed the Ford extended warranty saved me money in the long-term, and there were never any questions about 'covered' repairs. EDIT: Browsing inventory on Ford.com, I located this 2014 SEL in Sterling Gray with Stone interior and 302A at Parks Ford Lincoln, Gainesville FL: http://gainesvilleford.net/Gainesville-Florida/For-Sale/New/Ford/C-MAX/2014-Hybrid-SEL-Gray-Car/25142524/ http://services.forddirect.fordvehicles.com/inventory/WindowSticker.pdf?vin=1FADP5BU6EL500332

Welcome to ownership! Sounds like you found a great deal, and now you have a few more 'toys' to play with than on the SE.

By downloading the pdf, you can quickly search the manual for any word or phrase.

Yes. Every 2013 SE has both a line-in 1/8" audio-in and a USB port Pg 146 2013 Owner's Manual 3rd Printing

If you feel unsafe, then by all means, schedule a dealership service manager's time to drive your vehicle with you along, so they can hear what you hear, and then have them carefully inspect your vehicle for mis-aligned hood, hatch, and doors, signs of unusual wear, and accidental damage. As the recent recall 14-C03 for some C-MAX seats demonstrates, even in a modern assembly-line, there could be a missing or insufficient weld, or perhaps a door that wasn't attached 'straight'. --- 'Or maybe I'm just being paranoid?' Ever felt a skyscraper sway in the wind? Ever been stopped on one side of a large highway bridge while traffic is still moving on the other side and felt the bridge move? Skyscraper and bridges, even with all the tons upon tons of concrete and steel, "flex" significantly with load and temperature changes, because they were designed that way. Cars flex too. If the car's unibody structure didn't flex at all, eventually it could crack from metal fatigue by the stresses placed on it from the changing suspension and power train loads at (relatively speaking) the 4 corners of the vehicle. Cracking would be a far worse consequence than a rubber-to-metal squeak as parts move and flex independently of one another within the original design parameters.

Yes, off-color dabs look far worse than a stone chip or minor scratch. And that's pretty much true of any modern metallic car color, not just Platinum White, though the Ford tri-coat process certainly makes 'do-it-yourself' spot touch-up difficult or impossible. At the end of the day, it's just transportation, not an historic low-production-number collectible museum piece with a dash-plaque signed by Carroll Shelby or a hand-built V-12 from some Italian carrozzeria, so repaint the car, trade it in, sell it, or drive it and don't worry about it. I don't ever lease cars. I purchase for cash and keep the cars 'forever' and then donate them to charity. 10, 15, 20 years and 150,000 or more miles after purchase I've gotten full value from my purchase. The tiny difference in auction value between 'pristine' and 'below average' isn't my concern, either.

Any clean Ford or Lincoln with White Platinum paint is just stunning in the bright sun! In my opinion, it's even prettier than the extra-cost 'pearl white' available on other brands, because this has the embedded "metal-flake" when you see it up close. Like any pure white or pure black car, it shows every speck of dust and dirt, but that's OK. We're retired so I can spend time washing and polishing our new 'baby' as often as necessary. We purchased our new 2013 SE built in April 2013 at the end of March 2014, so we've only had it for two months tomorrow, May 26th. We were looking for a C-MAX SE equipped with at least the minimum equipment we wanted (Equipment Group 201A for the power tailgate (but not the 'kick-to-open' feature), and Panoramic roof) from existing dealer inventory. My wife and I were pretty sure that we didn't want Tuxedo Black, but other than black, we were looking for certain minimum equipment, and a great deal, and the color truly wasn't important. After a long midwest winter of poor car sales, at the end of the month and the end of the quarter, with quarterly incentives expiring, the dealer was highly motivated to move 'old stock'. So we got the car at such a steeply discounted price that the extra cost of the white platinum color simply didn't matter. We negotiated a cash price, but to use "salesperson talk", if you're financing the car for 2 years or longer, the extra cost works out to "less than $1 a day". Or maybe 2 fancy S******** coffees a week for one year...

If you'd like a LOT more speed, IndyCar also has IndyRacingExperience, up to a 180mph ride in a Honda-powered IndyCar 2-seater you can book at many if not all the IndyCar tracks. https://www.indyracingexperience.com I believe it's about $500. Recently Mario Andretti drove a 102-year-old lady around the Indy track in the 2-seater: http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/motor/indy-500/2014/05/14/102-year-old-takes-ride-at-indianapolis-speedway/9073843/ The EcoBoost Tour is coming to Indianapolis on July 19 2014, but it's at Lucas Oil Stadium downtown. I wonder if they'll actually have the C-MAXes shown in the link C-MaxSea provided.

Voice command. Tracking my eye movements. Reading my thoughts... ;) Or a pair of wrist-twist wheels, as Ford tried in the mid 1960's: http://automotivemileposts.com/tbird1965townlandaushowcar.html http://laughingsquid.com/the-experimental-ford-wrist-twist-steering-system-1965/

Probably could have, but it was 82 and quite steamy, so we were running the air conditioner and the ICE came on more than once.

It was Community Day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today. No racers on the track today, so they open it up to the "amateurs". Anyone can drive their vehicle for 1 lap around the track... at about 20mph. There are police and safety trucks stationed strategically around the track, so no one can try out their latest racing moves, but it's still a lot of fun, if you have the opportunity. Admission to the track today was $10 per person, and includes admission to the Speedway Hall of Fame Museum. The pit area was also open the public to browse many historic Indy race cars. I got a few snapshots of some being towed back to the museum. Just out of the fourth turn approaching the pit entrance and much start-finish line. The Pagoda is just left of center, and the scoring pylon much further down the track. Selfies!

I would expect that the two most recent DEMONSTRATION / DELIVERY HOLDS - Compliance Recall 14C03 for seat-back welds for 2013's built from July 2012 through May 28, 2013, and Safety Recall 14S04 - Reprogram Restraints Control Module that includes cars built from 2012 through February 24, 2014 together have significantly reduced every dealer's ability to sell C-MAXes from inventory. :sad:

Here are 'normal' sound recordings of my 2013 C-MAX SE, purchased new about 7 weeks ago. Hope they help you! I recorded them (with my Canon point-and-shoot camera in 1080p HD video/stereo and then ripped the sounds to 96kbps mp3) in my closed garage, to avoid the noises you'd hear from my neighborhood at this time of day - lawnmowers, traffic, and so on. Because the garage was closed, the noises seem much louder than if you heard these same noises outdoors in a parking lot. This is the sound of unlocking the car and the vacuum pump running briefly, recorded from outside the front of the car in my closed garage. Sometimes the vacuum pump runs longer. I think if you've just driven the car in the last few hours, you might not hear the vacuum pump at all, which would explain why the dealer could not find that sound. C-MAX unlock and Vacuum pump sound.mp3 This is the sound of the electric AC compressor running, recorded in my closed garage while standing outside the car. C-MAX electric AC compressor from outside car.mp3 This is the sound of the ventilation fan on at low speed and AC compressor recorded from inside the car with the car windows open (to be certain you can tell when the compressor is 'off' and 'on') in my closed garage. The AC compressor is running at the start, then switched off (fan still running), then back on. C-MAX electric AC compressor and fan from inside car on-off-on.mp3 EDIT: Here's a link to a Ford interactive image showing the location of many of the energy-saving devices on the 2013 C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid model. It might help you pinpoint the location and source of the sounds you hear. http://corporate.ford.com/microsites/sustainability-report-2012-13/environment-products-electrification-phev

Interesting quote from Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, about why they choose to sell their cars without traditional dealerships: Why would you want to replicate the dealer experience? That just seems like a bad thing. … Really the main reasons for not going with the traditional dealer network is I don’t know anyone who’s had a good experience going to car dealers. I didn’t have a good experience. I had a terrible experience. It always seemed like they were trying to rip me off — and they did rip me off. Why would we do that to our customers? Source http://recode.net/2014/05/15/elon-musk-on-the-flawed-premise-of-tesla-and-the-false-promise-of-fuel-cells/

Hold down the left steering wheel OK button when starting the car and keep holding it until the Diagnostics screen is displayed. Then use the up/down buttons on the left side control to scroll through the screens. There are about a dozen screens to scroll through, but one of them will eventually display DTC Codes (Diagnostic Trouble Codes). Since the light came on, there should be one or more codes displayed. (Normally the screen has no entries other than the title), (Example "P0420" is a catalytic converter code for my Pontiac Vibe.) You can Google the code(s) displayed (fastest), or post it back here, and maybe someone here can tell you what the code is.

That F&I guy apparently continues to get away with it simply because 'after months of the runaround' good honest people like you simply give up, and he pockets the profit, directly or indirectly. It's just amazing that new-car outlets like that can still employ such sleaze-bags and survive in the age of the internet. I would think the manufacturer could bring pressure on them to either clean up their act or shut them down. Unless they're a Ford company-owned store. In early 2004, I had my checkbook out, pen in hand, filling in the amount, and ready to sign the check for a Pontiac Vibe GT, when a scumbag F&I guy tried to pull that 'stuff', suddenly adding $500 to the out-the-door price for items that were not part of my signed offer to buy. My family and I walked out, right past the owner and the sales manager. They chased me to the parking lot. We got in my car and drove off. The sales manager called me on my cellphone before I reached home, to offer me the car at the actual agreed upon out-the-door price offer that I'd signed, removing the F&I guy's attempt at padding the total cost. I still refused to buy it. I calmly explained that if I got in bed with snakes, that made me a snake too, and I simply refused to ever get in bed with snakes! He had nothing else to say.

Back to the question posed in the title of this thread, "The best engine RPM for minimal Fuel Economy loss" is always ZERO RPM, isn't it??? If that gosh-darned, gasoline-sucking, air-polluting, environment-spoiling, global-climate-warming, efficiency-leaf-removing, INFERNAL Combustion Engine is at zero RPM (in other words "not running"), you are not losing any fuel. ;)

We did. It was very low key. Brian, our salesperson was knowledgeable about the features of the car and where controls were located, but we took him along primarily because he knew the local roads, so our 15-minute test drive included a few miles of interstate highway, country roads, city streets, stop signs, hills, curves, a rail crossing, and an industrial park so we could switch drivers and try parking without being in traffic.

No empirical evidence (only owned this C-MAX ~45 days, and it doesn't have a roof rack), but based on experience with other white vehicles over the years, would think any lighter color, but especially White Platinum or Oxford White could be subject to discoloration from prolonged direct contact with rubber 'feet' of a carrier.

Yes, the C-MAX SE driver's seat does move up and down. If you've ever used a 'bumper jack' (not the scissors-and-screwthread type) on a car when bumpers were actual jacking points, the jacking motion to raise or lower the seat is quite similar. When seated, pull up on the seat lever to raise the seat one step. It moves a tiny bit rearward each step when raising it. Push down on the lever to lower the seat one step. It moves a tiny bit forward each step when lowering it. As I recall, there are about 10 different steps between full-up and full down positions, a total range of several inches. Of course, the seatback also reclines manually in steps, and you can adjust the forward/rear position of the seat manually with the pull-bar under the seat The steering column release lever permits BOTH height adjustments up/down, AND distance to driver with push/pull. I didn't know about the push/pull until I read about it in these forums!

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