PWBarrett

The order deposit? Ours was $500. But they said they'd just hang onto the check rather than depositing it, which was nice.

Check out this page - there's a video about 2/3 of the way down. http://www.autogeek.net/detailing-clay-bar.html

I think it *did*! I got an email from the dealer this afternoon that the car had arrived and did we want to come down and pick it up. YES PLEASE!! Apparently the jam at the rail yard got resolved, a couple of days early. We just took turns driving it around on the way home. Much more playing to do when it's light out tomorrow.

Got this yesterday... Your cmax just got to the railyard, but it is in a 60 train car convoy. it is currently # 34 of 60 cars to be unloaded, so while it is already arrived, our eta is 12-26 to actually receive it, and are unable to pick up from the railyard. So much for showing it off to the relatives on Christmas day. Oh well, at least we know it didn't get derailed in Toledo or something. Does anybody know how long they take to prep a car once they receive one at the dealership?

Just to play devil's advocate... I don't trust a lot of info like that if it's from a company selling the product they're touting. It may be better than other types of oil, but compared to just using a decent brand that meets the specified grade, does it really matter? Maybe for race cars, or if you're hoping to get 500K miles on the engine.

The Leviton kit is only half of it - there's still the car receptacle and all the circuitry between that and the battery.

I second that. Also, unlike the 12V battery, the hybrid battery is several hundred volts! They don't include the 120 to HV charger circuitry in the Hybrid like they do in the Energi. Anybody trying to do it themselves would probably stand a good chance of destroying the battery - lithium batteries are very picky about how they get charged. (It would be cool if such a thing existed, but even after all this time I've never heard of a Prius owner doing that.) What I'd like to be able to do is go the other way and be able to use the Hybrid battery to jump-start the 12V system (after stepping it way down of course).

Our trade-in is a '96 with 164000 mi on it - I think we're getting 1 mark above salvage value no matter what. And we're walking in with a cheap bank loan in our back pocket. But I probably won't say that right up front :-) Oh, and it's X-Plan, so they don't have a lot of other wiggle-room. This probably won't be one of their better days.

Our SEL is supposed to arrive around Monday. I pinged the dealer 4 days ago and he pulled a report that said it was still on the ramp awaiting a rail car. But I think that report was a few days old. I don't want to ping him too often and piss him off - thought I'd wait till a week was up. Being too nice?

I got a free one of those grip pads at a car show (albeit with another brand logo on it...). Although it says no adhesive required, I wonder what it'll do to the dash after it sits in the hot sun for a couple of years.

Multiple of 25 cents?

Doesn't the C-Max have an active shutter grill already that takes care of this?

Yes, it's still doing it. Even when I try on my phone.

We went to the Texas state fair back in October, mostly to look at cars. Our '96 Lexus is just about used up (yes, we like to keep them till the wheels are falling off). Other than that car, our last 5 have all been Fords. Anyway, we had no idea what we wanted, what was out there, and hadn't given much thought to a hybrid. We certainly had no idea the C-Max even existed. Looked at a LOT of cars, started thinking hybrid, then saw the C-Max toward the end of the visit. It was apparently not even a retail-ready model, and was locked. But we did get signed up for the Ford $50-back test drive promotion. A few weeks later, we test drove a C-Max, then a Prius-V. No comparison - the C-Max (and the dealership) won hands-down. We came back a few days later and ordered a C-Max. Today's it's scheduled build date. Should be here Christmas week. (Blue Candy Metallic, Stone interior, base SEL model.) We'll be coming from 18 MPG, so even if we get 36 we'll be happy. Plus all the new tech that didn't even exist back in '96. Now my '96 Ranger and my son's '99 ZX2 will have another Ford in the driveway for company. Got another $750 off for still owning a Ranger too. If I hadn't been actively looking for a new car, I'm not sure I'd know today that the C-Max existed. I've seen NO ads on TV. Even the end of year Ford ads that list the whole lineup don't say a word about the C-Max. Why is that?

From the manual: What is the engine oil change service interval? The engine oil should be changed every 10000 miles (16000 km) under normal operating conditions.See the Scheduled maintenance information.

Isn't that going to cause your speedometer, odometer, and mpg to read too high?

Even on the SEL, the power lift-gate is part of a separate option package and not part of the base. Having said that, almost every dealer-lot SEL I've seen has the premium audio, navigation, and power lift-gate, none of which we wanted, so we ordered instead.

I keep seeing Ford TV commercials where they list off almost all of the current Ford lineup but never the C-Max. It's quite a well-kept secret. Do you think it's just that they're already selling at their current capacity to produce them?

[i posted this over in the generic C-Max forum before I discovered this Hybrid forum - pardon the redundancy but there's lots more activity here!] We've got a C-Max on order, but I'm wondering how to take best advantage of the cargo space. The cubic feet behind the seats is comparable to our trade-in's trunk space, but more like if you flipped it vertically. So I'm wondering how to take advantage of that vertical space without things spilling over onto back-seat passengers. It would help if there were cargo-net anchor points up near the ceiling, but I haven't spotted any. I guess tall cases can stand vertically, but how about something to manage loose items? Has anybody come up with anything handy for doing this? -- thanks. [Just noticed this is in Exterior - sorry there's no Delete.]