Kelleytoons

You have some pretty good data there, and I assume you've passed it on to Ford. I also assume your car is parked outside at night? I wonder what percentage of battery problems occur in a garage versus outside. Not that I could imagine what that has to do with it, but it's still more data for Ford to tabulate and to try and figure out what's happening. If I were Ford I'd want a car like yours because it's very likely they *could* successfully diagnose what was going on (like perhaps hooking it up to a monitor that also records temps and other conditions). For that reason alone I'd want to buy your car back (again, if I were their engineers). Just based on a career of troubleshooting computer problems, it's having one solid case that you can work on that could go a long way towards solving ALL these issues (then again, what do I understand about auto maker politics -- it just seems to me they could save a ton of money in the long run if they had four or five cars like yours they could set up in test cases to get it solved once and for all).

Well, at least in the parts of Florida I travel in I don't find it to be an issue (depends on carrier, also). But I don't get your way much (actually, never been down there although wife and I would like to some day -- it's on our bucket list, along with a trip to the Keys which I suppose *might* also have cell phone coverage issues :>). It was FAR different when we lived in Nevada (where about 95% of the state was uncovered -- there I'd be scared to go ANYWHERE and rely upon cell service).

With Gracenote turned off it will play in track order -- that information is contained in the MP3 "tag" (which is embedded information and has nothing to do with either the song title nor the file name -- IOW, you could have a song file called "11 This is my song.mp3" and the title information tag embedded says "03 My Song" but the track embed says "8" and that track will be played in position 8 on the album). Sometimes it's a bit confusing knowing where all the tags are written, which is why I recommend you use something like Media Monkey (free software for the PC) to organize your files (iTunes will do it but NOT transparently and it's also very bad at handling Album Art, some of which it embeds and other which it keeps in an internal database, so it cannot be exported to a portable device).

In general the thumbnails are so very small it doesn't take up room that you even need to worry about. And some of your MP3s already have them embedded in them (so you never know it anyway). The philosophy is that not all MP3s stay "with an album" -- if you have an MP3 on its own it contains other information embedded in it as well (like what album it comes from, the album artist, etc.) So they *should* be self-contained in that respect. The album art is just another "tag" that should properly be within that MP3 so it stays immune to wherever it ends up. If you have a PC you can install Media Monkey and let it correct all your stuff -- I was able to do 500 albums in an hour or two.

Hmmm, glad I found this thread. I had thought my Nav problem was related to not having the most current card, but when I replaced A4 with A5 it didn't help. Since my new C-Max is currently at the dealer for a (slight) body fix (it had a tiny little defect only my wife could see :>) I called them and asked them to take a look at the Nav problem as well. So maybe we can kill two birds with one stone (or not -- we'll see what happens). I'm not used to having GPS systems behave like that unless they have bad map data, which didn't appear to be the case in the times it went for a walkabout.

I doubt they are "black market" copies -- they come in the official Ford packaging (just all of our A4's did -- you know what that is) and it would be *very* hard to duplicate (setting up such an operation would cost far more than the card would). I had to cut it open just like I did the one the dealer gave me (sealed plastic clamshell with all the graphics -- just look on eBay for sample images). I have no doubt at all they are legit -- just *how* they are being acquired is a whole other topic (my guess is they are coming directly from the factory that Ford uses, somewhere overseas).

If you have a PC I would suggest you use Media Monkey (free software) that will allow you to manage your album art. The short answer is that you can embed it into each MP3 file, but you can do other things as well. Media Monkey automates the process (just select your album, press Ctrl-L and choose "Get from web" and it will look up the artwork. Then select all the songs and they will have the art embedded into them for display).

I had a tire that went *gradually* flat (turned out that my wife probably ran over a bolt somewhere) and after putting air into it regularly for quite some months I finally took it to the dealership and got another one. But in 30 years the only "flat" I've had was finally having a blowout in our 14 year old Durango (the tires were younger :>) on the highway. AAA came by and changed it for me but if it had been the C-Max I would have had them tow it to the dealership for a new one (as it was I should have done this with the Durango, but that's a whole other story). I look upon it, nowadays, as any other highway emergency. Which is to say, depending on the severity, I either can do something temporary until I can have folks do a true fix (like using the included patch kit) or use all the automobile service (AAA, Ford, Geico) I have in my arsenal to have the professionals handle it. The same thing would be true if my engine developed issues -- if they were minor enough I might be able to do something, but most likely the whole reason I pay for all this roadside help is not to have to worry about it. (Then again, I'm retired and time is the one commodity I have PLENTY of -- relatively speaking, of course).

I think jumper cables are a good idea -- I've never owned a car that I didn't carry them in and even if *I* didn't use them much (can only remember one occasion I needed to jumpstart my own car away from home) I've had at least three or four occasions where I've rescued others (then again, I'm retired and most of my "rescues" came from fellow workers whose cars wouldn't start at the end of the work day -- not likely to happen to me now :>). There appears to be plenty of space underneath the back storage area (coincidentally next to the "other" battery) to store them. But those battery packs I've had much worse luck with. I've actually bought two of them and back when I lived in much colder climes I would come out to a battery that needed jumping (cables won't do it if it's in your garage with no other vehicles close by) and these battery packs *never* worked. Invariably they were always discharged when I needed them, so THEY needed to be charged before they could help my car. Carrying them around in my vehicle was just silly, because there's no way I could ever be disciplined enough to charge these units before hand AND return them to the vehicle on the off chance they might be needed. Now -- all of this would be very different if/when I experienced this battery issue with my C-Max. At that point in time I think I'd be willing to look into more "insurance" as it were. But for now I think I'll stick with battery cables and rely upon my cell coverage (which here in Florida is pretty darn good -- my former state, Nevada, would be another thing entirely).

Obviously like everyone who owns a C-Max I certainly have a bit of concern about experiencing battery problems. I'd appreciate anyone relating their thoughts on this: 1) Given that I have both Ford and AAA Road service, and am seldom (never?) out of cell phone range nor do I drive anywhere that being stuck roadside for an hour or two would be a major hardship am I right in thinking that worrying about this without having ever experienced it (yet?) is not something I should do? IOW, until I actually DO have one (or more - sigh) failures should I just assume that my 2014 SE is going to be okay? 2) If the above isn't true, or if/when I do experience such a failure, does buying one of the charging units mentioned by many folks here make any sense if you need to plug it into 120AC power? IOW, if my C-Max fails to start at home (where I always have another vehicle -- the only time THAT vehicle is out is when the C-Max is first) it's no big deal to me and I can wait for Ford to come to my rescue. If it fails to start where I am out and about, I'm not likely to be close enough to AC power to use one of those units (unless you can still get power from the AC outlet in the car -- does that come from the hybrid battery thing and not the "car" battery?) I want to be reasonably responsible about this, but I also know that life is WAY too short to worry about all the things that *might* happen (heck, I'm probably more likely to have a heart attack, at my age, than a battery failure). OTOH, if such failures are the norm rather than the exception then perhaps I should start getting prepared.

Yeah, you're right -- after I wrote that I was actually looking at the way my playlists are organized and I don't use ..\ but just absolute pathing (minus the drive letter). Something else I've mentioned in another thread (but worth repeating) -- turning off the two Gracenote options will then allow you to play albums correctly (in the right order) as well as index MUCH faster (a minute or so as opposed to 10 minutes). This I didn't find out until yesterday when I was having issues playing some Broadway stuff (where it's really noticeable when it's out of order). I have a MacBook Air so I straddle both worlds <g>. For those using Windows there is a great free utility/player/all-purpose music organizer called Media Monkey which I would highly recommend. It will embed your album art for you as well as manage your music even better than iTunes (which I also like but isn't particularly SYNC friendly). You can even import iTunes playlists into it and it will output them correctly (at least in terms of SYNC) for use in our cars.

Oh, and one more thing about this -- with Gracenote features off, indexing takes only seconds, instead of minutes (on my 10K worth of 50GB of music the whole process, indexing AND building commands, was less than two minutes, whereas it took at least 9 or 10 minutes with Gracenote on).

Man, does this really suck, big time. Okay, found a solution (not on any official forum, mind you). Turn off Gracenote features, both of them. All is then well (and why you'd ever want Gracenote I have ZERO idea).

Not nearly in your league, but yesterday I had to drive about 20 miles (to get a prescription for our kitten -- sigh), most of which was at 50-60 mph, in the hot Florida sun (93 degrees) with the air keeping me cool at 72 inside and going there I got 52.3 but coming back I got 55.2, which is my highest mileage for any trip yet. I didn't do anything special -- just my normal driving that I've always done in our Durango (which, to be fair, has always been best practices I learned around 30 years ago). I was amazed I was getting that good mileage (which I could tell was good because I started the trip with around 503 estimated miles available by the tank and as I drove it kept going up until when I finally got home I was sitting on 533 miles available. My average lifetime mpg also went up over 3 mpg, because my wife has a lead foot and so far has not gotten over 39 mpg using our new car). I'm really interested to know if my mpg will improve once we stop running the A/C (we really never use the heater here in Florida, so come October we have about six months without any other load on the car).

Yeah, well the Durango seats are "dark gray" as well and they DO get hot in Florida (obviously YMMV depending on where you live). Still hate the fact that darkness like that makes it impossible to find anything either (it's SO much nicer with a light interior).

More info: For those uncomfortable with editing things (or just want the convenience of dragging and dropping files and no editing) I found a free playlist creator that works with MFT. It's called (wait for it) Playlist Creator. Current version is 3.6.2. You need to change one thing. Make sure you go to settings and choose Playlist Details and in Saving Playlist Entries choose Absolute, without drive. Now you are good to go as long as you save as M3U. By doing this you can have all your music in the right folders and store your playlists in the root directory.

You can swap USB in and out but I'd recommend just getting a huge one (and you do NOT have to put your songs from a playlist all in one folder, but I'll explain that in a second). First, I'd recommend this USB to anyone worried about it sticking out: http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruzer-Low-Profile-Drive--SDCZ33-016G-B35/dp/B005FYNSZA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1406280117&sr=8-4&keywords=usb+flash+drive All different sizes (I have the 64GB with *most* of my music on it :>) and you'll never know it's even in there (which is good and bad -- I put mine in the lower second USB slot so my wife can use the upper one for hers to swap in and out as needed). Even with over 10K and 50GB worth of songs it only takes 9 minutes to index and command list and it's ready to go for good. I love your observations about the Prius as I drove my friend's for a week before we got the C-Max and it was such a whale and so noisy I couldn't imagine owning one. Now, as to playlists: the reason you can't put your music into folders and have the playlist play them is in how you create the lists in the first place. You need to create them with directory information. Without that it assumes they are in the root directory because that's where it always looks. However it's a bit tricky as most playlist creating software doesn't create folder info, or create it properly (and when you use it you need to be careful that you are creating the playlist on that drive itself, in your PC). Your best bet is to edit them yourself (they are just ASCII files and can be created/edited in Notepad, for example). What I would do is start with whatever playlist software you want to use and then edit the results for the proper pathing. That may or may not involve editing out the drive info, but you can experiment with whatever you are using for your m3u files. Here's an example: Let's say you have two songs, each in two separate subdirectories (by artist) and in one of those subdirectories the song is further inside of an album folder. You would specify them like this (assuming the playlist is stored at the root directory): ..\Sting\01. The Last Ship.mp3 ..\Tony Bennett\The Art of Romance\01 Close Enough for Love.mp3 Those (..\) mean to start in the playlist directory and then follow the path to the music. You may find you have the option to specify relative or absolute in your playlist creating software and you should try both options and then look at it in notepad and see how it's written. The problem is that even with one that specifies subfolders it may also specify a drive designation (which won't work since you don't know the drives assigned in your car). So you might see something like this: C:\Sting\01. The Last Ship.mp3 C:\Tony Bennett\The Art of Romance\01 Close Enough for Love.mp3 You'll need to replace that drive with the relative folder designations as I showed above. Here's more explanations about how M3U files work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U Once you understand them it's pretty easy to create and/or modify them to work properly.

Interestingly enough, both of those links say *nothing* about how the Prius sucks when driving. Truly, if mpg is all you are interested in, the Prius IS a much better car. No question about it. However, if mpg was all you were interested in, you wouldn't get a Prius, you'd get an all electric car. I guess that the Prius is the best mpg you can get out of a hybrid so if you can't go all electric and need max mpg it's the next best thing. But it drives horribly and is unsafe, at least in terms of trying to merge into high speed traffic (then again, most Prius owners I know drive like my grandmother, and she's been dead for over 30 years). Look, I never begrudge anyone's choice in cars, houses or wives -- those are all major decisions that only the person making them is informed enough to have the "right" opinion. All I can say is what suits me, and the Prius just doesn't. If I was ONLY driving around town (and thus no need for quick maneuvers) but for some reason an all-electric car wasn't an option... oh, hell, who am I kidding, I STILL wouldn't get the Prius. I think I'd just take the bus.

Yup, it's tan. With our Ice Storm exterior I think it looks great (and I would never have black in our hot Florida climate -- plus I kind of hate the black interior in our Durango as I can never find my wallet, keys, anything I drop in the back seat, where it just goes invisible.

If the tire thing *really* worries you you could always put one in the back -- cost you a bit and take up some room but that's the tradeoff you'd make anyway (IOW, any other vehicle will also cost more and lose room in that manner). I haven't changed a flat in three decades and have no desire to start now so it don't worry me none <g>.

Maybe the best thing to do is to never travel to any other state (only half kidding). I'm guessing that most border states more or less respect those folks passing through. Georgia, for example, would kind of be hurting themselves if they were to hassle Florida folks who don't need front plates. But that's just my guess -- who knows? The only thing I do know for sure is that treating any police officer with less than the respect you would give an honored king is a sure way to get brutalized and/or taken advantage of. I understand -- it's a tough job and one I would never want myself, but it's also a position that many abuse. (And I SERIOUSLY doubt whether Florida would hassle me about registration for a ticket about something that doesn't match their own laws -- but in any case it wouldn't affect me as my license lasts another 10 years before renewal :>).

Well, the best thing about your chart is that you're saying gas will still be available in 2104 (although I won't be alive then) <bg>. So since a gas engine in general produces heat as a by-product (which is why running the heater actually cools the engine down) I'm guessing this only impacts hybrids and all electrics. So there might very well be a break even point at which, climate wise, it wouldn't make sense to get a hybrid (maybe if you live in Fargo, for example :>). I also wonder at what point the A/C becomes a factor -- obviously here in Florida our temps exceed your chart quite a bit and I'm guessing from your mpg that you don't run the air even when it gets to 80. Conversely, here we need the air on even if it's 75 or above (due to the humidity) and summer is bound to be the lowest mpg for me (until we get to the winter when if we run a car heater more than a few days it's something).

You talking to me? (I sound like De Niro). If so, no, I haven't tried using my phone as a hotspot for SYNC. I read about using the phone for a wi-fi hotspot, but I thought your phone had to support this (and I don't think mine does). But perhaps SYNC is different. And I don't know why I'd want to (more stuff to read and absorb)

If you have ANY doubt about the Prius versus the C-Max my advice is to drive both for at least a few days (find a friend or get a loaner). I borrowed a friend's Prius and after two days I was convinced it was the worst vehicle I've ever driven -- it handled like a U-Haul truck (about the same acceleration and "whale like" feeling). When we test drove the C-Max our Ford dealer mentioned that if you tried pulling out in front of traffic on the expressway in a Prius you'd get run over and I didn't believe him until that nearly happened to me (seriously -- I was THAT close to being a statistic by being wiped out in my friend's car in just a "normal" merge). The C-Max, by contrast, is as peppy as the sports cars I've owned, and handles almost as well. To me there is absolutely no comparison -- I wouldn't be caught dead driving a Prius (even though I almost was... dead, that is). Now, that was the top-end Prius and I understand the V handles even worse, so I just can't imagine why anyone would want one. Also, it was *very* noisy. One of the things most reviewers (like Motor Trend, which was actually considering the C-Max for "Car of the Year") mentioned was the extra weight in the C-Max (which keeps some of the mileage from being as high as a Prius) is most likely soundproofing. I can believe it -- the Prius sounds as bad inside as my Durango (which is pretty noisy) and terrible for a car opposed to a truck. Finally -- while I was able to get impressive mpg in my friend's car, I'm also averaging around 45mpg in my C-Max in combined city/highway driving. As others have noted here, it really depends on your driving style. I probably would get in the 50's in a Prius if I was ever idiotic enough to buy one. (Oh, and I got a great deal on a 2014 model).

It's nice to have someone officially from Ford here, and welcome, but I hope everything is okay with Ashley (who seemed to be pretty wonderful). Ashley said many months ago: "We plan to add an agent who specializes in IVT (including SYNC, MyFord Touch, navigation, and SiriusXM) in the near future. We’ll be sure to let you know when he or she arrives". Because I'm still rather new here I don't know if that ever happened, but if it hasn't I would hope it's still being considered (one of the main reasons I bought my C-Max was due to this technology and while I love it so far I still have questions and concerns about it).