HotPotato

Welcome! You got a sweet deal vs new, on a car that will give you miles of smiles.

Yes. I had a Mazda3 hatch and it was an excellent car. I have a Ford C-Max and it is an excellent-er car. It's basically everything I loved about the 3, only more so: same hatch utility but more interior room this time, same great acceleration but without having to wring it out using a manual transmission this time (love the C-Max's instant wallop of torque!), same silent idle in town but now also quiet on the highway (something that can't be said for any Mazda once the tires get a bit of wear), same precise handling but a slightly better ride this time. And the difference in price over the life of the car can be made up by the difference in MPG: I had a 27.5 lifetime MPG avg with the 3 (2.3 L engine); I have a 37.7 lifetime average with the C-Max. I drive both the same way: accelerate hard, cruise easy. In both cases, I shoulda bought the upgraded factory radio, but later (pricey) tinkering got the tunes improved. I believe my 3 had two major warranty repairs and one minor recall. My C-Max has had two repairs and several recalls, but the recalls will already have been performed on any car you buy at the dealer. Really the only things that would give me pause about living with C-Max for 100k miles: 1) the possibility of experiencing the dead 12 volt battery (mine has been fine since the software update), and 2) the buggy USB interface for the stereo, which can be annoying (so now I just stream via Bluetooth instead). Both times I briefly considered an Impreza too, but wasn't that imprezzed (different story if you live in the snow).

Hehe. As you know, that side window buffeting noise happens on all modern cars. Here's why: http://jalopnik.com/why-do-slightly-opened-car-windows-make-that-awful-soun-1447498738 From the article, it sounds like cars with a big interior volume --- like ours --- would experience it the most.

I must admit, I'm pretty ticked off to have received an extended warranty sales pitch in the mail from Ford...I think until they figure out what's killing the 12 volt batteries, everyone's warranty should be extended free of charge, at least for this issue. Last time I had a car that couldn't keep a 12 volt battery alive, it was a 1982 Volkswagen on its fourth owner...not a new car. It has only happened to me once in the C-Max -- perhaps because I live in Southern California, where there's no rainwater to splash up on those apparently corrosion-prone connectors -- but I worry if and when it might happen again.

Looks like a dash kit to install a double-DIN stereo in your C-Max is finally here! Of course, you will have to wait for it to ship from China: http://m.aliexpress.com/item/1050171178.html?tracelog=storedetail2mobilesitedetail Anyone want to gamble 50 bucks to find out? It does look like it might work on my non-MFT car; with any luck, that central cutout on the bottom is for our little lock indicator thingy. Looks like the soft-key areas are replaced with cooling vents for your new stereo. PLUS, Pioneer will be offering Apple CarPlay on some double DIN touchscreen receivers: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Press-Room/Car-Audio-Video/Pioneer+Brings+Apple+CarPlay+to+the+Vehicle+You+Already+Own This basically turns your stereo into a giant iPhone. Kits are available to integrate with Sync and steering wheel controls. And these same decks can offer internal equalizers, amps and auto-compensation tools to eliminate the need to use a costly digital sound processor to upgrade your sound. Promising stuff...

If you can come up with a legally defensible way to calculate what the resale value Shoulda Been, then I'm sure many if us would sign a letter. Not sure insurance is the example to use, tho. As I understand it, insurance is intended to replace like with like, so a reduced payout is irrelevant as long as it's still tracking the actual cost to replace the car with another car of the same make, model, age and mileage.

Yes. Get a Kicker digital 25Wx4 amp, turn the factory radio's treble up, and enjoy.

Trading after 1 year is always a bad deal, but that's a badder-than-usual deal.

I do sincerely appreciate Ford's mileage reimbursement checks, although they don't match California gas prices. But I'm very concerned about resale value too. I fear that between the two MPG re-rates, dead-last reliability rating, and sluggish sales, our beloved car could end up in one of those Internet "10 worst automotive fails" lists. Lost in all this is how fundamentally good the car is. You want 0-60 in under 8 seconds, a quiet cabin, and a German-tuned suspension? Buick will give you all of that in their Regal Turbo sedan (actually a rebadged Opel from der Vaterland) for 30 grand and up, and you'll get 21 city MPG. That's 50% of the MPG, people. With no dog compartment in the back, either. Want something more directly comparable? OK, walk one row over to the Buick Encore, a short-and-tall MPV like the C-Max, with a tiny 1.4 liter turbo engine. Compared to the C-Max, you get weaker acceleration, less room, an equally high price, and still just 25/33 MPG. I pick Buick because they work to put a higher level of refinement in their cars than non-premium makes, and the C-Max is a very refined car, but you can do the same sort of comparison with any make. There truly is nothing like the C-Max. I think they messed up selling it purely on MPG -- and by giving the 2014s taller gearing for an MPG bump, since taller gearing generally means acceleration takes a hit -- because the COMBINATION of a rewarding driving experience, great practicality AND great MPG is what makes the car compelling.

2013 is the year I shopped for a car and bought my C-Max. Your point escapes me.

I don't think it's the exterior plastic chrome strip, because my C-Max creaks too and it's the SE, which doesn't have that strip. I assume it's the very long rubber seals around our very tall doors - I was going to try silicone spray, but it sounds like I shouldn't bother?

The only downside I've noticed to having it on is a jerky disengagement when coming to a stop at the bottom of a hill. Like the others, I don't notice that it does anything in the absence of a hill...suggesting it's not a switch to turn up the regen percentage (which would be kinda cool) but rather exactly what it's presented as: a way to hold a constant speed when going down a hill, through whatever combination of regen and engine braking will do the trick (which is ALSO kinda cool -- yesterday I was driving through some crazy mountain passes and backroads, and as heavy as the C-Max is, it's nice not to have to worry about brake fade or speeding tickets).

It's possible - the Accord Hybrid has the newest & most sophisticated hybrid system on the market, plus better aerodynamics & less horsepower. It will be interesting to see what Fuelly real-world results show as more of them are logged.

Weak demand, judging by how new C-Max sales have slowed. Plus, the two headlines that will come up when someone Googles the car will likely relate to either its fuel economy kerfuffle or its JD Power quality ranking, both of which render it something of a punchline to the uninitiated. It's a great car, but time will tell if Ford chooses to reinvest in its image or drop it from the lineup.

"Medium light stone" is not really tan at all, it's gray. The 2-tone gray & black thing makes the car feel both roomier and classier, IMHO, but yes, harder to hide stains!

Conventional wisdom would say go diesel for high speed highway travel, which - since you want to carry a bike - makes me want to suggest a VW Jetta TDI wagon. Especially since I love both VWs and diesels. But there are caveats. A base TDI automatic wagon is about $28k, vs about $25k for a base C-Max. Though both advertise similar hwy MPG, and the TDI might more reliably achieve it, 25% more oil input is needed to make a gallon of diesel than a gallon of gasoline, which the market in part reflects by pricing a gallon of diesel higher than a gallon of gasoline, so it's probably a wash financially and environmentally. If it matters to you, even the cleanest "clean" diesel isn't as clean at the tailpipe as a gasoline car, and presumably even more so vs a hybrid whose gasoline engine frequently cycles off entirely; but doesn't require the manufacture of a giant hybrid battery either, so perhaps in a sense it's a wash there too. Neither VW nor Ford has a proud reliability record, so again probably a wash. For the VW there are the minor matters of finding diesel fuel and replacing urea fluid, and the major matter of infrequent but costly service to maintain the TDI long-term. And I think you'll find it easier, though still not quite easy, to wedge your bike into a C-Max. On the other hand, the TDI offers a rich pre-decontenting-era VW interior, a body style less susceptible to crosswinds, probably a better-sounding optional top-of-the-line stereo if you want to pay for one, and almost certainly stronger resale value. It probably comes down to which one you like better and which dealer gives the better deal. Both are wonderful cars.

Bought mine from Perry Ford because I wanted to buy local and they said they'd honor Costco pricing. For whatever reason, they turned what should have been a 2-hour transaction into a 2-day ordeal, perhaps to wear me down.They said they'd do Costco pricing, but then the sales manager's numbers didn't actually match that pricing; I had to call him on it. They lowballed me on the trade because it would be hard to sell; in fact they sold it for a huge markup before they'd even had time to vacuum it. The F&I guy sold me a prepaid maintenance package on false pretenses -- charging me for 5k mi service intervals when the car has 10k service intervals -- and after months of the runaround, I gave up on getting the promised refund. The F&I guy also told me my bank's prearranged financing didn't go through so I'd have to finance through the dealer instead, when in fact a call to the bank quickly determined that to be false. My sales agent herself was nice, and the service department is not bad (though they tend to ignore anything on my list that they'd rather not deal with), but in general...talk about a stealership.

Color: White or black will show dirt. My Mazda3 was silver and didn't show dirt, and I think the C-Max looks good in silver. Seats: can confirm: the driver seat goes up and down on the SE. The winter package is a bargain. Heated seats and mirrors for peanuts. Fog lights: the headlights are great -- fogs aren't needed on this car. Unless something has changed since I bought mine, you can get every option except foglights and the Sony stereo on the SE -- so unless you're a music geek, it comes down to whether you prefer cloth or leather upholstery. You've heard the argument for leather, so here's the argument for cloth. FWIW, I've had cars with leather, pleather, and cloth seats. Cloth is the most comfortable in summer months BY FAR...it's not even close. Cloth stays cool in the sun. Real or synthetic hide gets hot enough to burn your skin if you're wearing shorts, and doesn't breathe well, so your sweaty back sticks to the seat. Cloth also doesn't require maintenance, whereas if you don't condition leather it will eventually crack. Cloth can stain, but the C-Max has stain-resistant fabric, and any full-service carwash can shampoo your seats.

Thanks, Rebecca. It's an iPhone 5S, iOS just updated to version 7.1.1. FWIW, Sync acted the same with my previous iPhone 4S and the previous versions of iOS. AFAIK, Phonebook download has not been enabled for some time (I can't dial anyone through Sync, only though Siri). I have found a couple of things that may be helpful to others tho: 1. If I plug the phone in BEFORE starting the car, sometimes Sync will recognize that pressing the AUX button means I want USB, instead of always defaulting to Line In. (Shouldn't we be able to change what AUX defaults to, somewhere? I have never once wanted it to be Line In, so this is a pretty annoying default.) 2. If I wait to play anything until AFTER Bluetooth has connected, regardless of whether I'm playing over USB or Bluetooth Audio, this also seems to reduce problems.

I'm gonna bump my own old thread to see if anyone bites this time... Am I the only SE owner for whom the aux input sources on the radio are a completely unreliable nightmare? Example: I'll try to use the steering wheel buttons to skip a song when my iPhone is playing thru USB. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't work and moves me through a Sync menu instead. Example: even though the song is playing on the Music app on the phone, no sound comes through the speakers. I pull the voice paddle and say "Play," and the Sync lady says "Current selection is not playable". Example: when put in either USB or Bluetooth Audio mode, the stereo either does not play, or plays fine for maybe 40 min and then all the sudden isn't playing ... which sucks when the only reason the system is on, is to amplify the turn by turn voice prompts from my phone's Nav app, and I don't realize the stereo stopped listening for and playing the prompts until I have missed several turns. Is mine defective, or all they all this awful? Is there a chance Ford can replace something, or I can change some setting, to make it simply function as designed?

Yep, I hold the wheel at 10 and 2, and find the steering quite nice. Just did a rather rushed left-lane run from Orange County to the Central Coast yesterday, and the first 70% of that trip is nonstop freeway construction with uneven surfaces, sudden lane shifts, narrow lanes, and zero clearance between the lane edge and the K-rail. Unnerving, but the C-Max was steady as she goes all the way. Side note: the car was packed with four tall people and their luggage, and aside from a bit of sag in the rear, handled the extra load admirably. Several times we had to haul arse across four to six lanes to accommodate unexpected detours or pee breaks. One passenger even commented "this has a lot of power for a small car! I bet that's why you bought it." Not far off.

Gave it a look, but paying a premium for a reskinned Prius seemed a dubious move when the car is no faster, roomier, or prettier than its mechanical twin. Then again, the same is true of the Audi A3---a more expensive, less roomy reskin of the previous-generation VW Golf---and Audi sells a few of those. And heck, I seriously considered a Volvo C30, which could be considered a more expensive, less roomy reskin of a Mazda3 (with Volvo turbo power). For some buyers, a premium interior, a pleasant dealer experience, and a name badge that passes muster with their snootier friends is worth the difference in price, and that's fine.

PTJones (Paul) means two different things when he says Shutters and Grill Covers. Shutters are the factory-installed lovers that open and close automatically according to factory-set parameters. Grill Covers are homemade covers that Paul came up with to literally cover the grill so air cannot flow through it, with the idea that this will improve fuel economy. Paul sells the covers and promotes them in the forums.

Hi, sekanoj. Sorry, I don't have pix or instructions on that---the shop made those connections for me. The Clarion amp is very similar to the Alpine that I have; it's a neat concept.

I get a bottoming-out sensation and soft clunk from the front suspension on dips, rather like an older car with worn-out strut bushings...but had hypothesized that maybe the car just has a really soft or short-travel front suspension...