salman

got a call back from the regional customer care manager. he says the car will be bought back. I should be receiving a letter that will start the buy back process in a few days. It will then be a process of figuring out the buy back price by the formula that is prescribed by State law. Don't know yet how long that will take. sad the CMax has not worked out because except for the crucial reliability issues it is a great car.

OutraGeo I think you are taking all the correct steps, namely bringing the car to the dealer. You should also contact Ford Customer Care directly after you get word back from the dealer. Wait until then so you can talk about what the dealer did or did not do to try to diagnose the problem(s). A few comments, some potentially of use for you and some more general. 1) We now have a couple of reports of September 2013 build date CMaxs with dead battery problems. It seems the cause has not be corrected at the factory line, let along identified and corrected as a warranty repair matter. 2) Problems afflict all 3 versions of the CMax, most likely in proportion to their numbers on the road. The cars share a lot of parts. 3) Your problem with the headlights is a clue. That is a system not shutting down, so the first diagnostic steps probably ought to focus on that. That means things like the step down converter are probably not involved, but it possibly could be caused by bad software for the shut-down routine or a short circuit or a bad ground. 4) I do not think any other poster has mentioned headlights not shutting off automatically. There have been reports of USB ports staying on and problems with the entertainment system & screen. Also my weird self-opening windows and a service advisory about bad ground connections in the Body Control Module cauing erratic electrical behavior. 5) Is Ford denying a problem? Some dealers are still telling owners that their driving habits could be the cause. That is outrageous. But when speaking of Ford I think we need to recognize that the multiple TSBs they have issued acknowledge there is a problem with 12 volt systems malfunctioning. The TSBs are an admission that there is a problem. 6) when you first picked up the car you say the dealer charged it up. My guess is they charged the plug-in high voltage battery, not the 12 volt. Would you pleasse clarify? 7) While it is conceivably possible to avoid 12 volt problems in the C-Max by constantly charging the 12 volt battery with a trickle charger or, perhaps, routinely and regularly making sure the 12 volt battery is fully charged with a plug in charger, I do not think that is a good idea for a bunch of reasons: These are new cars that are not supposed to have problems like this, as opposed to hobby antique roadsters or patchwork transportation that one would expect to need constant band aids to plug leaks and top-ups of fluids, etc. There are clearly problems dating from the car's engineering design and these problems are covered by warranty and potentially cause for lemon law buy back if your car proves incorrigible. Given what is at stake ($25,000 to $35,000 purchase for us individually, many $millions for Ford), messing with anything that could give Ford an opportunity to semi-plausibly claim that owner intervention worsened the problem or violated warranty seems to me a bad move.

Today is day 15 since my buy back case opened with Ford. Their schedule was to notify me within 10 business days if they do not agree to the buy back or to have a packet of forms delivered to me within 15 business days if they do agree to the buy back. That is their standard schedule that they give owners when a buy back case is initiated. Heard no word from them since the confirmation that they received my letter & packet of documents, so I called Customer Care today. Not one of the better agents today. Luck of the draw. Ultimately I persuaded him to check for an update on their schedule and was told that one or two people or offices at Ford were still pondering my case and that perhaps there would be an answer soon. Also left a phone message for the regional Customer Care manager.

Hi The C-Max has two batteries, a 12 volt and the Lithium battery. The 12 volt system is the one that has troubled many of us. There are several discussion threads about the 12 volt problem in this forum. The biggest thread with the most information is in the section on Maintenance, TSBs, and Recalls. That is a long thread, but many of the messages are short and once you start reading you will pick up speed. There have been several TSBs (Technical Service Bulletins) advising service departments on how to try to handle 12 volt problems. You will find them discussed in the other threads. There are TSBs for the battery ccharging software, for the entertainment screen, for the main engine wiring harness, and also another for the Body Control Module. Some people have not had repeat symptoms after one or another of these repairs, but others have had all of the repairs and still have been hit with dead 12 volt systems. Thus it seems Ford has not yet definitively identified and solved the problem. By learning as much as you reasonably can you will be in a better position to evaluate whether your service department is doing a good job. At the very least, let them know that you know there are several TSBs related to 12 volt problems and let them know that you know this has afflicted quite a few CMax's. Ford HQ knows it, too. The problem is not caused by how you drive the car. If anyone at the service department tries to tell you that you should go to another service department and immediately call Ford's central Customer Care number about it. Hope your case is one that does not happen again. You won't know until a year or two goes by without further incident. Until then, keep good records, bring the car to the dealer for service whenever it happens, and, also, if it happens again have Ford Roadside Assistance tow the car to the dealer (unless you need to drive it immediately).

Having a dead car towed to the dealer gives you the owner proof that it was dead. You get a service department ticket that says the car came to them dead. That way Ford cannot deny the problem. Having the car towed imposes a cost on Ford, and thus ever so slightly increases pressure to find a fix. And having the car towed does preserve the possibility of service looking for clues while the car is dead.

Flatbat Thank you for posting the details.They can be very helpful for others. It is a disturbing story. Let us know how things progress. In my case, yesterday was the 10th business day after my buy back case was opened by Ford. I have not received a negative reply. I will call Customer care to check the status today or Monday as time allows.

that's a key point about the lack of under/over variation. I'm persuaded.

Mbedit Have you eliminated the possibility of gas pumps shutting off at different levels of "full"? I don't know how much capacity is supposed to be left in the tank when a pump hits auto-shutoff. That might account for some of the discrepancy. But a 1 gallon difference sounds like a lot.

Mbedit Thanks for posting about your experience and your wise advice. I did not know that Ford outsources the final exchange/buy back paperwork to a third party that can fiddle with the numbers. If/when Ford does that, there are judgment calls to be made about negotiating strategy, and turning the case over to a lawyer is certainly one option we all have. By this point in the process Ford would have already admitted that a buy-back/exchange is merited. For that reason I think the mere mention by the customer of possibly handing the case to a lawyer would sometimes be effective. Ford's hirelings shouldn't do that sort of thing. If that happened to me, I think I might get in touch with Ford's office of legal counsel directly, point out the error, and ask if they would correct the problem with me - letting them know that there is a more costly alternative for them if they won't agree to crunch the numbers according to the law. It is important to be both 100% accurate if you do that and to always be polite. In California, the dealer service department is considered a "representative of the manufacturer" and so bringing the car to dealer service counts as giving Ford the opportunity to repair the car. Are you sure that in N.C. the dealer does not count as a representative of the manufacturer? Whatever the answer is to that, your advice to contact Ford Customer Care and to write to Ford itself early in the process is still spot on and very important. It establishes a record at Ford, gives the owner a written record, eliminates any potential question about not having given Ford full and proper notice, and it probably also tells Ford that the owner is serious, attentive to detail, and is unlikley to give up on getting things set right (whether by repair, exchange or buy back).

Very interesting. This could be at the root of many different sorts of problems, from the windows opening themselves to other electronic systems self-activating, and from there to 12 volt battery drains. Full account of my global open windows feature going Frankenstein is in the Alarms & Locks Section. My car was just in the shop about this Oct 28 -Nov 7, and during work with the BCM advised by Ford engineers on the hotline (removing BCM, replacing BCM, recalibrating, etc) the car went dead for about 5 days until it could be revived. In the end Ford tried to disable the global open feature, but that did not work: global open functioned when I tried it at the dealership. The timing of this advisory and my recent repair attempt seems too close to be a coincidence, but I do not know for sure. Because I have a buy back request under review I am getting a little less information. I do know there was a lot of back and forth between the hotline engineers and my service department, and it concerned precisely the self-activating global open feature, the BCM and the need to bring car back from the dead. Does this now make my C-Max a zombie car? haven't yet tried starting it today.

copied from the "windows rolled down" thread in the Alarm & Lock section since this also updates the unfolding buy-back story: Picked up my car today. It was ready yesterday after 8 days in the shop. The solution to the window self-opening problem was to disable the feature, which the manual says can be done by dealer service departments. The Ford tech hotline advised my service department to disable the feature, and the service department followed the tech hotline's instructions. Along the way the car was dead for about 6-7 days, as explained above (see other thread for details). And when they pulled out the car today I tested the global open feature . . . . and it was still active, not disabled. Given that my buy back case is under review I thought there was no point to giving service the car to work on again. But I did ask them to revise the service receipt to reflect the fact that the global open feature is still active (i.e, the procedure to disable global open did not work). They also needed to revise the service receipt to reflect the car passing through the valley of death during its time in the shop. When a buy back case is initiated the normal service routine changes a little bit. Issues get booted up to the service manager and Ford starts to consider whether they should cut their losses. To the extent a buy back is likely, then it makes less sense to expend a lot of money on repairs. Of course, if Ford were to try to refuse a buy back, then Ford remains responsible for the warranty (unless and until a buy back is won in arbitration or in court). I still think very highly of the service dept at Airport Marina Ford. They've done all the right things. The problems are in the engineering end of the company. Car ran beautifully on the way home. The CMax is a great idea. When it works it is a great car. But reliability issues and down time in the shop and the failure of engineering to find fixes for their problems (and projected repair costs post warranty when the shop time would be on my tab! yowzaaa!) are a killer for me.

Picked up my car today. It was ready yesterday after 8 days in the shop. The solution to the window self-opening problem was to disable the feature, which the manual says can be done by dealer service departments. The Ford tech hotline advised my service department to disable the feature, and the service department followed the tech hotline's instructions. Along the way the car was dead for about 6-7 days, as explained above. And when they pulled out the car today I tested the global open feature . . . . and it was still active, not disabled. Given that my buy back case is under review I thought there was no point to giving service the car to work on again. But I did ask them to revise the service receipt to reflect the fact that the global open feature is still active (i.e, the procedure to disable global open did not work). They also needed to revise the service receipt to reflect the car passing through the valley of death during its time in the shop. When a buy back case is initiated the normal service routine changes a little bit. Issues get booted up to the service manager and Ford starts to consider whether they should cut their losses. To the extent a buy back is likely, then it makes less sense to expend a lot of money on repairs. Of course, if Ford were to try to refuse a buy back, then Ford remains responsible for the warranty (unless and until a buy back is won in arbitration or in court). I still think very highly of the service dept at Airport Marina Ford. They've done all the right things. The problems are in the engineering end of the company. Car ran beautifully on the way home. The CMax is a great idea. When it works it is a great car. But reliability issues and down time in the shop and the failure of engineering to find fixes for their problems (and projected repair costs post warranty when the shop time would be on my tab! yowzaaa!) are a killer for me.

so far the buy back cases related to 12 volt system problems that have been reported on this forum have gone smoothly, with I think one exception in which the owner sounded to have processed the request incorrectly (and this then was corrected). I do not recall reading about a protracted buy back fight over a CMax If it is an obviously significant issue that obviously crosses the legal lines in terms of repair attempts, then there is no upside for Ford to fight it. I wish the reliability issues were not hitting us. The car is a great concept

hybridbear leaving the build quality problems aside . . . wow, sounds like a poorly run service department. You say you are in Minneapolis, so there must be several other dealerships you can go to for service. No need to take it where you bought it. I think a conversation with Ford's Customer Care Center would be appropriate. Have them start a case file, describe the issues over the phone, and write up a clear letter outlining the service history. Append copies of the service records. Estimate your costs in a conservative way. Judgement call as to whether you should ask for something in particular or just ask if they will please make amends to you and let them decide how. I think I'd do the latter.

hybridbear I do not know the Minnesota law, but it is probably similar to California's. Cal's was the first such law and the model for other states, especially those where all the children are above average. To the extent it is like California's law, my hunch, FWIW, is that cosmetic problems and part delivery delays would not by themselves make for a strong buy-back case. However, your dealer and Ford probably should be giving you better service, and of course there should not be so many little build-quality problems. A few ideas that I have: When these little problems crop up, could you continue driving your own car until the part comes in so the car does not have so much down time? Does the dealer pay for the rental car? You could try asking Ford to pay for the difference in fuel costs if they are significant. If Ford does not pay for the rental, then they should. You could ask Ford and the dealer for some modest compensation for all your time and trouble, perhaps a free oil change or two, or something like that. Sometimes it is a good idea to ask for something modest that dealer can do without losing sweat or much money. Sometimes it is better to ask open endedly, "what can you to do to improve this situation for me?" Occasionally it is better to shoot for the stars with a bigger request, but I think that only rarely the more productive choice. Success in negotiations like this require some luck (you need to have an amenable counter party) and some skill, politeness, and charm to massage people into wanting to be helpful. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Received a call from Ford's legal office today to let me know my letter & packet of documents was forwarded to them by the Customer Care Center, and that they have sent the letter and docs to the investigative team. The investigators asked the two service departments I have used for their records, sending their request on Nov 1, the day after I callled in the buy back request. The legal office said my packet of documents could speed things up because sometimes dealerships can be slow to collect and send all records. Meanwhile, my service department called me today to say I could pick up the car. They had it since Oct 28. Today was day 38 (cumulative tally) that my C-max has been in the care of Ford service. California Lemon Law generally defines a lemon as 4 or more repair attempts for a significant problem that lessens the use, value or safety of the car, OR 30 or more days in the shop for any number of problems in the first 18 months OR two tries to fix something that is a severe safety issue. Buy back request goes forward. Will pick up the car tomorrow and will post details in the Locks & Alarm about what was done.

No, not new. The 13-7-10 TSB is from July 10, 2013, and it updates a TSB from April. Not a new fix.

Now I just don't get this. Viajero did exactly what Dr D says should be done, and yet Dr D says Viajero is "working from the wrong end." Viajero gave an example, namely that Dr D identified the fact that his car's USB port was going active when it should be off. So, Viajero then asked, quite logically, why was this happening? How could the cause be found? And how could it be fixed? Dr D located the symptom (USB going active) and Viajero then described very clearly the general process of finding the cause in the car's firmware: programmers would need to debug all the way back to the first causes. So how did Viajero start on the wrong end of the problem? He started with Dr D's isolation of the location of the power draw and then quite properly Viajero explained that this would likely be happening because of a bug in firmware. It is exactly what Dr D says should be done. Yet Dr D says it is backwards? By the way, this is what Ford seems to be doing. First they tested the batteries and we all wondered if Ford got a bad lot of them, and then many of us hypothesized that the battery was too small in reserve capacity. Then Ford searched for shorts (the electrical connectors found a bit later) and for modules that draw power when they shouldn't. Then they issued TSBs to update firmware for the 4.2 info screen, and then to update the 12 volt charging routines. These facts remain: 1) while it is easy to see that there is a draw when a meter is hooked up, it can be difficult to locate the source of the draw. 2) In all the cases of dead 12 volt systems, very few instances of power draws have been found. 3) To the extent that a power draw is caused by a bug in firmware, it can difficult and time consuming to find the bug. 4) It is clear that Ford has been searching for defective batteries, power draws, and firmware bugs, pretty much in that order of time sequence. And yet after a year they have not been able to diagnose and solve the problem. Toyota does not appear to have this kind of problem with the Prius. Moreover, it seems that quite a few different kinds of repair issues with the C-Max get bogged down in complexity such that it takes mechanics and Ford engineers a long time to sort things out. The hardware/software nexus in the C-Max seems to be a tangled nest to work in, and it seems to have some persistent bugs that cause serious problems.

point taken FWIW, the all-caps vs regular upper/lower case was the only way to distinguish a quotation on an I-Pad. Not pretty, I know

Hi There is a ton of information on this thread and related threads listed in the Maintenance, Recall & TSB section. You'd do well to start reading them from the beginning. You'll be able to skip quickly through many posts that don't have substantial information. It won't take all that long to do because it will become quicker as you go. Your post is a reminder to everyone here that the problems reported on this forum are a self-selected sample of the total number of problems. The actual number of people with 12 volt problems is greater than we can see.

It is a mystery until Ford or Dr Diesel figures out the cause or causes. It is not magic nor is it a supernatural occurrence, so it can be fixed. Anything mechanical can be fixed, if someone is willing and able to spend the time and money to do it by rebuilding as much as is necessary and redesigning components that might have been defective from the moment of design. The question is whether you can afford to go on the ride in terms of time and money, and what level of time and money risk you are willing to take because 1) we don't know how long it will take to find the diagnosis and fixes needed, 2) the warranty is finite, and 3) Lemon Laws also have a time limitation.

QUOTING THE GOOD DOCTOR: You can setup the scope to monitor anything and watch trends over given times. You could monitor the 12V battery voltage over a week. Random electrical problems can be difficult to catch. Parasitic load testing is common practice on dead battery issues. The C-Max 12V battery is only a 390 CCA battery. Most standard car batteries are around 600 CCA's and up. This will shorten the batteries capability when the system has a draw. Without a conventional starter to start the car, you never know the 12V batteries SOC, unless you measure it. This is why everyone finds it dead without notice. Conventional cars use the starter to start the engine and it loads the battery with a 150 to 250 amp draw while cranking. You physically hear it and can tell if it has a low battery, because the starter will crank slow, drag or just click. The hybrid is started with MG1 and it's power comes from the HVB. The only active role the 12V battery has, is to power the controllers and allow the HVB contacts to close when you push the power button on the dash or turn the key on an SE model. You don't get any feedback from it to know if the 12V battery is getting low, until it's dead :drop: AND PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN POSTING ABOUT C-MAX 12 VOLT PROBLEMS HAVE POSTED ALL OF THIS INFORMATION GOING BACK TO ABOUT NOVEMBER 2012. IT IS ALL HERE ALREADY ON THESE THREADS, AND THESE TESTS HAVE BEEN TRIED. FORD HAS THOUGHT THAT IT FOUND POWER DRAINS IN INSTRUMENT MODULES IN ONE CAR, IN THE ENTERTAINMENT MODULE IN ANOTHER CAR, AND CAUSED BY FOULED ELECTRICAL CONNECTORS IN OTHER CARS - PROBLEMS CONTINUED. FORD HAS PUT SOME C-MAX CARS ON LONG TERM TESTING EQUIPMENT, BOTH PRIVATELY OWNED CARS AND ALSO THE BUY BACKS IT SENT TO FORD ENGINEERS TO DISSECT. NOW THINK ABOUT WHAT A LONG TERM TEST IN A SHOP MEANS FOR A PRIVATELY OWNED CAR: 1) THE 12 VOLT TROUBLES ARE RANDOM OCCURANCES SOMETIMES MONTHS APART, 2) IN SOME STATES THE LEMMON LAW SAYS 30 DAYS IN THE SHOP IS A DEFINITION OF A LEMON, AND 3) LONG TERM TESTS HAVE NOT YET PRODUCED RELIABLE FIXES AFTER ONE YEAR. WE KNOW THE BATTERY IS SMALL. PRIUS ALSO HAS A SMALL BATTERY, AND OPTIMA MAKES A MORE ROBUST AFTER MARKET BATTERY FOR THE PRIUS. NONE EXISTS FOR THE C-MAX. AND WHILE WE HAVE ALL SPECULATED THAT THE SMALL CAPACITY OF THE C-MAX 12 VOLT BATTERY IS CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEMS, THERE IS NO WAY TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH IT CONTRIBUTES UNTIL THE MAIN CAUSES ARE DIAGNOSED.

The lights and all other accessories are supposed to power off after a short time period. The manual gives the time duration (my manual is in the shop with my disassembled dead C-Max). My memory is that is approximately a 10 minute shut off, maybe less. It is possible that leaving the lights turned on added more draw on top of another draw, or on top of a battery that was not charged fully. On the battery threads you can find a number of hypotheses about what is going on, including the theory that the problem may partly be about a hypersenitive circuit that gets shut down (or won't turn on) when the battery is only modestly drained - that is, it could be a compound problem with battery not chargiing fully or getting drained, and also a ciruit or relay that is too sensitive to minor decreases in 12 volt battey power. Bottom line is that we do not know and Ford's engineers do not know. Parasitic load tests: This is a test to see how much current is being drawn off a battery when all systems are shut down. If you read the battery threads you will see that this test has been performed many times on C-Maxs. I of course cannot say that every dealer has done a load test on every CmAx that has come in with a dead battery, but it has been done many times, and it has produced very few helpful results. Only a couple of cars, at most have shown a draw that was out of the ordinary (the computer system in the car draws a tiny amount of juice so there is always a tiny drain). The Ford Engineers have been focused on other possible causes (charging software, software that might reawaken systems at random times, water in electrical connectors, etc) that require other diagnostics because load tests have not been productive. 12 volt system problems have been plaguing the CMax for a year now. Ford has bought back at least a handful of cars that we know about on this forum (and there must be more). There have hundreds and probably thousands of dealer service visits for 12 volt problems. The warranty costs to Ford are quite substantial. The reputation cost for vehicle sales is substantial. There is abundant evidence that Ford engineers have been working on this problem diligently (evidence includes the TSBs and other advisories, direct contact with engineers reported by Mbedit and others, and we also know the engineers have taken apart and studied some of the buy back cars). Basically, the engineers designed systems problems that they cannot figure out. That last point is ultimately what is troubling me the most about the C-Max. Here is why: beyond the headaches and troubles at this moment when my car has to go to the dealer an average of once a month and stay there for days, what happens when the warranty runs out? Mechanics at dealers are not always the best mechanics, but they do get more vehicle specific training than mechanics at other shops and they have direct access to Ford engineers for help. Watching the dependence of even good Ford mechanics on the Ford engineers for step by step advice on diagnosing problems, which still takes 2-5 days and also is not yet coming up with reliable fixes, I can only guess at what the repair costs will be for the C-Max after warranty. Not to mention rental replacement costs.. Of course I am only speaking now about C-Max's like the one I own: about a dozen visits to the shop totalling 35 days and running, multiple electrical problems of a serious nature, etc. Unfortunately there seem to be quite a few C-Max's with similar service histories.

Some basic info for anyone considering a buy-back/replacement demand : 1) keep full records of all service work and all correspondence with Ford. The more you have in writing the better. 2) look up your State's "lemon law" on the internet. Often the State Attorney General's Office or Department of Consumer Affairs will have a synopsis of it on their websites and the BBB often does, too. Read carefully for the legal criteria for a strong case, especially regarding the kinds of problems that justify invoking the buy-back/replacement law, the number of incidents required, the number of repair attempts required, and details about how to go about making a buy-back or replacement request. The law probably also says something about how to determine the buy-back price, including deductions for use of the car and inclusion of taxes, fees, registration, rental costs and even after-market additions/accessories. Here, for example, is a link to a summary of California's "Lemon Law" from the State's Attorney General's Office: http://oag.ca.gov/consumers/general/lemon When you have good grounds for a buy-back/replacement you should be able to complete the process on your own, if you keep good records and can write a good, clean summary of the case. So far Ford seems to be properly responsive and responsible in processing most of the cases described by posters in this forum. But you should always be sure to meet all the requirements of the law for written complaints and records just in case you should need to take matter to third parties like the BBB, or to arbitration if your State has a provision for arbitration as an option, or, in the last resort, to the courts. In the courts you would most likely want and need a lawyer. 3) A buy-back/replacement request can be initiated by calling Ford's Customer Care center: 800-392-3673. I did this. The agent I spoke with took my contact information, identified the vehicle, and requested information about the car problems and service history. She assigned a case number and then told me an investigator from their office would review Ford's records and contact the service departments that worked on the car. Then, if they think a buy-back is not merited, they would inform me by letter within 10 days. If they think a buy back is merited, within 15 days they would send a letter requesting paperwork, including a copy of the sale contract among other things. There would be more processing time after that. of course. (and if Ford says no then I would have the option of demanding arbitration, which Ford would need to abide by, and also the option of taking Ford to court either after arbitration or instead of arbitration, as per State law). I was very thorough in describing the problems and service history. The Customer Care agent I got this time was excellent and I made a point of thanking her. I also made a point of praising the service advisor who has handled my car since April, though I also explained that switched to his dealership from the dealer that sold me the car because that first service department was unsatisfactory, and I explained why. Details in things like buy-back requests are crucial. I carefully described how the nature of the problems and repeated repair attempts exceeded the terms established in the California "Lemon Law." Last, I made a point of saying that I would also submit the request in writing because this is sometimes required by State law and, besides, it is almost always good practice to have a written record, proof of mailing, and a receipt of delivery. The State Attorney General's page recommends it, in fact. 4) Then I drafted a letter that explained the repeated problems and the service history, and point by point showed that the case met the terms of the State's law, quoting and closely paraphrasing the key sentences from the law the define the necessary severity of problems, number of necessary repair attempts, number of days in the shop, and also the calculation of buy-back price. The buy-back case number is on the heading of the letter and also on the envelope, and I included the Vehicle ID number in the letter and prior Customer Care case numbers. I appended copies of the entire service record and copies of my written correspondence with Ford Customer Care and the dealership where I bought the car. I also included a copy of the sale contract and copy of the certificate of title. I mailed the letter on November 1 by certified mail, return receipt request. Oh, I also made a point of complimenting the Customer Care agent who started the case for me over the phone and also my current service adviser. I also dropped off a copy of the letter for the service adviser who has the car in his shop now. That way he will have full information if/when Ford contacts him, and the letter truthfully praises him for being top-notch at his job. And now I am waiting. I will post updates when something happens. It has been a lot of work. I am optimistic that Ford will be reasonably prompt and cooperative, based on the track record reported on this forum.

yes, I corresponded with mbedit about our electrical problems starting in January and then about his buy back process. I will ask him to please post a summary of his experience here. He kept a level head, was always polite, worked with Ford to try to fix the car through many battery failures and many weeks in the shop, and then Ford was very cooperative with him in arranging a vehicle replacement (he took another C-Max).