Podivin

I suspect that they just APPEAR closer in the rear view mirror because they are closer to the back glass. I think that people who tailgate don't care what kind of a car is in front of them, they're going too ride to close no matter what.

Back when I lived in Iowa we regularly saw temps of below zero in the morning, and -10 to -20 wasn't uncommon at all. I would put a magnetic heater on the engine oil pan, it made a HUGE difference in the way the engine would turn over and start in the morning (or in the afternoon for that matter - when it's STILL below zero), and a small difference in how quickly the heater would actually start to blow warm air. This wasn't on a C-Max, but it should still make starting easier and have the ICE warm up just a bit quicker.

Is he a big fella with a heavy foot? :)

And if he's a smart man, he never will. :)

How many times have you been driving behind someone who has their turn signal on for miles (and miles, and miles) and you wonder 'why don't they turn that thing off'. Maybe Ford is trying to help those folks. :)

Yep, the leather seats is one of the main things that kept me in an SE rather than an SEL.

LS, I'm not knocking your work, and thanks for the review of the product, but personally I've never understood the appeal of shiny tires (obviously there IS one, I just don't get it). To me, rubber shouldn't shine. I like a clean tire as much as the next guy, also prefer to see white walls and white letters on tires be WHITE, but the shiny rubber look is just lost on me. That must be one of those 'to each his own' things. :)

Personally I'm not concerned about the battery. We had a Prius for 7 years and put just under 200k on it. During the last year or so we could tell that the engine was running a bit more, and the average mpg was down from 50 to 47, we blamed this on the battery getting a bit weaker, but never actually had it tested to be SURE. Given that the C-Max has essentially the same technology in it I'm going to assume that the battery will last at least that long. By that point somebody will have come up with something that gets 60mpg plus, and I'll have switched to that. :)

I agree with CassidyB, take a good look at the battery powered mowers. They are VERY light, much lighter than the ones from 3 or so years ago. In fact they sort of feel like a toy,but they do a good job with the grass. Mine is 21" with two blades. I bought it from Lowes (or Home Depot, I don't recall exactly), it's so light it feels like a toy. I also have a 1/3 acre lot (with a swimming pool and 12x16 outbuilding, so I don't mow the entire lot), it mows it just fine. The 50-something lady next door borrowed it and like it enough that she bought one for herself.

In my opinion, 'drafting' is just another way of saying 'tailgating', and that is NEVER safe to do. If a someone cuts off the the car you're tailgating, or an animal jumps out in front of it, or any of a dozen other things happen, that person his going to hit his breaks, and you're going to hit him before you have to time to think 'oh crap'. Not to mention that most folks don't like being tailgated, and it's good way to spark a nice bit of road rage. How many times have you been driving along the freeway and saw a dead animal along side the road that was hit by a car? It's probably safe to say that the person who hit that animal slammed on the breaks trying to avoid it. Think about that the next time your 'drafting' someone trying get an extra mpg on your 'score'.

If you haven't already done so, you might try it with them driving the car rather than riding with you. Sometimes rattles and squeaks are easier to hear from one particular seat in the car (nearly always the driver's seat :) ).

Prius' do the same thing (we've had three over the years, still have one of them). We just refer to it as 'the car sitting in the driveway talking to itself'. It must be a hybrid thing to do.

Gotcha, it's not surprising this is a different noise (we seem to have plenty to choose from). This isn't the usual buffeting noise, this is a big bass note coming from the speakers, at certain speeds and accelerations. For me it's not worth taking it to Ford for any sort of update, it happens rarely, and if I don't want to hear it I can simply put up the windows. :)

On my car it's 'seasonal' only insofar as it only happens when I've got windows down. Apparently the extra noise from having the windows down somehow confuses the noise-cancelling system and it activates when it doesn't need to be (or it SHOULD be working, but having the windows down changes the acoustics in the car enough that we can hear the sound the noise-cancelling system makes). In any case, in my car I only hear it with the windows down. It would have been nice if Ford had given us the option to turn that feature off without having to remove a fuse, which disables other things also.

It may not make a difference, but try 'read text messages' as your command. That works in mine (2014 regular C-Max, not an Energi)