Laurel

Ryan we put the Nokian Nordman tires on Tip. The lightness in the rear end is just enough to make me a little more cautious. I have driven lots in Ottawa and Winnipeg so I do have a feel for cars in the snow--this lightness would make me take it a bit slower on the Coquilhalla I did some testing on the back roads and it does sudden stops on ice and snow quite well. Did notice one rear end slip when I put hill assist on going down a big hill with lots of slush so that woke me up.LOL I think the weight of the vehicle could make a person a little too confident. Bruce I just saw your post. It is quite amazing concerning the ineptitude of Vancouver drivers in the snow. It seems about 25% of them don't have a clue in the snow. Hwy 99 going into the city this morning was a mess with several cars in the ditch and sirens screaming all morning around here. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

If I go into settings to turn down the volume on the voice guidance, it only stays on the lower volume briefly and gradually it is once again back to the loud annoying volume. Does anyone have a method of keeping the setting to save permanently on low volume?

We just had our first snow fall of the year. We have about 10-15 centimeters of wet snow which is still falling. I drove Tip in the snow for the first time with the snow tires. I would say the performance with snow tires is so so compared to our former cars which all had snow tires. The rear end does lose traction more than I thought it would. I thought the battery weight would help stabilize the rear end more than it does. If I lived in a snowy climate, I guess I would have another car for winter driving as driving the C-Max in snow reminds me a bit of driving a pick up in the snow (a pick up with weight in the bed). Another consideration is the snow here is very wet which probably differs a lot from Bruce driving in Kamloops or other C-Maxers driving back East in dry snow.

We have snow tires on our C-Max. We rarely get snow on the south coast of British Columbia, but when it does happen it is a zoo here with everyone in the ditch because no one knows how to drive in the snow and no one has snow tires on. I have to say I will be glad when Spring comes as the snow tires make the ride very noisy and rough feeling, but I do feel much more confident in case we do get a dump of snow. The ride with snow tires makes the C-Max feel more like a Jeep ride versus a nice smooth ride--not totally unpleasant but very different.

Thanks Bruce and Adair--I sure don't miss our Winnipeg days when we couldn't have functioned without it.

I haven't used the rear de-frost yet. Where do I turn it on? Might need it as we are going on a road trip to the USA on Christmas Eve. Cannon Beach here we come!

I was hoping that your car was fixed pjurek99--how disappointing! On Christmas Eve we will give our system a test when we drive down to the Oregon coast to spend a few days.

Dedicated to Jus and Maxine as they groove to the music in the Costco gas bar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rcMskvk2G8

Great news for all of us chickens! I'll add some emoticons for you. :love_shower: :love_shower: :love_shower: :love_shower:

I am deleting the gossip I heard since it is gossip LOL.

TxTom we got the oil change message almost exactly a year after buying the car, and our second oil change happened in mid October.

We only have 5000 miles on our C-Max and have had two old changes in the past year. We got the "oil change required" message last week and followed wab's instructions to get rid of the message. I think customers are given the info. because some times technicians forget to re-set it and some people do their own oil changes.

We live in a rain forest climate on the South Coast of British Columbia. The only people that consistently tint their windows here are the gangsters LOL. We call cars with tinted windows "drive by shooters". I think people would suffer even more Seasonal Affective Disorders here if people tinted their windows. SAD is a huge problem in this climate. I do think tinted windows look very classy--too bad our climate isn't suitable for them.

Ceemax that is hilarious! Thanks for posting it.

I am embarrassed to say that is absolutely correct wab. My husband is a very nice soft spoken fellow and he has endless difficulty with the voice recognition. Not so with me barking out the commands LOL. Just this morning we were en route to an appointment and my husband quietly said "navigation, destination, Peace Arch Hospital" and she promptly asked him to repeat the command or ask for help. I barked out the same command in my wifely bossy boots manner and she promptly recognized and accepted the command LOL. I suspect you are a nice fellow with a fair and friendly approach and that just won't cut it.

Our voice recognition was great until we had the upgrade to 3.6.2 and then it couldn't recognize anything. Hubby did the re-set and it is back to being pretty good. But voice recognition seems to have real trouble with certain accents and if you speak softly. It does better if I sound stern and enunciation very crisply like a drill sargeant LOL.

Sounds like you and Maxine are out of alignment still. It is obvious that you need some prayers or if people aren't praying types they can send positive energy to you. I think I need to add you to a nightly prayer Jus. So sorry that things are so mucked up for you right now. Prayers being said.

Oh dear, sorry to hear that Howie. I thought you were a newbie and the system can be overwhelming if you are new. Best of luck with an easy fix!

Howie when we got our SEL we didn't get any instructions with the car, and learned by guess and gosh. I am wondering if you two need more instruction i.e. if it says radio off, I don't believe you would be able to use the right controls to change any channels as the radio would have to be turned on. first. You can turn the radio on with voice commands which you probably don't know or with the little button above "source". The channels all need to be set so they can be all messed up looking until you do that. I may be wrong but I think the system is okay. We're here to help with specific questions. I keep learning on the forum. I just used instruction from wab to turn off an "oil change needed" as we just had an oil change and the tech didn't reset it.

I frequently drive around with no heat or fans on and just use my seat heat and I'm pretty comfortable, but hubby hates it when I do that. Last year when I asked him if he wanted to go look at Christmas lights in the evening his response was "only if you promise to put the heat on!" LOL. We put snow tires on this year and the mileage dropped with them too, but I must say I really like the traction with them even though we only have a dusting of snow and usually don't get much snow at all here (south coast of BC).

Wb8nbs welcome to the forum. I can relate a bit to her distress over her ritual of locking up the car. It still is a struggle for me not to do that as I had a similar little ritual when exiting my car. Now I force myself to trust the amber light that shows that it is locked, but on occasion I forget and grab a handle which unlocks the car. Maybe when she is exiting she can put her fob in a lead lined little container and put it in her purse, and then pull it out when she comes back to the car. I know how hard it is to give up comforting rituals, but I hope she will give it time and she will likely enjoy the car if she does. Not sure where you would find a little lead box for her fob LOL. Good luck.

Thanks for posting this wab. I was looking all over the place trying to figure out how to reset the oil service required. We have less than 9000 kilometers/5000 miles on C-Max and she has had two oil changes with the most recent 6 weeks ago. We kept getting the oil needs changing message today and I will take a guess that the techs forgot to reset things. They don't seem to be a very conscientious bunch unfortunately.

Tempe that is fascinating about the Blue Tooth. Good luck with your case with Ford. Keep us posted. I would love to know if Ford is looking at the Blue Tooth connectivity issues.

Bigalpha IMHO a system maintenance event is a computer crash. Before 3.6.2 we used to have them regularly and unexpectedly--we came to the conclusion it had nothing to do with system maintenance and felt it was the system crashing and re-booting. Hubby recently did a master re-set after we got the 3.6.2 and it came home all wonky. The re-set has fixed things and knocking on wood no system maintenance events have happened. So they may have improved things with the upgrade. The Energi may have a more sophisticated program so Doc may be describing something different that happens with his car.

Good points salman.