syncmax

I took my car for a problem I have always had with this car - rumbling noise at most speeds esp at highway speeds. They have done front wheel alignment twice before - they told me my tires were cupped - uneven wearing. Finally I got sick of the noise and at 65K miles I was ready for change of tires. There was still good tread left on factory original tires. They replaced the tires with pirelli centurato all season - which is what they said they were putting on all cars (the original dealer we bought car from). They also called me and said the car was due for tune up service - I said go ahead. This involved new spark plugs and the invoice indicated them updating PCM software to the latest version. After I took the car back I felt the ICE was kicking in more often than before. Sure enough after two tanks of gas I realized my mileage has gone down from 45-47 before to 40-41. It was roughly 50:50 split between EV miles and non-EV miles before. Now it was more like 25:75 (EV:ICE). I called them and they said none of the work they did has any impact on it. I probably should not have replaced the tires at the same time as doing the tune up. Now I don't know which one of this is the culprit. any thoughts?

this morning I got the fusion hybrid as a loaner while my cmax is being worked on at the dealer. The ride was so much better than the cmax - much quieter while going uphill. The cmax's engine will roar at the slightest sense of an incline - I have to back of the gas pedal so the engine noise would go away while irritating those behind me. this fusion was just a champ - so much quieter while going through all terrain. I can punch the gas at times of need and car responds much better compared to my cmax. Both seem to have the same 2.0 liter engine - so why the difference. Is insulation better in fusion than cmax? when I stopped the car after driving ~50 miles, the mpg was 50.5 whereas I have been getting 2 mpg lower in my cmax lately. The map and the instrument cluster layout was also much better than than what I have cmax but this could be because of model year differences. I want the shell of my cmax over the internals of this fusion hybrid.

my car has ~32K miles on it. I have already replaced wheel bearings on rear wheel under warranty. I recently started hearing thump noise going over bumps. Sure enough one of the rear shocks need to be replaced and they have ordered it. When I took the car to the dealer, they recommended coolant flush and fuel injection and throttle body service @ $320 plus tax. I declined them for now, In the write up I saw "significant discoloration observed in coolant". This has me concerned - how can the coolant turn color so soon - I am driving an elantra for over 130K miles still with original coolant. With all these repairs, should I go ahead and buy an extended warranty before the factory warranty runs out?

This model must have cost $26K new. Is this the kind of depreciation I am looking at for my 2015 cmax? I wonder how prius' hold its value.

they are replacing the rear right wheel bearing under warranty. But they also somehow sold us their pot hole package which includes a wheel alignment @ $189. Not very impressed with this car (warranty repairs this soon)

thanks. it could be tires - it only has 25K miles (can they wear out this fast)

my 2015 cmax hybrid has developed a strange noise at highway speeds. As far as I can tell it resembles the revving engine sound you hear as the plane is descending or ascending. It feels like it is coming from the back and it is there both in EV and ICE modes. I am going take it to the dealer but wanted to post here to find out if anyone else experienced it.

The problem with turning it off is that if you expect the system to play all music in your USB without your intervention, it will not do it. It will play the album you selected and then stops and expects you to select next album. I want it to start somewhere (it can randomly pick an album from a newly inserted usb) and then play all the music in the USB in order (i.e. artist->album->track #) - I do not like the way it alphabetizes titles from all artists/albums.This is the first ever mp3 player I have encountered that has this behavior. I also drive an elantra and it plays music in the right order.

I am replying to an old thread. I don't know if OP fixed the problems with the way music is played from his/her external drive. But I found out to my horror this behavior (i.e. playing tracks in the alphabetical order and not in track number order) is still there even in 2015 model vehicles and in the latest update of MFT. There is a setting called Gracenote - you need to set this to "OFF". It will then play a selcted album in the right order. But if you use auto play or choose play all then it is up to its old tricks - take all the tracks from all albums, alphabetize them and then play in that order - stupid of ford for not having fixed this basic issue.

to make myself clear, the gracenote off (both of them) feature only works for playing any particular album in the correct order (whether you select it using voice or the screen). unfortunately, I will have to select one album at a time this way and I don't want to select something to play while I am driving. if you are like me and insert a USB full of music and expect the autoplay to play them ALL in order it ain't happening. what it does is take all your albums and alphabetize all the tracks in them and plays in that order. Even if you name the ID3 title like 01-track1 02-track2 etc it will play all 01 tracks from all albums followed by 02 tracks and so on. I don't know which moron in Ford engineering decided this is the right way to play music. of course the only solution that works as of now is to rename the title tag as Artist1-Album1-01-track1 ... Artist1-Album2-01-track1 ... Artist2-Album1-01-track1 ... which is a pain - I don't want to change ID3 tags on my PC - I will have to do this on the USB drive after I copy music to it every time; I would love to be proven wrong but based on the number of hits I receive on google when I search "FORD SYNC mp3 alphabetical" lots of people have been complaining about this for the last few years and nothing has been done about it. I have dashed off a strong email to ford support team but I don't expect anything to come off it.

Thanks. I had read about gracenote in some other thread as well and am sure it was set to off when I last checked. What works for me now is to change the title tag for all songs to %album%_%track#%_%title%. You can select a whole bunch of albums, throw them all into USB and then select all, right click and select mp3tag (a freeware program). You can change the title of all tracks in all albums in one shot this way. My MFT can then alphabetize all it wants - things play in the right order. My music organizer on the PC is now Groove Music. While there are features in it I like, it has its own share of frustrations.

it is actually much worse than this. If I put in multiple folders (albums) it alphabetizes all the songs in all folders and plays then in that order. If I click on browse music and then by album I can see individual albums and then if I click on the first song in one album it then plays all songs in that album but when it finishes that album, it doesn't go the next album automatically, instead it asks you to use browse to select next album. It is the "PLAY ALL" option that seems to alphabetize all tracks. I want the play all option but select each album at a time and go through all tracks in that album in the track number order. Is this too much to ask - any 10 year old mp3 player can do that. There has got to be a simple setting somewhere I must be overlooking (my repeat and shuffle are all off).

The MFT (recently upgraded to version 3.8) plays songs in alphabetical order of track names - I have tried adding numerals to file names and made sure the track numbers are in correct order but it still takes all the track names and alphabetizes them - this is crazy. No other car mp3 player I have run into does this. Is there a fix for this?

I want to compare MSRP of cmax and comparably equipped escape. It is not clear the three trims of escape are lined up with the those of cmax. I have SEL with 301A. How much a similarly equipped escape cost? do the escape buyers get similar incentives? ($2500 as of now)

just checked on the XM website - plugged in my radio number. Showed 5 year trial on travel link and traffic plus 6 month access on all radio channels