RetAFEng

My 2016 leather SEL seats are great. I never intend to sit in the back seat. Co-pilot married her chauffeur 46 years ago and doesn't have a dr. lic.

The comparisons that they used in the article are not very good in the case of the C Max. Firstly the C Max was not in the comparison, maybe because there is not a ICE only model. Therefore I took the closest Ford product an Escape and priced it on Fords Website as close as I could to my C Max SEL and it was a SE FWD fully optioned. The Escape cost $400 less than the C Max. If I had taken the Escape Titanium it would have had 4WD and all the options available on the C Max SEL, so I defaulted the SE model to have the FWD. Now this means that for me the payback would have been about 6 months for a comparable vehicle in size and options with similar performance. As my previous vehicle was a 2013 Focus the difference in fuel costs for the C Max is approx. $40. per month less with the C Max than the Focus; or 10 months payback. If they compared the Ford vehicles of similar size or model and optioned as close to each other as possible instead of a base model compared to a mid-line model hybrid the paybacks would have been much shorter.

The only thing that I found was the weather stripping on the front passenger door was not installed properly. I saw this because I noticed the yellow alignment pin was not in its' designated hole. A three minute fix and all is good. I did not realize that the state of charge on the battery would fluctuate as much as it does, but after 200kms the mileage according to the computer is 4.7 Lt/100 km or 60 mpg imp, 50 mpg us. This is all city driving with speeds ranging up to 50 mph or 80 kmph and the terrain having many gentle slopes and some steep ones. It seems that if I am not driving up a slope, then I am coasting down the other side.

Ordered my C Max 9 weeks ago and it arrived on Friday the 20th. A nice Ruby Red with med light stone interior, 303a with sunroof. They told us originally that the arrival date would be around the 20th of July. I told them that when it arrives they can have it because I was not going to wait that long, my wife is on the waiting list for a new knee and the Focus was just too hard for her to get in and out. Got a price on a Buick Encore with similar options for very close to the same price. My salesman did some web searching and finally found one with the right colour combination. We order a 302a and ended up with a 303a for the same price for waiting. After a weekend of driving around town we just could not be happier. Very comfortable, easy entry and exit and great fuel mileage, almost half the fuel consumption compared with the 2013 Focus, tomorrow I setup the automatic wipers.

When I stated driving 50 some years ago there was no talk about electric cars. The main reason then was that we didn't have extension cords long enough. Presently they are working on several technologies for future vehicles, like hydrogen fuel cells. I don't believe that I will be around long enough to see the end of the ICE, but I am looking forward to see the new technologies which try to kill it. Presently we have the infrastructure to support the ICE, fuel stations all but everywhere. Yes the number of fuel stations are diminishing as the vehicles we drive become more fuel efficient and the there are extremely few stations now with only one or two pumps as there were when I started driving. I believe the number of fuel pumps have probably increased as the number of stations have reduced. The next big push will have to be the infrastructure to support the new technologies. Atomic power cars?

Greetings to all of the established members. This morning my wife and I ordered a 2016 SEL in Ruby Red with the medium light stone interior, panoramic fixed glass roof and the 302A package. We are going to have to wait for 8 to 12 weeks for delivery, so time will start to slow down in about 7 weeks. Frank & Lynne