Hatchman

Car was made 2/22, arrived at dealership 2/28 so I don't think they had time to submerge it, unless they traveled back in time to Sandy back in October 25-30 2012. The rest of the car is dry/unaffected. There was just salt spray under the hood like it was towed on a trailer on a salty road or hit a puddle and splattered while driving it without the shield on. The debris was in a spray pattern, splatters and spots, not submersion. The rest of the car was clean and unaffected, there would be no time to dry the car out and get every bit of water and mud out of it if had been submerged. The only spots with rust are under the hood, toward the front. I said the oil looked muddy, not have mud in it. To get to the air filter, the water level in the interior would have to be over a foot deep, no way that could happen without some residual signs and smells. Besides, this car is an electrical nightmare. No way it would ever run if it had been submerged. Anyway, back on topic. Oil changes...

Dealer: "I won't make a copy for you" oxnard: "no problem, I got this thing called a "smart phone"" Thank you for the info, so Ford is aware and working on it.

My car has been underwater? All the way up to the air filter? Are you serious?!!!

How are you getting 38-52 mpg when your Fuelly signature says an average of 36 over the last 12 fillups?

I think every Ford service writer is trained to "have never heard" of any problems. I spoke with a service writer once about a particular problem, which they acknowledged was a common problem and had even occurred on their personal vehicle. When I brought my vehicle in months later for the exact same problem, they must have not remembered already talking to me about it because they now claimed that they had "never heard" of the issue. They must have gotten the "deny all" training in the mean time. I didn't bother calling them out on it, it was free warranty service and I just made a mental note that the service dept may lie to you.

I'd like to know where the fuse is as well. Sync locked up today, twice. None of the buttons would work, no voice commands, etc. Luckily it automatically reset after being locked for half an hour or so.

Dumb question, is there any way to turn the auto lift gate off? What if you are not holding the key/have it on you?

Yes, when we leave the garage in the morning, if we don't turn on the heater/ac, the car will be in EV mode till you hit the street and accelerate up to speed. I love to back out of the garage in the morning on EV, it's so quiet, and you can't hear the car leaving from inside the house. This is great when you have to go to work super early and don't want to wake any one else up. We use the seat heat instead of the heater, and parking in the garage keeps the car around 60F instead of 30F outside. So driving on a cold morning with just seat heat is fine when the car is "warm" from being in the garage all night. No ice on the windows either, so don't have to use energy for the defrosters. I would think conserving energy on heater and defrosters will help to be in EV mode longer.

Very nice write up arizona! Thank you for taking the time and the pics are great. Looks easy. This looks like a great option for carrying bikes! Just curious, did the instructions say you would need to bend that tab? I wonder of the manufacturer knows the design is a little off.

Thanks for the tip, my wife found that the day we brought our's home. I think she does more research than I do on this car!

OK, well, I didn't realize vinyl was so impossible to trim. :) I got a roll in the garage that I can trim to whatever size I want. Maybe they got a bunch of fingerprints on the trialing edge, maybe they got some dirt on it, maybe they didn't want to waste it. I would go back and take pictures and find out why they trimmed it, but I really don't care. We got it, the Ford vinyl piece is 6" wide and wide enough to go over the lip. You win. Oh, that and vinyl is impossible to trim and seriously doubtful a dealer would attempt it. :) :rockon:

Thanks for checking that out, Plus 3! So they are controlled by coolant temp, well that and air conditioning. Thanks!

A lady opened her car one day on a rental I was driving and said "it's just a car" and walked off. Good thing it was a rental and there was only minor damage they didn't notice when I turned it in. Somebody opened their car door on my car today, luckily it buffed out.

:) The one I saw installed at the dealership did not, so maybe they put it on wrong. It also did not appear to be 6" wide, so maybe they come in different sizes. But the one they had did not go over the lip. I guess if you install it yourself, you can put it on any way you like. :)

Probably just a coincidence, but got 51.6 mpg today after the synthetic oil change, which is better than we ever got before, lifetime average around 38..

First oil change yesterday at 600 miles. Oil was nasty looking, a very muddy, murky, greenish brown color, looked like swamp water. I've changed oil hundreds of times in dozens of cars, and never saw anything like that. There were metal shavings in the drained oil, largest ones about the size of the diameter of a 1.0 mechanical pencil lead. There were also some small chunks of some type of gasket material. Overall, this oil was pretty nasty and murky for only 600 miles. Not to get into an oil debate, but I used the Motocraft Filter, FL910S, from wally world for 4 bucks, and a 5 quart jug of Mobil 1 5W20 full syn for about 24 bucks. From the looks of the oil and presence of metal, I don't think I wasted 30 bucks. Couple of things. 1. Torx bit is a T-30, and as stated above, the drain plug is 15mm. I was able to reach the drain plug with a regular Craftsman 6 point socket and wrench, though it is a little tight. 2. Oil filter, can't miss it, right on the bottom, middle, forward, of the engine. Not a lot of room around it, but able to get the wrench on it. They must have had a 500 pound gorilla tightening oil filters the day this car was made. YMMV. 3. Out of the 8 torx screws, the two longest ones go to the outside. The three in the front and three in the back are shorter. Don't over tighten, they are just held by plasitc "nuts" and will strip. 4. Engine was filthy underneath. Covered with salt/road debris. Engine looked like car was transported from Michigan in a snow storm with salted roads with the lower engine cover off. Lots of parts already rusted though the car was built 3 weeks ago. Glad I got in there and cleaned all the salt off and stopped some of the oxidation/rusting process. Not sure how it got that dirty, but it was. And no, we didn't do it since the car hasn't seen rain or salted roads yet with us. It could have come through the lower grill, maybe it was sitting in a bad spot on the trailer. Anyway, it was filthy, and no telling how bad the salt would have corroded things by 10000 miles. Overall, pretty easy oil change, though.

Yes it does.

From what I've seen, taking 2 spaces is like a magnet for people to mess with your car. Everybody is going to notice. They will still park right up on you, key your car, leave nasty notes, etc. Best just to park far away and hope someone doesn't try to park right up on you anyway.

Most of the UVA/B is already blocked by the factory glass, shatter proofing, and factory tint. Yes, there is a tiny bit of tint in all your factory glass, it is not perfectly clear/untinted. A tint shop can easily make it more UVA/B proof, I even tinted the sunroof, and even if you don't want to tint it, just keep the shade shut. Leather is awesome, I love the leather steering wheel and shift boot. Leather smells good an feels good. Yes, there is leather on the seats, on the seating surface, where you butt and back touch. Looking at the black seats, it is easy to tell. The leather is the "insert" in the middle of the seat. It is a slightly lighter shade than the plastic/vinyl material. Look at it in bright sunlight, the leather is a shade or two lighter than the vinyl, think dark grey compared to black. Leather wrinkles when you push your finger into it, while vinyl doesn't. Lots of Youtube videos on how to tell leather from vinyl. I figure McDonalds isn't going out of business anytime soon, so if they need millions of burgers, they can either make use of the entire product or not. My wife is vegan,but she didn't seem to mind the leather, since it is much easier to care for than cloth. We work out a lot, so sweaty seats are much easier to maintain when coming back from the gym than cloth that would just suck it up. I wouldn't call it a "major fail" since the majority of the market prefers leather.

I am betting on engine temperature. The coolant fan on my Mustang turns on by engine coolant temperature. It has a low speed and a high speed setting, both set to a particular engine coolant coolant temperature, which, btw, is adjustable in the tune so you can make the electric fans come on sooner, or later, depending upon your setup and environment. Of course, you'll need a tuner or tuner program and a XCal/programmer to adjust it, but won't get into that, and it's a 2005, so the warranty has been voided for years. Seems it would be pretty easy to apply the same technology to the motorized grill shutters. Just to shut them at 60 mph no matter how hot the engine is doesn't make sense. What if you are a running full speed, floored, with a full, heavy loaded car, up a steep hill at 120F air temperature and the shutters shut and stay shut while the engine overheats? Doesn't make sense that they would design it like that. Plus, from the real world testing on here, everything points to coolant temp, not mph.

There is no boot, it is what it is.

This thread is useless without pics. :nonono:

I think the C-Max is pretty awesome, and for the price, it has more bells and whistles than any car I've ever had. But would be nice to have: HID headlights LED parking and tail lights, pretty much every bulb LED besides the HID headlights. Memory driver's seat Better quality carpet Solar panel on roof for fan/charging battery Digital MPH, MPG, and 12 Volt display Heads up display

Do the front grills close by mph or engine temperature? I read on here on another post they are based on engine coolant temperature? But great info on the sweet spot, I will have to try it out.

I like that front lip protector, I think it will save the front lip a bit of rock chips.