fishead924

When I received this notification, it was a real vindication that I'm not crazy, or alone, in my experiences with this glitchy POS. I'm one of those victims with a unit that'll stand a pretty good chance of malfunctioning if sitting in the sun when the temps are in the high 90's. No sound, non responsive touch screen, won't power up. Showed the dealer the various Youtube vids of this happening to others, gave them a printout of the thread on here where an owner had Ford engineers come down to his dealer and diagnose a faulty Audio Control Module as the culprit. Their response, "We can't justify spending hundreds of dollars without diagnosing it ourselves." Well, I finally got the opportunity when it happened on a weekday (because invariably, it did this on a Sat when I was hours away) to drive the 25 mi to the dealer and prove it to them. Showed them what was happening, they agreed it was not my imagination, and then informed me that they had 2 other vehicles they were working on with similar entertainment system issues and I would have to leave it with them. I said "thanks, but no thanks. Because here's what's gonna happen. You're going to turn the car on, and it's going to be working fine." And to prove it, I turned the car off, opened and closed the driver's door, turned it back on and it was all back. Then the rep told me to call corporate and see what they could offer me, and their response was the same sing song I got from the dealer, "Oh no, we've never heard of this happening, there's no service bulletin or notification of this being an issue, go get this resolved at the dealer". At that point, I told the young lady on the phone "Thanks for convincing me to never buy one of your vehicles ever again. If you're in charge of customer relations, you've just done a bang up job. Congratulations". Guess I'll just have to live with this occurring sometimes in the heat of the summer. Ha! Was I wrong. New wrinkle, not temp dependent. This new bug has happened on three occasions, so far. Turn the car off, radio stays on, but the sound only comes out of the speaker on top of the unit. Sounds like one of those transistor radios from back in the day. The only fix at that point is to pop the fuse (and thanks, Ford, for not providing the tweezer tool to pluck that tiny little bastard out!) and reinstall. Radio stays off, back to normal. Now I just leave the panel cover off, and have needle nose pliers at the ready for the next incident. For Ford to deny any problems with this system, yet give an extended warranty on it seems to be quite the contradiction. I guess I'll be happy to get whatever crumbs may come my way in the settlement, if there is one, and chalk it up to lesson learned. Too bad, because I really like this car, and would probably upgrade when the time comes, even though the fantastic mileage I get 7 months out of the year becomes a distant memory when the thermometer drops. Other than needing a front brake job long before the 50K mark, the car's never given me the kind of trouble that would make me regret the purchase. Well, other than the subject of this long winded rant.

I've just returned from my dealer with this same issue. Which I've had for two summers, going on the third. The first time it happened I printed out the whole original thread on the AudioControlModule issue, including how it was resolved, ran up to them (of course, everything was fine with the unit at that time), and they said they couldn't do anything unless it was witnessed by them acting up. Even the YouTube link where someone put up a vid of the same Ford head unit issue, wouldn't be satisfactory for them to change the part. Recording my own car doing this wasn't good enough, either. Very frustrating, as this usually happened on a Sat. when I'm out of town on a cycling event and the car sits in the sun for hours. That's why I was thrilled today when it misbehaved, not the total failure of screen lock, just no audio and it wouldn't power up, no "boops" when changing screens, just contemplative silence as I rushed to the dealer 45min away. The service manger went and got the mechanic, who said they had two other vehicles in with the same problems. One is a 2015 Mustang. That dude must be livid, I'd imagine. Apparently they're still sending cars down the line with these faulty modules. Not cool, Ford. Naturally, they couldn't get to me today, didn't have a loaner either, and the best they could do would be to give me a ride home. Yea, that's some great CS alright. Leave me without a vehicle all weekend so by the time they got to look at my ride, everything would probably be up and running again. As it was when I shut the ignition off and exited the car for 5 whole minutes at the dealer before I left. This is super frustrating, and my only option at this point is to call Ford's direct customer service number and vent my dissatisfaction at some poor office drone on the other end of the line who truly doesn't deserve what I'm going to heap their way. I'll be diplomatic as I can, but man, this sweeping owners' problems under the rug when there's a known issue (as evidenced by their extension of the warranty pertaining to the Control Module in question) is no way to treat someone's $35,000 purchase and it's starting to get to me.

Man, I thought I was all set after a dealer reboot and successfully installing the new 3.6 firmware update. Wouldn't you know it, Sat when I went to leave a cycling even, again no audio. This time I couldn't take the silence and pulled over about half-way home, shut it down, opened and closed the door, reclined the seatback and took a 15min siesta. Started the car, got the home screen so I touched the screen power button and nothing. Went for the mechanical/electrical switch and voila, music again. Seriously frustrating. 3 out of the 4 times it's happened have been at these events where the car is sitting in the sun baking for a few hours. This leads me to believe it's more of a hardware issue, of which I'm sure the dealer will have no clue as to what the resolution might be. Love the car, hate this head unit.

Raiderfann, a couple of questions. Do you have an SE, or SEL with the upgraded system? Did you replace the tweets in the dash, or find another location? Lastly, your sub placement is "under the hatch". Are you referring to the rear door, or that flip up cover at the rear of the cargo area where the cubby hole is?

As terrible as music sounds on Sirius in the C-Max, I wouldn't sign up if they offered it to me for $25 per year. When I switch from analog FM to Sirius, it has all the audio quality of an 8 Track recording from back in the day. Unless I'm getting crappy sound because it's the free trial and once I pay the big bucks it's magically uncompressed and CD quality, I'm steering clear.

Thanks to all. After taking the suggestion of John T. I downloaded the zip file to a thumb drive, all ready to do the deed when I went out to the car. Fired it up and the strange 443 number was displayed, but the sound from the last FM station came up immediately, then the proper station I.D. appeared after a second or two. This doesn't make me very happy after not even a month of ownership. Can't wait for Metra to come up with a dash kit so I can yank this out and put the Pioneer AVH-P8400BH that worked so spendidly for all of two weeks before Sandy took care of the car it was in. I thought it was just me, never having had satellite before and wondering why it sounded so muddy and compressed till I saw others had the same impression over on the Sync forum. And it seems strange that I need to be real close to the transmitter to even pick up an HD radio signal, and when it does the volume gets lower and doesn't seem all that improved. Pretty disappointing, I must say.

I went the route that Mark426 did, and got the gray Digitals, front and back. I noticed that some weren't happy with the fact that it barely covered the driver's footrest, so I took a scrap piece from the WeatherTech universal cargo mat I put in the back and tucked a piece under the driver side mate. I cut it larger than needed so it's held in place by the mat, though being underneath it's not exactly waterproofing the floor. So I'm just aware of that if my feet are soaked, don't go resting my left foot right away. The colors a perfect match, so it's not too shabby, if I do say so myself. Happy with the Digitals, though I wonder if it's normal that on the passenger side, it rides on top of the door's plastic trim. Seems like it should fit more snuggly just underneath of it for a cleaner look. Might be another job for the razor knife.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "freeze". I can still go between the home (quadrant) screen and the entertainment one. I didn't try the nav or the hybrid display screens, so some things work, some don't. I'm heading out to work now, so maybe after it's nap, it's had time to reconsider it's obstinance and all will be well. For now.

So today I had my first MFT Haters moment. A little background; SEL, 302A pkg, took delivery in March, after a 4 month wait. But that's a whole other story. As I was pulling into a parking lot I received an incoming call, and after hitting the "accept" button on the display I heard a couple of rings through the sound system, then a brief delay before the call came through. Hmm, that's never happened before. I turned the car off, and continued the call till it ended, then exited the vehicle. When I returned and restarted, there was no volume coming from the speakers. Neither the steering controls nor the knob would do anything, so I called up the "entertainment" screen. Tried to go from FM to CD, nothing. Hit the AM button, which at first didn't do anything either, but after taking off I noticed it had switched bands. Still no sound, and apparently I had tuned to an alternate universe as the frequency I was tuned to was 443. Would have been nice to have listened to creatures from another plane of existence, but alas, no. When I got home, I turned the car off, then on to see if it would reboot. Nothing. Question: Is there a manual way to do this without me having to run back to the dealer? I'm fairly certain a battery disconnect might be the answer, but I'd prefer not having to reprogram all my presets if it can be avoided. And 3 weeks into ownership? Wow, this does not bode well at all.

So you're fairly satisfied with how the gray contrasts against the beige carpet that's visible around the mats? That's my only concern, and the black would pretty much go with everything, but the reason I went with the lighter interior was to avoid too much darkness inside. I was thinking of ordering the gray universal WeatherTech cargo mat, as that area has some grays to it, and hopefully it's the same hue so I can test drive it against the front carpets. If I go with that, I'll have some extra material to cover the remainder of the left foot rest that the Digitals don't completely cover.

altabrig, the Curt took me about an hour, only because I wasn't pressed for time and the bits I was using weren't the freshest. The only thing lacking from the directions was why a grinder was in the list of neccessary installation tools. When I saw that the fishwire wasn't pulling the head of the meaty bolt through the access hole, I just egged it out a bit and it was done. As to the stabilizer strap issue, I went for the 1UPUSA carrier which is a platform style bike carrier. It only takes seconds to load a bike, and no worries about MTB top tubes making the bike hang at a crazy angle. The hitch itself is fairly discrete, it's partially under the bumper and not sticking out to nail your leg as you walk by, if that's what your concern was. I do miss the flexibility of the Fit. The cargo floor was much lower, so I could just take the front wheel off the bike and stand it up inside without lowering the seat tube, which is neccessary with the Max. Think I'm gonna make a jig from pvc so I can nail the seat tube height down without using a tape. On long trips I could take off both wheels and stand the bike on the saddle and seat, with wheels and extra cargo, behind the rear seats. And the fact the passenger seat would recline flat to carry 8' lumber without much worry about damaging the interior. Not to mention the rear seat bottoms flipping up to carry tall stuff behind the front seats. I used that configuration to bring back a frozen half-a-beef (about 400lbs) back from Indiana to NJ wrapped in an insulating blanket. Don't think I could do that with this ride without building some kinda crazy cooler box (probably not a very good idea putting that much weight onto the folded down seat backs, I wouldn't imagine). She was a very flexible ride, to say the least. I could routinely achieve 38 to 42mpg (rated at 33mpg by the EPA) with the manual tranny just driving fairly economically, so I had high hopes of getting close to 50 with this. Ha! I have to pilot the Max like Neil Armstrong hitting Tranquility Base just to get 43mpg. But it is way more comfortable on long trips than the Fit ever was, so there's that. But was it worth the $13,000 premium? Time will tell, I suppose.

Just installed a 1 1/4" Curtis Class II hitch from etrailer, and though a hole had to be drilled on either side, plus an access hole had to be reamed a bit to get the meaty bolt head through, the install was pretty simple. This is the second one I've gotten from them, the previous one was on my Honda Fit (which got Sandy-fied, hence the new ride), and both times were fairly effortless. They give plenty of helpful color pictures with the instructions for every step, not those cheap-a$$ black and white sketches you see with so many products. Their customer service has always been helpful and responsive; I e-mailed them about any foot release issues before ordering and they assured me that it'd be fine. And it was; somehow it still works (which only goes to show how little I know about these things as it looks like it's right underneath the censor). So I'm giving their product a big thumbs up. $95 cheaper than the Tork-Life, and that was getting the drawbar also. I ordered both size stainless steel balls with it in case I want to pull something later on. It all stores nicely in the rear deck cubby hole with a jack and heavy duty tire plug kit. It's nice to save money and at the same time still buy American made. Here's a link. http://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Hitch/Curt/C120923.html

I just discovered this too. So basically four American males and maybe the change in their pockets. I gotta kick a guy out if I wanna pick up beer???? That's crazy!

I was at the dealer yesterday picking up my plates, and wouldn't you know it, every time the salesman tried it with doors locked the damned thing opened on the first try. Got back home and it takes me two kicks when locked. :banghead:

When I had my blow-out, I had AAA, but I figured 20min to be back on my way was a better deal than "getting my money's worth" and twiddling my thumbs by the side of the road for 90min or so waiting for service to arrive on the scene. The only time I needed a road call from AAA was because of a dead battery, and that's how long it took them to show up at a shopping center in suburbia. Out on a highway in the middle of nowhere sounds like an even worse proposition to me.

I've got the light stone leather interior, and I'm having a hard time deciding on what color WeatherTech Digital Liners to get. The tan liners looks more brown in the pictures, and the carpet looks like it's closer to a beige/gray, but the gray option looks closer to crayola gun metal. The fall-back position is good 'ole, goes with everything black, but that's kinda my third choice. Just wondering what others with this interior have chosen and how they feel about their choice over time.

I'm with ya, Jus. One week in, got in the car to head back to the dealer and felt something land on my foot this morning. When I went to snap it back in it kinda felt like it was bulging in the middle and not seating properly. None of the tabs were broken, so if it happens again I think I'll just put a dab of clear silicone on a corner, which shouldn't preclude removal in the future, if needed.

Roger, the Windstar 15" space saver, with tire mounted, will be the same, or close to, the diameter of the 17" with the standard Michelins? Found a couple on EBay, and was planning a multi-state trip and want some piece of mind that my plug kit won't afford me in case of a sidewall blowout. Rare as that may be, it happened to me last year with my Honda Fit. Clubbed something on the highway at night that tore a nice gash in the sidewall. Certainly would have been a mojo killer without a spare to throw on.