Irvine gathering

[RachelnLa]

How was the gathering? Share!

[Adair]

I was wondering the same thing myself! ;)

[jem]

My husband and I really enjoyed it. It was very professionally done and we learned quite a bit about our C-max that we didn't know. Now, mind you, I am one of those people who does not take the time to read the manual or quick start guide. I just put the key in and go. It was great seeing so many C-max's. at one point, I had to hit my unlock button to see which one was mine. It was parked in between two others of the same color.

[Jus-A-CMax]

How was the gathering? Share!

 

 

Ask and you shall received Ford CMax Irvine Pow-Wow

 

My husband and I really enjoyed it. It was very professionally done and we learned quite a bit about our C-max that we didn't know. Now, mind you, I am one of those people who does not take the time to read the manual or quick start guide. I just put the key in and go. It was great seeing so many C-max's. at one point, I had to hit my unlock button to see which one was mine. It was parked in between two others of the same color.

I was there as well, I think Ford did great and education was a key part of this meeting for the owners and not just writing in the owners feedback. I only wished the food was better, I was starving and that Taco Bell sign was a tease and I could not leave...

 

SIde note: While I waiting for Maxine's tires to be rotated, a couple of other drivers and one of the owners approached me about the CMax. Luckily I had my package that I was going to give to Ford and I showed them the stats - just blew them away. Neither of them liked the Prius so the CMax looked pretty good.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Jus-A-CMax

[SBGrad]

How was the gathering? Share!

 

Best 4 hours I've spent with the car. It's on the far side of midnight right now and I'm more than a little zonked out, but I'll write in a day or 2.

[JohnnOhio]

Thanks for the updates. I was wondering how it went

 

[SBGrad]

Ford C-Max hybrid Owner’s Event
Irvine CA 23 Feb 2013

Back in mid-January I received the invitation from Ford to go to the owner’s event.  Along with the invite there was a survey mailed to me.  It was several pages long, a mix of ‘rate 1-10’ and essay answers.  Decided that Ford wouldn’t pick me if I just rate everything ‘10-perfect’ so I spent some time writing down everything I could think of.

Fast forward to last Saturday.  Drive to Irvine, the event was at the Taco Bell HQ.   As far as I know, Ford just rented out the bottom level of the parking structure, the main building was locked up, the only building I went into was the building 3 restroom.  Driving up, there were some signs directing us into the parking structure, where somebody marked my name off a list, and told me to park in Bay 3.  Ford ignored the striped parking spaces, and marked out bays that were roughly sized so that 2 bays took up as much space as 3 striped normal parking spaces.

You sign in, and get a packet.   Actually, I never once touched the packet, but inside were the script sheets for each of the 8 interviewing groups:  Chasis, Electrical, Exterior /Sheet Metal / Paint, Interior & Climate, Powertrain, SYNC/MFT, Vehicle Engineering, Marketing.  On the script sheets were questions the engineers wanted to ask me, as well as all of my survey answers, including my essay answers, word for word.  I thought that was very cool.

So, signed in, got the packet (a handler non-engineer actually was holding it), walked back to my car, handler-lady put it under the rear washer blade, turned around and nabbed the 1st engineer who walked by unattended.  Engineer walks over, introduces him (or her) self, and pulls their script out of the packet, and off we go.   The Interior, Sync/MFT, and Electrical people conducted their interviews inside the vehicle (they wanted to see you work things), everybody else did their interview walkaround style.  Smart move marking out extra wide parking spots.

Each engineer was different, some wanted to dive right into your survey questions (they wanted explanations for any/everything less than 9 or 10-- ‘what do we have to do to get this to 10 for you?’), others had their questions to go over and didn’t refer to the survey that much.

They were very careful not to lead us to certain answers, nobody ever asked, ‘do you like feature A?” they would ask “what are you favorite features?’ or ‘what do you dislike?’  There were no right or wrong answers, they really wanted to hear what we had to say.  The chasis guy asked me what I disliked the most, I said,’ the turn radius,’ and he asked why, and I said it had the turn radius of the Titanic.  He loved that answer, he was laughing and wanted to write it down word for word.  He swore he would use my exact quote with the people in Detroit.  ..to be fair, we went into the issue in more detail, I explained how I had to make a tight 90 degree turn to get into my garage and my 2006 Focus could make the turn and my C-Max required a ‘Y’ turn to get in.  As I said, they never led me to say one thing or the other, but after I gave answers they might tell me, ‘yah, everybody else is saying that, too.’  The turn radius is not beloved among owners, they know that.  

I told them I thought the wheels were boring, I wanted sportier wheels (also mentioned that fewer spokes are easier to clean) and the guy told me that others had also asked for that option.  The engineer said that aerodynamic concerns at least partially drove the decision to pick the wheels they chose.  

The 3 ‘in the car’ groups had me demonstrate how I used the car so much I ran down the battery to the point where the car started shutting things down.  It was interesting how Ford categorizes systems.  I started telling the Climate guy about the defroster, and he said that the defroster isn’t Climate, it is Electrical.  I told him, with all due respect, the defroster control is lumped with all the climate controls, so as far as me, the owner, is concerned, I link defroster with climate.  I bet that is at least partially why the manual is messed up, owners don’t categorize systems the same way Ford does.  Notice that in the section of the manual that has a picture of the climate controls, there is no label/explanation for the defroster.  Now I know why.

In each of the 8 groups, there was more than one engineer.   Roughly 80 engineers, split 8 ways. It was hit or miss who you got, there was a wide variety of skills/knowledge between the people I talked to.  The electrical guys were pretty sharp, there were 2 of them that talked to me.   The MFT/Sync person I got wasn’t so great.  I was talking about things I could do with a Garmin nav system (that I couldn’t do with Sync/MFT), and this engineer had never seen or heard anything about it.   It was, ‘oh you can do that with a Garmin, I have to write that down.’  The Sync person DID want to demonstrate how I could call up my horoscope while I was in the car.  Ugh!

After the engineers went over the survey, it was quiz time.  They would ask ‘what do you know about feature x?”  If I didn’t know about it, they would show you how it worked.   The Sync engineer partially redeemed herself by showing me how to search for gas stations, filtering by cheapest price.  The electrical guys showed me how to use the key fob to open all the windows all at once (just hit ‘unlock’ and hold it ~5 seconds and all the windows go down all the way).  Maybe not useful today, but it will come in handy this summer.

One thing that became obvious after a while, people here (our web site) are WAY over to the right side of the knowledge/use curve.  We do things most owners don’t do.  All 3 groups that conducted their interviews in the car (interior, SYNC and electrical) all noted that I had uploaded my own wallpaper to the MFT display, they were all surprised/impressed with this.  The Sync engineer was surprised that I had over 1200 songs on a thumb drive.  

There was no set time to spend with each group, nobody was looking at watches.  If there was  a lot to talk about, it was covered.   Once you were all the way done with an engineer, they would wave to one of the helpers and ask them to find another engineer.  The helper would go walking around until they found somebody.  

Meantime, the engineer you had just finished with stayed with you until the next one came along.  As a result, you were NEVER alone.  I brought my camera and never really had a chance to take pictures.   Never had a chance to talk to other owners, because they were never left alone either.  While you were waiting for the next engineer, we chatted.  If there weren’t car things to talk about, they mentioned the weather.  Some engineers were from Detroit, the rest from the factory (also in Mich) and Calif winters in the mid-60s with unlimited blue sky made them all very happy.  

Finally, about 3 ½ hours after I started, I had worked my way through all 8 engineering groups.  But wait, there’s more!  Time for a test drive.  2 engineers climbed aboard, one had a laptop that they hooked up to the car.  We drove around for 5-10 minutes, including a freeway stretch.  They gave me the turns to make, but didn’t specify a speed and/or driving style, they didn’t care what my mileage was, they just wanted to see the numbers the car was spitting out about Kw usage, charging states, MPG based on how I was using the accelerator, etc.  The woman in back was calling the turns while the guy with the laptop was watching his screen.  After a rapid fire set of turns the woman said, “I hope you don’t mind that I’m being a back seat driver.”  I started laughing and told her that she WAS in the back seat giving directions.  Wife called in middle of test drive, asking where I was, since I was ½ an hour PAST the ‘end’ of my time slot.

Test drive done, but wait, there’s MORE.  They put everybody on camera, and asked us 5-6 questions.  Name, type of car, what you liked, disliked.  If you had a message for the Ford executives back in Detroit.  Let’s just say I am more comfortable behind a camera than in front of it, so I don't think you'll see me in a commercial any time soon.

Interview over but not done yet, because, WAIT!  There’s MORE!  This was optional, but I was glad I did it.  Some more engineers had a survey about the left side info screen.  They had some general questions, and then a printout of just about every left side screen: inform, empower, the coaching screens, etc.  You were supposed to mark which ones you used.  They also also asked about which screen(s) you liked best/least and what changes you would make, if any.  When you were done, they went over it with you.   I told them I wanted the left side screen info available on the right side screen, explaining that in a ‘normal’ car you can see all your gauges at once.  I told them the leaves were interesting for about 1 minute, then a complete waste of time.   I told them there weren’t enough options for MyView, and that they should get rid of the analog speedo so we could fit more digital guages in there. I also lobbied for replacing the lifetime average MPG in the Empower screen with DTE.   My rationale is this (and I explained it to the engineer)-- the longer you have the car, the less the lifetime average MPG will change.  You don’t need to know your lifetime MPG while the car is moving, but DTE is much more important.  Anyhow, these engineers were software wonks like me, so we got along great.

Got my check and a small goodie bag (Pens, C-Max shaped post-its, C-Max tshirt, couple of plastic water bottles).

Best 4 hours I’ve spent with the car.

 

...and it could've been longer.  I am kicking myself for forgetting to tell the sheet metal/exterior guy I want a sunroof that opens and want to be able to open the liftgate window.  I had a full page of notes in my tablet and covered all of them, but there were a few more things I should've put on there.

[Jus-A-CMax]

Nice review SBGrad - DOH - I missed that test drive and interview! I would have luv to see the numbers they were getting. I know they downloaded some stuff off Maxine while she was stationary. Hope you got a better t-shirt, my kinda suxor, it was for a girl and I gave it to my wife, she luv it.

[Lotsa Tales]

I was there, bay 14, what an awesome experience. My biggest aha was when the interior guy pointed out the lap vents that I never knew existed, and they were closed!

I felt sorry for the MFS lady. I'm sure she was getting lambasted all day! I told her "no offense but the voice commands r useless, I'd rather push buttons than wait for the voice recognition!

[SBGrad]

I was there, bay 14, what an awesome experience. My biggest aha was when the interior guy pointed out the lap vents that I never knew existed, and they were closed!

I felt sorry for the MFS lady. I'm sure she was getting lambasted all day! I told her "no offense but the voice commands r useless, I'd rather push buttons than wait for the voice recognition!

 

When I parked, I counted the cars, and there were 15, plus a few out on test drives.

 

The interior guy asked me, "Do you know about the lap vents?" and I slapped them and said, "These?  I love them, my wife hates them."  He then asked if I wanted them split into dual controls (they are on off only, no aiming where the air goes), and I said sure.  He wrote that down.   I might have to go to a dealer next year to see what changes get made.

 

What I am discovering about SYNC is that you let it interpret as little as possible,  I will never again say "Navigation Destination POI by name," because SYNC is very bad at place names.  Instead I will say 'Navigation Destination POI by category" and let SYNC show me a list of places and then I will pick one of them.  At first we tried calling out shopping malls by name, and SYNC could never find them, now we ask for categories, choose shopping, and then SYNC shows us all the malls near by.  Works much better for us.

Edited February 27, 2013 by SBGrad

[RachelnLa]

Lap vents?

[HannahWCU]

Lap vents?

 

LOL!  I found these by accident one day when my leg was getting a cold shot of air from someplace I couldn't find.

 

They are below the controls for MFT.  Above the physical climate controls, on a horizontal surface.

[zhackwyatt]

What I am discovering about SYNC is that you let it interpret as little as possible,  I will never again say "Navigation Destination POI by name," because SYNC is very bad at place names.  Instead I will say 'Navigation Destination POI by category" and let SYNC show me a list of places and then I will pick one of them.  At first we tried calling out shopping malls by name, and SYNC could never find them, now we ask for categories, choose shopping, and then SYNC shows us all the malls near by.  Works much better for us.

Have you tried "Find a mall?"

[RachelnLa]

Well, I'll be a monkey's aunt! Mine were closed! I love this board.

[roninsd]

They asked me about the "lap vents" at Irvine.  It took me awhile to figure out what they were talking about -- had never heard the vent called by that name.  Luckily, once I figured out what they were talking about I was able to demonstrate my great knowledge and expertise of this lower vent.  Made me feel so smart!

 

On that note, some of the engineers noted how many of the people who mentioned the forum seemed to be much more "in the know" than the general Cmax population.  Made me feel proud to be a member!

[Jus-A-CMax]

Hee...I got asked the same as well, easy-peasy....plus what was an "EV+" ...geez...I thought it was the secret sauce in a Big Mac  ;) 

[j762538]

If anyone wants to sell some of their swag, let me know.

Edited March 2, 2013 by j762538

[SBGrad]

If anyone wants to sel some of their swag, let me know.

 

Sent you a PM

[j762538]

SBGrad, please email me, j762538 at aol dot com

[salsaguy]

cool event. wish more owners who attended this would post their review of the day.

hope they improve the car based on your inputs.good to see Ford do this. it is a brand new car so it's a must they get it right to ensure they keep getting more new owners after the first year.

you all should have met to chat after the event but it seems with the different times that wasnt possible.