Douwe

Do a walk around, and interior, inspection for fit and finish (Many cars are scuffed and scratched in transit). Check to make sure the engine compartment fluid levels are where they should be. Check lights, horn, wipers, blinkers and all other electronics for function. Take a test drive and check for steering integrity (take some corners) and vibration (get it up to highway speeds). Other than that most other issues will surface during your first weeks of ownership and should be covered by warranty. Enjoy your new car!

My priority was a 19 but I got the car in record time 8 weeks from order to delivery in CA (most are waiting much longer).

Please put a light in the charge port on the Energi and other models that use a plug in. I find that when it is dark outside and in the absence of good exterior lighting it is difficult to find the socket for plug in.

AWD PHEV

Shaved doors (no exterior handles)? How much is this unit going to set us back?

IMHO you would be better off with the hybrid. The hybrid is a lighter car than the Energi so towing should be easier on the motorhome. The hybrid has been out longer with more supply available.

I understand your frustration. It seems that different dealers have different ways of doing things and some may have higher priority than others. If you don't yet have a VIN I suspect you will have many more weeks of waiting. The good news is that the longer it takes to get a build the more time they have had to work out bugs in the production. I am sure you have read the frustrations that early adopters have been experiencing and hopefully, when you car arrives, MFT will be fully functional and you will have the latest greatest software installed. Hang in there.

GadgetGirl- If you have not already check out the C MAX Energi forum. I ordered our Energi on Nov 19th and the dealer gave me an order number the next day. With a dealer number and order number you can begin tracking your car buy using the resource available in this forum. If your dealer ordered your car in a timely fashion they should, by now, be able to give you a VIN. If you get a VIN you can use the online resources to print out a window sticker and determine the actual build date of your car. BTW our car was supposedly built yesterday. Welcome and good luck.

The EPA test figures are supposed to represent real world mileage. They do a test in lab and then add correction factors to adjust the numbers to represent real world mileage. Hybrids, across the board, are further apart from the EPA numbers than other cars, for variety of reasons (including lead foot drivers with unrealistic expectations). Ford does the testing per the EPA procedure and reports the results. If the correction factors are not correct then it is the EPA that should be held accountable not Ford. The only way to get rid of the blood circling sharks is to support tort reform.

ice-capades - That would be great! Another forum contributor did some digging and found out that many of the early Energis, that were CA bound, were diverted to other states (mostly TX). He actually paid for a car (dealer ordered not customer ordered) that was enroute to CA only to find out that during transit the window sticker was changed and the car ended up in TX. His speculation on that was that some of the early cars would not meet some of the california requirements. I suppose there could be other reasons for the diversion including a shortage of rail cars destined for CA. Energis are now being delivered/sold in CA so I doubt anything technical is holding them up and I would think it is logistics. BTW, so far, I got my VIN# ahead of the anticipated schedule (Ford site says 4 weeks after order and I got mine less than 3 weeks after order). I am happy that the dealer is keeping me informed and really has made no promises or has set no unrealistic expectations. Update 12/20/2012: A CA customer, on the "Energi" forum, claims his dealer told him his car is on hold waiting for a software upgrade so it will meet CA emissions standards. This seems odd to me since I thought all the cars are built for "50 state" emissions requirements. If it is true I am wondering what the software does and if there is a performance tradeoff to get a car to meet the CA standards.

Ice-capades, The Ford dealer did give me a VIN# 1FADP5CU2DL521546. On the C max energi forum there is one more customer, in my area, that has ordered from a different dealer but has been given the same information about her/his order being on hold. Both dealers already have the certification and have sold and are selling C max energis and hybrids. The one thing that both, on hold, cars have in common is that they are ordered with the 303A equipment package. Recent update from the other buyer who was told there is a hold; their dealer is telling them it is a ship hold and that it may be something such as a shortage of rail cars.

The only damage is to CR's, already, diminishing reputation. Ford is getting a bunch of free press out of this. Even though alot of the press is negative there has been alot of positive comments on these new hybrids. The bottom line is that negative and positive press both contribute to motivating people to find out more about something they may not have been interested in before reading anything.

Ford should be able to spin straw into gold out of this. Cynics are saying Ford is cheating. Other cynics are saying CR is spinning. I will give both the benefit of the doubt and say that Ford performed the dyno testing per procedure and CR does their testing per their procedure. The thing that I don't understand is what are the limits of variation that we can expect from the CR testing process. Does CR use a prescribed gas formulation or do they fill up at a corner gas station? Does CR use the same test driver for each run or do they have different drivers? The point is that the CR testing has so many variables that it is impossible to determine what their results mean unless they do many runs on the same vehicle and use either: controls that we all understand or randomize all the variables, with enough runs, to establish a meaningful data set with a distrubution, average, and normal deviation. I am assuming Ford will be providing the EPA a vehicle for the validation test. Several have said that with the tight tolerances on these vehicles that there is little to no variation from one sample to another; this may be true but if there were ever a time to hand pick a steller sample to give to the EPA now is the time. I would hope and assume that the Ford engineers are working overtime to "prep" the sample(s) offered for validation. BTW setting up samples for optimum performance in testing, for marketing purposes, is SOP in most every manufacturing enviroment. Manufacturing and Marketing establish acceptable tolerances for QA but units that are tested, for numbers that are used in advertising, are always optimized.

Unfortunately function has to take priority over form in this age of competing for better mileage. I do miss the cars that look like they are rocket ships and are getting ready for blast off. The bullet birds were some of my favorite rocket ships. I have owned Galaxies, Comets and even came close to purchasing a Meteor. I wish Ford would get back to the cool names for their cars. I guess I am OK with Fusion but C-max, seriously!

My dealer just called me with good and not so good news. He had a VIN # for my order but then told me that Ford has put a "hold" on the Energi and said my delivery is undetermined as a result. The dealer told me that several Energis are "on the ramp" at the CA distribution center but Ford is not allowing them to be shipped to the dealers. I asked if it was CA only or nationwide and the dealer did not know. Does anyone have any information on the "HOLD"?