hillgrass

NWCamperMan My Ford dealer also hardly blinked when I brought it up. Why am I not surprised? I do like the van except for this very annoying quality issue. Makes me feel like I'm driving around in an old beater. When you're making a car payment on a $20,000+ vehicle, you expect things to be nice and tight for a while. Aside from that, I enjoy the outside Euro lines, the beautiful simplicity of the dash, and of course the ridiculous amount of cargo room. Admittedly, in the beginning, the engine's lack of oomph grated on my nerves, but I've since adjusted to it and have begun to enjoy wringing it out when it's necessary. It certainly can zip around town and on the highway with a little coaxing. My last road trip, which consisted of quite a bit of heavy throttle, averaging 70-80 mph, garnered me between 27-29 mpg. Not bad. And a surprisingly comfortable highway cruiser.

I have a rattle/buzz coming from underneath the van whenever I cross a certain low range rpm while pulling away from a stop or climbing a grade. It doesn't do it while I'm parked and revving the engine. It also doesn't occur when I apply the foot brake and mildly rev the engine while in drive. My first impression was that this tinny sound was coming from the heat shield between the body and exhaust. But when I looked underneath I noticed Ford had used a shield more akin to a silver blanket. Kind of flimsy and prone to vibration. I'm not sure if any of you have experienced this same issue or if this is even the cause. It definitely gives the car a low-quality feel for one so new.

Took my first 'road trip' from Baltimore to Boston and back. Since the weather was pretty cool, I used the a/c only for short stints. Economy was not forefront in my mind as I ran the little Duratec generally around 70-80 mph. I also didn't shy away from downshifting via the o/d button on the shifter when squirting in and out of the passing lane. I hit a bit of traffic each way, but overall it was smooth sailing. Heading north I averaged 27.62mpg. Heading south I averaged 28.97mpg.

The illustrations above look somewhat like an elongated Kia Soul. At first I was like " Wow!" til I noticed it didn't have a high roof. Not sure how that'll translate once they add that. The current model looks pretty damn cool if you ask me. Surprisingly, I get alot of inquiries from people while I'm tooling around. It certainly has a European edgy look to it. I also do dog rescue on the weekends. For reasons I'm not sure (shorter/taller vs longer/lower), I'm able to out-haul those driving Caravans, Siennas, and Odysseys. For pure utility in terms of LARGE dog crates, nothing compares in the minivan market. Now, if I could just add a 6-speed and and/or 40 more horsepower ;-)

I had to laugh when you said it's hard to get road rage in this vehicle. Just today I was rather pleasantly coasting along down the highway behind a heavily laden tractor trailer without a care in the world. If I had been in my CR-V instead of my Connect, I would've sworn out loud and mashed the gas peddle. But in the Transit, what's the point? You're not gonna go anywhere anyway! The perfect antidote to road rage :stop: