Eazy

I think it has to do with the position of the blower motors. There is one under the dash for the front of the "cabin" and then one under the drivers seat to push air through the rear vents. The front one isn't that loud, probably because it doesn't have much space to move air around. However, the rear one (under the drivers seat, of course) is loud as hell. I have the independent controls in the rear and I can turn mine up and down and hear how loud that thing gets. I think it's a matter of position more than anything, but it's very annoying from the driving position.

The logic is simple and has existed in most cars since the early 2000's... It's a safety feature. If you're in a dark neighborhood and walking away from or two your vehicle, it reduces the risk of someone trying to harm you or take the vehicle. I worked on a mid 90's Dodge that had a similar function. Unfortunately, astronomers are not their normal use case.

That seems pretty reasonable. I have yet to do a long 60mph run, but I know the instant MPG sits around 35-38 when I'm on the highway. I need to find a longer stretch.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Sorry. Wow! That's a ton of miles.

Thanks for the info! I've never actually owned a vehicle new enough to have to worry about recalls before now.

How many miles. I noticed that the downshift from first to second was a little jerky for the first couple hundred miles. Now that I'm over 2000, I don't notice. That may just because I've gotten used to it, but I don't think so. I'm pretty hyper sensitive about stuff like that. If it carries on much longer, take it to your stealership and have them take a look. Make sure they document that you came in there and reported an issue, just in case it ever comes up for warranty work.

This^ The "snorkel" is there to pull air in from a dry place and/or stop water from getting into the air box. The inner fender is not a dry place. You may see a very slight bump in fuel economy, but not enough to risk sucking water into your motor.

About 2/3 city, 1/3 highway. I have a short commute between home, work, and school everyday. On the weekends I have to do a short highway trip to pick up my daughter.

Sorry, I guess I missed where you were going. Isn't there a fuse box in the left-rear? That should have a constant 12v running to it. Should be easy to identify as it will probably be pretty heavy gauge.

So far, I've averaged 281 miles between 11.186 gallon fill ups. I'm averaging an overall 25.08 miles per gallon.

What year is your van? I believe the motor mounts are fairly easy to change if you're handy with a wrench and a jack. You should just need to jack the motor up, unbolt the mount (usually 4 bolts), and then put the new one on and reassemble. There are a lot of videos on youtube for the Focus, should be a similar process.

Podcasts, pandora, and spotify. Don't really see much point to satellite radio anymore.

Couldn't you just break out a test light and plug it into the tail light harness? There's probably only 6 wires there. Should be pretty straight forward.

I think I'm getting around 300. I'll look at my spreadsheet and get back to you.

Why would you want a kill switch? With the current arrangement, the ignition will only fire when the correctly encoded key is entered. Someone would have to have one of the keys assigned to your vehicles ECU in order for the ignition to fire. At that point, an ignition switch won't do much my stop them from driving it away. If they can get the steering unlocked and the transmission into neutral, they don't even need a trailer to boost it.

I've also noticed mine seems to run a little on the low end, but I don't usually push it past 1/4 tank. The most I've ever put in at a fill up is 11 gallons. A lot of cars use a rather inaccurate way of figuring out how much fuel is in the tank or what the fuel economy is. It's mostly just a ball floating in the tank and the average position of the ball is how it decides where the fuel level is. Depending on where this is in the tank and how it was calibrated, you can varying levels of precision. My other car (Nissan Altima) shows full until it's about 1/4 empty. From there it burns through the last 3/4 of gas super quick (comparatively). I think the Transit may just go in the opposite direction. A little too conservative at the top end just to keep you from running out (and potentially using your roadside assistance.)

I don't know about this specific vehicle, but I know that with older Ford models the remote start unit was basically a DEI unit with a Ford sticker on it. This means that it's not plug and play. It will require a substantial amount of cutting and soldering connections together. It's essentially the same thing your local best buy/car stereo shop would install. Ultimately, ask the parts guy at the dealer. They may have one in stock and can show you what it comes with. If it comes with a pigtail of un-terminated wires, you're probably in for a bit of work. I've also considered this. Maybe I'll swing buy the dealership on the way home tonight and find out. I also have a lot of experience installing stereos and remote starts though, so I know how big of a nightmare these can be on modern cars.

I really like the idea of a transit connect camper. I owned a westy bus until a couple weeks ago. While it's not living in luxury, it's doable. I have a lot of ideas of how it could be done, but I dont (currently) have the luxury of tearing into my connect to make it happen. Maybe in the spring. Like I said though, check the salvage yards for a class b or class c built on the ford chassis. I imagine you could pretty easily adapt that swivel seat. I do question the clearances, but I've never actually measured.

I don't see how this would be possible. You could probably modify a Ford seat bracket from a Class B to fit and allow the seat to swivel. Ford likes using similar seat mounts, it saves them money. However, I don't think it would be possible for the seat to turn 180*. Even without the center console, shift column, and parking brake the thought is that it would it hit the drivers seat in its rotation.

If you wanted to get fancy, I imagine you could pretty easily build an interrupt circuit to turn off the "unlock" signal to the rear doors. Wouldn't be too difficult I don't think...but it would require some wire cutting. I guess the thought is that if the cab is compromised, the whole vehicle is. Even if they couldn't unlock the door, it wouldn't be much to smash up your bulkhead and get through it. Or just kick in the windows (if equipped). I was under the impression that the bulkhead was more for passenger safety than it was for cargo security.

I don't know much about the transit connect specifically, but I've looked at enough east coast cars to know some things that you should look for in general... Rust. Check the fender, inner fender well, and bottom for any signs of surface rust or erosion. The salt y'all use on the roads out there is an absolute beast to cars and really anything metal that it touches. Service History. At 97k, it's about 1.5 times above what would be considered "normal" mileage. It's not too big of a concern if they can show that it had regular oil changes and maintenance done on it.

On the short wheel base wagon, the seats are removable. On the long wheel base they are not. Folding the seats down in the LWB you lose about 3" of vertical height over not having the seats in. They lay pretty flat.

Personally, I prefer it. My other car turns the outlet off and on depending on whether the key is on or not. It's not really that great for your electronics to be cycled like that. It also means I had to have the car on if I wanted something to charge when I ran into the store or whatever. I find the "always on" outlets a lot more convenient. The only downside to it is that it creates the opportunity for you to leave something plugged in and completely kill your battery. Just have to be conscious of what you're doing.

It's fine. Gave me something to read this morning.