azdamay

Mine are finally getting to the tread wear bars at 44,000 miles. I sincerely hope I don't get the Continentals again. They are fine when new but become very noisy and increasingly useless as they get some miles on them. Traction on any surface is abysmal. The Wheel Works location I took my van to a while back said I may be stuck with the Continental tires, because they have a reinforced sidewall to cope with the load rating of the van.

Check with FSWerks. He asked once about making tuning available to us on here, and there wasn't really any interest. http://www.fswerks.com/ There is a member on here who turbocharged their TC.

Must have been a sloooooowwww getaway. :P

Gee whiz guy... some people have unrealistic expectations. This is a forum dedicated to a vehicle that (1) there aren't a lot of on the road, and (2) not many will care enough about to go on the internet and search out a forum to post on about it. We're not going to have the numbers and knowledge of a forum dedicated to a more plentiful and popular vehicle. Also, why couldn't a Ford dealer supply the screws? The Ford dealer I picked mine up from had put on their own dealer plate and frame, so obviously they've got the needed screws on hand.

FWIW, last time I checked various Ford dealers were selling OEM Ford front and rear splash guards on eBay. They are easy to install as a retrofit.

The Continentals get louder as they get older in my experience. I am at 42,000 miles and still on the original tires. I'm hoping to get them replaced very soon as they are close to the tread wear bars (fleet maint. co. won't replace them until then). But the tire shop guy said they might have to put on the same tires because apparently these tires have a reinforced sidewall (due to the load rating)?? IMO these tires suck on anything other than flat, level, dry pavement. I too had lots of rocks stuck in the tread, but as the tread has gotten shallower that problem went away. Also, they do seem to lose air, and attract screws and nails. I've had more tire repairs on the tires on this van than I think I've ever had on any other vehicle I've owned or driven, combined. The front brake pads now have an upgraded part number, my brakes wore out fairly quick and so far the newer pads seem better.

Unless that is something they've added to more recent models, ours don't have a drawer. I have a 2010 and it does not have a drawer under either seat. It was a feature I had in my previous work van that I sorely missed when switching to the Transit Connect.

I have a 2010 and I don't know what the Sync radio consists of for 2012, but if the speed sensitive volume works the same, I would say the increase in volume isn't dramatically perceptible. On mine I have it set for 3, and I don't really notice the volume increasing, just that it sounds the same (which is what the feature is supposed to do). If I turn the feature off, I can tell that the road noise is starting to drown out the radio and I have to turn up the volume manually. Beyond that, the thing that has always irritated me about this radio is the way the volume setting changes itself. If I set it for 25 while talking on the phone (just to able to try to hear the other party), as soon as I hang up the phone, the volume jumps way down. If I have the radio on, turn the van off, and then get back in and restart the van, the volume has jumped down to a lower setting. If I turn it down real low (such as when driving up to an entrance gate/call box), when I next turn on the van the volume will have gone back up. It seems to always return itself to a setting of about 13. Whether speed sensitive volume is turned on or not, it likes to change the volume setting. I've learned to live with it but it irritates the hell out of me.

That's exactly what the cubby is for. I use it for paperwork every day. On the older, pre-facelift Transit Connects (not sold here) the cubby was more open:

Welcome! What color is Winter Blue? Is this it? If so I like it... I also like the body-color caps on the mirrors.

Can you point me (and others) to the location of this part? Is it fairly easy to get to? I'd like to check on it and see if it's still there.

They just reattached it when I brought it with me. I can hope they secretly glued it and didn't tell me that... otherwise it's just falling out again. And it is some kind of drain tube.

Yes, this gentleman put the Euro caps on his: As you can see the Euro caps come painted silver to match the silver wheels they have. There is also a much smaller cap that is black plastic, which only covers the hole in the center of the wheel and not the lugs. Both of these are available only by sourcing it from Europe. I didn't care for the looks of the North American wheel covers, so after a while spent sporting polished steel wheels and trim rings, I ended up purchasing a cheap set of Corolla knock-off wheel covers on eBay. About 35 bucks for a set of 4. Up close they are obviously cheap, but from a normal viewing distance they are presentable. I actually got a compliment on them from another employee of my company who also drives a TC.

My TPMS sensor light has come on twice now for what appears to be no reason. The first time the dealer told me some BS story and I think all they did was reset the sensors (I checked the tire pressures and they were fine). This time I have yet to take it in. Sort of annoying, because if it continues to go on periodically for no real reason, it defeats the purpose of the light. The boy who cried wolf, and all that.

Ah I see you got the larger center caps. I was thinking of the smaller ones that are black plastic (they literally just cover the hole in the center of the wheel, the lugs are still exposed). That's an interesting look with the silver body though. I like how the newer years have the door handles painted body color, too. And to the question about the tail lights... maybe they had an oversupply of the older parts? Maybe the newer style doesn't meet DOT regulations? Wondered that myself.

Sure I'd love to see the pics. I figured the cost was going to end up being prohibitive (and it sounds like it would have been), so I just painted the hubs. Then the paint on the wheels gradually got thinner and thinner from polishing until it just looked terrible (in fact the wheels are currently rusty). I could have painted the wheels or had them powder-coated, but it was starting to seem like a lot of trouble for a van that didn't belong to me. So I went back to the stock wheel covers; then I bought a cheap set of replica Corolla wheel covers and a cheap set of stick-on Ford logo center "caps" and that's what I've got for now. It would appear that Ford takes the silver-painted wheels used on the Euro Transit Connect and slaps a very thin coat of black paint right over the silver, to prep the wheels for the NA Transit Connect. That black paint won't hold a shine, and my efforts to keep it shiny took it right off. As you may have noticed, they don't even bother to paint the spare, it's still in the European silver paint.

Anyone have a definitive answer on this? Answer as in, is it a mission-critical part or can we leave it laying in the driveway? I found this exact part laying on my driveway when I came home from work yesterday. It sure must be poorly attached, if it will fall off the vehicle while it sits motionless in a driveway. I'm holding onto it and will bring it with me to the dealer when I get an oil change, I guess.

The Transit Connect probably comes standard with the cabin air filter in Europe. They did the same thing with the Focus, it was standard there and then removed for the cars sold in North America. The top plastic that looks like eggcrate is not meant to go back once you put in the filter, it is simply there as a placeholder. My TC is a fleet vehicle, and on the maintenance schedule it does call out periodic replacement of the filter (in spite of the fact that it doesn't come with one). I put one in early on, and when the time came up on the maintenance schedule to replace it, they did! Nice.

Good that you got it taken care of! And presumably for a fraction of what the Ford dealer wanted for a whole light assembly.

Never heard of that before, it sounds ridiculous! The owner's manual tells you how to take off the light assembly and replace the bulb, why would they tell you how to do that if you could only replace the entire thing? FWIW the bulb is a 7443 according to the Sylvania bulb guide. I sure wouldn't go back to that dealer in the future.

Left Lane News is reporting it as the Transit as well. Interestingly, apparently they also got word from Ford that the "T-series" name many of the articles are showing is not set in stone, but has been trademarked to allow them the option to go that route. Additionally, the building of the Transit in the U.S. is still contingent on ratification of the UAW deal. http://www.leftlanenews.com/ford-t-series.html