Jiquay

I rented a cargo van before signing on the dotted line for my wagon. 48-1/2 x 83, not the 97 needed for a full sheet of ply. More than enough acreage in there to sleep, though - that's my priority. GK

Yes, but '19 also sees a manual transmission version on the North American market. I see I ordered mine too early... GK

I'm already searching for summer rims (alloy) for the FTCW XL I'm getting this summer. I'll put the snows on the stock steelies & get rims that don't scream "BASE MODEL" next spring. I don't want to go low-profile though, due to the road conditions in Quebec. (I drove 9 km without a pot-hole & had to refresh the GPS to make sure I was still near home...) GK

I'm not getting my FTCW until mid-summer but I downloaded & printed the owner's manual because I wanted a head-start at reading that 449-page brick. Under "maintenance schedule," page 393 - "every 150000 miles or 240000 km ---> change transmission fluid." I got a coffee noser when I read that! I change tranny oil in my pickup more than that, & it's a manual... Under "special service conditions," trailer towing, roof rack, dusty, taxi or delivery, that interval is 30000 mile / 48000 km. That seems a little more realistic. GK

You might want to post this elsewhere on the forum, under the "recalls & service bulletins." This header is for troubles with the forum itself. There's also a "transmission" thread. GK

I've ordered mine in February but I'll see a few more calendar pictures before I see my wagon. Camping is the main thing on my list that put the FTC at the top - no intention of removing the seating, but building a bed that fits on top of the fold-flat that nothing else on the market does! I'm coming to it from a Mazda B truck so the pump shock will be in reverse. Happy roads to you! GK

Closest I can come to showing you what I'm waiting for is to go to the Ford buildabear game & copy one...

I had Toyo G02+ on my ol' pickup truck & even in their 6th winter, I got through 20cm blizzards, no worries. They got "new & improved" by Toyo as the GSI5. Brand-new, I get stuck in 6 flakes of snow. I know what my FTC will NOT be wearing next fall! GK

Tremblant & Sutton are both 150 & 135 km from home, in diametrically opposite directions! (Literally - to go to Tremblant I turn left at the end of my driveway, to go to Sutton, I go straight!) GK

I decided at Christmas that I want an FTC Wagon this year, so I started counting Wagons I see on the road (including driveways & dealers' lots.) (I count vans, too, & that's a double-digit count every day) #1 was a neighbour's driveway that I knew was there (he has since sold it.) #2 was New Year's Eve that convinced me I've made the right decision - a drunk in a Chevy Tahoe burned a light & got T-boned in the left front wheel by a FTCW. Both doing 70 km/h. Family of 4 walked out of the FTC although their car looked like a mass shooting at a Judy Doll factory - limp airbags everywhere! The guy & gal in the Tahoe came out with Jaws of Life... I won't enumerate all the others, (2 in driveways near the dealer I'm going through) but I saw #7 today March 23 in Greenfield Park QC. Are wagons as rare elsewhere as they are in Montreal area? G5

Just outside Montreal. Boston is 650 each way, Westfield MA about 535...

1400 km round trip to TireRack for rims, but the RTX head office is 8 km away, in my own town... GK

Oh, and DCRC set out his list of options... Priorities change between Texas & Canada, eh? I'm getting electric heated windshield, heated mirrors, plug-in engine block heater, & snowtires... And the radio upgraded. GK

BD is listing all the self-driving apparatus on his Volt & that's exactly why I'm buying a brand-new 2018 base-model car, so I can get something without all that crap, & drive it awhile. I keep cars a LONG time (Nova 16 years, present pickup 10 yrs) so I'm ordering EXACTLY what I want. The Ford website listed my dealer (45 km away) as having an XL TC Wagon "in stock," it turns out it's wrapped & in limousine service for the dealer. The only thing I wanted to check out was status of the cavern when all the seats folded into the floor. It's "as advertised" so I wrote a cheque. I also saw 2 wagons on the residential streets near the dealership in my one trip up there. In my town, I've only seen one wagon in 12 years I've lived here. ('Cause the local dealer says "doesn't exist...") GK

Are American dealers stocking the passenger wagon? Here in Quebec, I had one dealer tell me "it doesn't exist" & one dealer offer me a fully loaded Titanium "cause that's what we've got within 300 km." I found a dealer with FTC as his limousines, & 6 wagons on order, 8 vans on the lot. (His neighbourhood is also the only place I've seen a TC wagon on a driveway.) I ordered through him in February & I'll probably see it in July... (I'm also a diesel fan & wanted a manual shift but I'll let somebody else be the guinea pig for the first ones.) GK

I haven't received my '18 FTC yet, but I'm already shopping for allow wheels for April '19. I'll use the steelies for my snowtires. Stock hubcaps just scream "CHEAP!!" on the XL. RTX has the plugs you need for the extra bolt holes. I'm sure other distributors do, too. I wish all mag wheel websites were as organised as Tirerack. Enter the size & they show you the 32 wheels that fit. I went to one site where I had to click on all 156 wheels on the site to find that they only had two with 5x108 & 16" diameter... Tirerack has good prices up front until you figure in the $274.18 shipping charge to get 4 rims to Canada. GK

On my wish list is a button (a combination of buttons) on the remote that opens all the windows automatically as you approach the car in a hot parking lot. I say "combination" because Honda had this for awhile - a friend found his car packed full of snow when he pocket-dialled his remote in the middle of the night. GK

I ordered mine even though the dealer has 3 "for stock" on order - XL Frozen White, XLT in Silver, Titanium in Race Red. There's one acceptable colour here & it's $7g over my budget. The XL is absolutely naked & the XLT literally ticked every option I don't want & passed by everything I do. I gotta look at it for 10-15 years - I want it to be pleasing to my eye! I can wait a few months for that. GK

OSF: "Solar" is marketing term for dog puke. 8-) I would call it "wheat" or "harvest," it's kinda straw yellow. GK

Mom asked: "Why do you order a DARK GREEN van?" "'Cause I'd have to buy a fleet of 5 of them to get it in School Bus Yellow...." GK

Thanks, OSG. I enjoy radio around town but prefer to dj myself on the open road. fumbling with an mp3 player is more awkward than just inserting a disc... I guess I'll have to invest in an iPod or clone. GK

I volunteer for Opération Nez Rouge, a drive-you-home-safe-when-you've-partaken-too-much-Christmas-cheer service. The car dealers provide us with the chase-cars. Team of 3 come to your party, 2 drive you home in your car while I follow, then we're off to the next merrymaker. All donations go to the youth drop-in centre. Had a Ford Focus with the high-end audio - took me over 30 seconds to change a preset radio station when the GPS was active. Tap, tap, tap, tap uhh - who's driving the car?

GBL thats what I have ordered & that's what I want. DonR there's no point getting sync & Bluetooth when medical issues preclude me ever having a smartphone & not many apps available for a flippie... But does the basic CD player read MP3 discs, or a USB stick? GK

GBL: Push-rod straight-6 with a carburetor & breaker-point ignition, on a three-speed gearbox, versus Overhead Cam V6 with multi-port fuel injection & computer-controlled 25000-volt coils, with a five-speed overdrive manual...

My 2018 XL Wagon is currently no more than a pile of paperwork in a Ford factory in Spain.... I upgraded one level from the stock AM/FM, adding in the CD player. I do NOT want anything touch-screen because changing radio stations should NOT be as distracting as texting while driving. I know I have a 3.5mm audio plug in the console to hook up an MP3 player. I know a lot of cars have a USB port that will read music direct from a stick, and a lot of CD players will read MP3 files on CD-ROM. Is there anything like this on my FTC? I'm transferring 300+ CDs to a memory stick right now, hoping I can either plug it directly or I can burn about 25 CD-ROMs & carry my entire library with me. I never know, pulling out of Montreal, what I want to be listening to in Boston... GK