wildcatgoal

Well I decided not to buy an MKZ. The only Lincoln dealership that I experienced that actually earned my business was 420 miles away. The rest were no better than a corner used car lot in treatment, so I said forget it. Not to mention, the closest Lincoln dealership for service is also a dealership that had to rebuilt my Fiesta transmission twice, did it wrong twice, and I had to get the transmission replaced at another dealer and was the one that bait-and-switched me on the price of the MKZ. No wonder their Yelp rating is 2-stars! So I have no intention of going there ever again. The nearest dealer for services is a Ford/Subaru dealership is the one that replaced the transmission, finally fixing my Fiesta, but is still very inconvenient (opposite way from home to work) and doesn't have loaner cars. Great car, crappy dealers in my South Atlanta/Atlanta-in-general area in my experience. Best to all of you. I'm just going to do what I should have done before: save up for the rest of the year, then get a Tesla. No more ridiculous, money grubbing, lying dealership experiences and it's range meets my needs 100% except for a drive from Atlanta to Chicago (no superchargers past Chatanooga) but there are Level III and Level II chargers, it just will take a bit longer, which I'm find with as I stop anyway. Again, such a great looking car, but just I can't give dealers my money here... :(

A luxury brand should be the last to play those games. I did see Guard on an MKZ the other day - still didn't like it but it looked the same to me. Cloudy day, though.

I'm in Atlanta. I went to the dealer that was going to offer $30K on my trade and the right price on the MKZ spec'd how I wanted it and instead when I got there they said they could only give me $27K for the trade. So basically bait and switched. Typical g'dam experience with dealerships. I'm sick of it. Screw it - Lincoln can fly a kite. Been through hell with Mercedes, Ford (same dealership, they owed me one), and now this crap. I'm not buying an MKZ - at least anytime soon.

I saw a couple Fusions with the guard color and it's very "christmas candle" to me - I feel like if I light it up the area would smell like pine needles. It sort of has a yellow-ness to it when light is on it and you're looking at the right angle. It wasn't for me. I could not find anything with the Luxe color, though.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1096816_2016-ford-fusion-hybrid-energi-models-to-get-900-price-cut This explains EcoSelect - basically reduced acceleration and energy dedicated to A/C/heat etc. I think that's basically EV mode in a Prius - not too familiar with those hideous things.

What is Ecoselect and what does the hazelnut line item mean, that anything black in the hazelnut interior turns to the hazelnut? You'd think they'd be a little more clear but I guess these are for dealers, not customers.

Just wait until all cars are equipped with Apple's in car suite or whatever Google creates and manufacturers stop it with their always terrible (relative to what they could and should be) proprietary user interfaces. What I do, and this is probably going to make you laugh, is use a dash cam. For one, dash cams protect me from the bleeping idiots trying to kill me on Atlanta roads. I have amassed numerous clips now that I plan to post to YouTube eventually - mostly people blatantly cutting me off. But, anyway, the camera also has a microphone. I just say whatever I need to remind myself of and then I press a button on the camera which marks/locks the video file and I know to go back to it. Some cameras don't have this button but they have shock sensing so you can just give the camera a hard tap and it'll probably mark that file as an "event". On a side note, this camera kept me from blame for one of those sport bike riders cutting off, clipping my bumper, and blaming me for falling. And all his friends wanted to come after me as if I was attacking the swarm of sport bikes like you hear about in the news or see on YouTube road rage videos. I just popped the memory card in my laptop, brought up the file, and waited for the police with the doors locked. Showed the cop, gave my information, and ultimately left without blame. Had I not had this camera, of course I would be the one to blame. No damage but some rubber marks that rubbed off on my bumper but his bike was done... luckily he wasn't.

I doubt the door is out of alignment. That panel is definitely shifted if not bent. Sorry to say but I doubt the dealer will do anything - this is for your insurance company, IMO. But crossing fingers. I've seen this happen in vehicles with big wheels and very little wheel gap before being from Chicago myself and going to school in Michigan and Minnesota. Usually it's just wheel well or splash guard plastics, though. But if snow gets in there and is allowed to turn essentially into ice after being impacted and compressed and then you turn the wheel or hit a bump that requires rapid suspension movement... this can happen. It may just be that it needs to be shoved back into place and resecured.

So every dealer around me has Tuxedo Black, Ignot Silver, Magnetic, and/or White on their lots. Who here has seen in-person the Luxe and Guard colors? Is the Luxe color more of a beige than a gray? Is Guard the same Gaurd found on Mustangs? Online photos aren't cutting it, as per usual. Going to order mine Tuesday if I go through with this and, well, I'd like a unique color but I can't bring myself to do that Torch color and no other color other than the aforementioned bunch opens an eye. Thoughts?

The pano roof is awesome... but $2,200 in my brokerage account is more awesome. :)

Absolutely a must to throw on the agenda. Take pictures of every single one and post them everywhere. Make a YouTube video. Use Twitter. Take charge. This is ridiculous - with computer aided design and robot assembly... please. Shouldn't happen.

What's different about the 2016 that warrants getting one over a 2015? I can't seem to find anything...

My boss's Audi burns a quart every 1,500 to 2,000 miles. If you don't break in an Audi 100% perfectly, they're garbage. Having built a few Harley engines in my day to Stage III performance (everything but forced induction) with very tight (even for a sport bike) tolerances and high (for a Harley) compression, the break in process had to be spot on or you'd end up with oil burn predictably. I gather Audis are the same with the tolerances being too intolerant of variation from the perfect break-in conditions (which aren't really possible unless the engine is in a lab). It baffles me why Germans can't get some reliability engineers in there. Just one hire from Toyota or Honda would make a difference, I swear. In other news, to share the pain I guess, my 2005 Subaru Legacy GT started leaking fuel from the fuel rail in the engine compartment in cold weather. Fuel could be seen dripping into the headers and the stench came through the vents like I was sticking my head in a gas can. Online searches found that its is very common in my model year and the subsequent year. I found service history that said this was addressed during the warranty period (before I owned it) by tightening the connections. My Subaru dealer did the same, problem was solved that winter. Next winter came along and they said it needed to be replaced. I had an extended warranty because I knew the transmissions during this generation were glass but I still hounded Subaru of America to pay for the fuel rail citing the fumes were giving me headaches, it was unsafe, and my 1968 Lincoln Continental which had never been rebuilt didn't leak fuel or oil so I have no idea how a Subaru which is supposed to be nice and reliable is leaking fuel. Eventually they caved and paid for all of it except $2.50 in taxes. But that extended warranty ended up paying for a complete steering rack replacement - somehow that thing ended up leaking and leaking and leaking. All I did was drive the bloody thing to work and back - never modified, never raced. People that owned it before me were at the dealer trading it in when I saw it and bought it and they were a retired couple and the guy was trading it in because he couldn't press the clutch in anymore... I mean, the thing wasn't abused. Baffles me. But, it is what it is. That extended warranty paid for itself two fold!

The C250 is a tried and tested reliable car overall, although one of my 7 different C250 loaners I had got a check engine light when I had it and spit out black exhaust. Dealership tried to blame me for that but luckily I got a gas receipt for 93 octane premium at the BP... otherwise who knows what they would have tried. Someone probably put their mixed yard machine gas in it to refill the tank! There are a lot of very cheap vehicle owners in the Atlanta area. Buying used is scary to me here... But, to correct you, I had a CLA 250. The CLA is different than the C-class. It's the class below and much different (and much better looking, IMO). It had been out in Europe for approximately 2 years but as a hatchback and under a different name so there is no excuse for all of the "first year German growing pains" that 2014 owners in the USA have experienced except maybe they started making them in Hungary (new plant). I wasn't the only one who had a CLA that would just randomly lose power - there are numerous NTSB complaints filed noting very similar issues (engine power cutoff, rattling) and Consumer Reports damn near quoted my complaint in their long-term reliability write-up (supporting my opinion that they really don't do much for "reviewing" like they lead you to believe... but that could just be that my rendition of the issue was of journalistic quality - probably was... if I do say so myself). Anywho... I drove the hour and a half up to the dealership yesterday that had the hazelnut interior example in stock and I liked it in the sense that it is "different than black and not light like dune". I think it'd be better if it was a bit less diareha brown and more of a saddle brown (bit lighter, less trim pieces with the same color, too) but... it is what it is. So I will probably go with it. I have a dealership down the bare bone (I hope) on one but I will have to order it, which I could care less about. I have another car that I use for commuting while I wait. I am also now looking at the Camry and Avalon Hybrids. I want above all fuel economy. I did the math and if I hadn't bought my truck, excluding the cost of insurance, I could have bought a base model Tesla for the same net monthly cost as my truck (that means factoring in gas, tax rebate, and monthly payments). I have also considered VW TDIs but I just can't get over how ugly everything but the new Golf is in the VW linup and I'm not interested in that kind of hatchback. Someone at VW needs to fire the guy/gal responsible for designing the back end of their sedans, pronto. Although, the Passat is nice overall - I'm baffled as to why Passat TDIs are not used as livery vehicles or upscale taxis... they'd be perfect and they aren't that expensive. Hell if I was an Uber driver or had a family to haul around (but refusing to buy an SUV or minivan) a Passat would be in the top 3. But it's just me and my dog... oh, and the occasional date. I can't find any direct comparison of the Toyotas vs. the Lincoln because they're technically in different classes, but I don't agree. The Avalon is easily a direct competitor at a lesser price to the MKZ (and there's little reason to "step up" to the Lexus E-class from it). Unfortunately it isn't nearly as good looking to me, but... wouldn't hurt to save $5K to acquire essentially the same meaningful features and get, probably, a more reliable car with, probably, much higher resale value. Alas... I'm one of those that tends to pay for style in vehicles over straight value... hmmph.

Um... this is an assembly/fitment issue (as it is "common" but not "by design") which legal precedent supports as one of the clearest examples of "manufacturer defect" that there is. Ford cannot demonstrate in court that "by design" the trunk is supposed to destroy a seal and scrape paint - they'd be laughed out by even the most corporate of judges. I'd continue your quest professionally to get this fixed and perhaps attempt resolution at another dealership. Include local newspapers and car review magazines. Create a YouTube video and promote it as much as you can. But I must say, something is fishy that they blatantly refuse to address anything at all. I saw this because I had a Ford Fiesta for a while and it needed the transmission rebuilt twice (first time led to a new noise, second time yet another noise) and then they finally replaced it (at a different dealer) - all of this before 38K!. Ford wasn't efficient about just getting the replacement done in the first place, saving them time and a lot of money, but they did do the right thing in the end (then I sold that f'ing thing).

Guys/gals - I'm new here. I'm strongly considering an MKZ hybrid. I had a 2014 CLA 250 with their version of hazelnut leather and dark gray exterior. That POS was a psuedo-lemon (and a royal POS for the money in general) so I got rid of it (luckily for only a teensy loss) mid last year and went back to a truck. Now I'm regretting that because my gas bill is ridiculous. I really loved the dark brown leather interior color combo of my CLA but the main difference is that the a-pillar and roof of the CLA is a very dark gray vs. the MKZ's being the same as the dune leather color (light beige), more or less. I was curious if anyone has any real life photos of the interior of their MKZ with the HAZELNUT interior? I haven't been able to find one at a dealer to look at in person due to my schedule (nearest one is 1 hr away; all local ones have dune or black interior) and the fact that I really do not like to set foot on a dealership unless I have to - dealing with car sales people is a ripe recipe for me losing my sanity. I've seen every picture I could find online and they're all tiny, professional, or poor lighting. I just want to see if the roof/a-pillar vs. hazelnut combination looks good. Otherwise I'll negotiate for a black leather one.