Robertminchin

When I got mine back form the dealer, they would not tell me how they got it open! I took the whole thing to pieces and found the offending clip which is deep inside the works. I considered making a metal replacment but it requires the springiness of the plastic to clip into place. Although i have not done anything about it, I thought of two preventative solutions. 1) Attach a piece of strong wire to the latch mechanism so that it is did fail again, I could reach up from underneath and give it a good tug. 2) Remove the lock completely as well as the flexible shaft with the coupling on

When my 54 plate Cmax had it's first service, there was a recall item to do with the mirror. I had only just got the car and had not noticed a problem before and so could not say what had changed. I certainly don't get any problems with mirror vibration. hth Bob

There is a known problem with the steering assist. Mine was intermittant to start with and then failed completely. Apparently due to water ingress. Fixed under warrenty Driving without steering assist certainly will build up your arm muscles!! Good luck Bob

I've just taken off each wheel to see how much meat I have left on my brake pads. Quite pleased to find 6mm on the front and 3mm on the rear even with EPB! Car has done 21k miles and no pad changes to date. Can anyone tell me how thick new rear pads are so I have some idea how many more miles I have left before I need to check again. The wheels were easy to remove. I loosened the nuts 1/2 turn on all wheels, drove slowly round the block and by then all were unstuck. All wheels replaced with grease on the studs and copper ease between the steel and alloy surfaces. TIA Bob

Amazon have the brake tool for less than £6!! (Freepostage on orders over £15) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-22349-Br ... B0001K9R9E Bob

1. Any ford three button remote with tibbe key can be programmed by you to work. I bought mine on ebay and cutt off the key part and keep it on my key ring and use with the non remote mechanical key that came with the car. 2. It is likely you need to buy a ford cable to connect the socket to the radio or it may just need connecting up. You should be able to get the radio removal tools on ebay an have a looksee. HTH Bob

CFC, Before you start, see if your EPB is programmed to come on by itself. Bring the car to a halt on a level road and switch off the engine and remove the key. sometime later, maybe up to 10 minutes, the EPB may come on. Mine does not do this but I have read that to avoid it coming on whilst you are in the middle of changing pads**, you should leave the key in the ignition throughout the process. ** if the EPB tries to put itself on with no pads fitted, not only do you risk losing a finger or two but also the EPB mechanism over travels and destroys itself - about £500 aparently. Tazt

All of a sudden the bonnet wont open. key turns as normal but nowt happens Any ideas on how to persuade it to behave? Bob

Before I bought my Cmax, I had one on loan for a week from the dealer. It was the ghia spec - same as the one I bought but it had the Ford sat nav.(which i thought was awful) That panel you mention had a display that said 'C-MAX' most of the time but when the sat nav was operational, it gave a graphic display of what to do next. It always struck me that they could have made a bigger message panel instead especially as failing eyesight means I have to squint to read the display without my reading glasses. Bob

1) under the glove box in the footwell and under the bonnet on the nearside near the battery. 2) no idea 3) sticking parking tickets and credit cards into?? 4) Not on my Ghia 2.0 tdci but it is a different mirror to yours 5) look in the drivers door surround or on the edge and solve the pictogram for your tyre size and loading. HTH Bob

If you sit in the car, double lock it, and after a while when you move around an alarm might sound. If so you have an alarm. hth Bob

1960 ish Isetta bubble car 1961 Moggy Traveller 1967 F plate MKII Cortina Estate 1975 P plate MKIII Cortina Estate 1979 T plate MKI Fiesta 1985 C plateVauxhall Astra Estate 1993 L plateMKIII Fiesta - just given it to my son 1995 we became a 2 car household 1995 M plate Pug 405 Estate - my daily runabout 2005 Moved to 3 cars 2004 54 Plate Cmax TDCI - Er indoors runabout & my official company car when I need it on business 9 cars in 38 years and I still own 3 of them. Never owned a new car and never will max paid £11k for the Cmax Dec 05 Not unusual to keep later cars for 14 years Unti

Insurance backed warranties are a waste of money IMHO. You are paying out in advance for something that might not happen and even if it does the small print normally either excludes it or only pays for part of the bill due to 'betterment' clauses ie what ever went wrong was part worn out anyway. Put all the premiums you are tempted to pay out into a high interest building society account and dip into only when you have to. An EGR change is about £300. No one wants to payout this much if they don't have but is it really the end of the world? Pay it on credit card over a couple of months, giv

I had the power steering fail a few weeks ago whilst driving. It goes very heavy indeed and a pig to manoever at low speed. Apparently there is a known fault with water ingress into a connector and it was fixed under warranty but about 3 days wait for parts. Bob

I've been thinking about sources of spares too. Do you have EPB? maybe hereebay for brake pads? I used to use SHAWS mail order but I've not seen their adverts for a few years. Recently I've been buying consumable spares from Hypermarkets in France for my PUG and Fiesta but last holiday in the summer 06 I could not find any spares for Cmaxs. Prices are always much better than UK so I'll keep looking. As I retain my cars for many years I keep a small stock of parts but so far have not soucred anything for the max. The warrenty runs out in Sept 07 so I'll be doing my own servicing and will

Get the warranty items done by Fraud and get the service done by an independent workshop. Much cheaper. Bob

Take care with that short balance of warranty.I would trust my dealer to do some quick fix right at the end and send me away to 'see if that is better' and then if it is no better, the dealer says it is out of warranty. I've got 6 months to go and as well as the headlight 'no solution' response. My clock still running slow even after the software upgrade problem also got a 'no solution' They did repair the PAS which was intermittent due to water ingress without grumbling but it took a week! Bob

Monkeyboy, The sensor change has not fixed the problem. The lastest crap response from the dealer this morning is that the imtermittent failure is known about by Ford but thir ruling is that if the sensor change does not fix the problem then they are not offering any further solutions - tough! So you might want to get a new sensor fitted but it may not cure the problem. hth Bob

Ah That rings a bell. ISTR that the CMAX battery needs carefully tailored charging for best results. So maybe the voltage level from the donor car could be too high for the Max. Bob

Hi Andy, I understand how your modification works ok but why do you need the headlights on when jump starting. Surely this is wasting unecessary power from the donor vehicle? Bob

Your dealer should be able to look up what has been done to your car and if there are any outstanding recalls. The EGR is NOT a recall issue even though many owners think it should be. There are a set of EGR problems that do report faults on the diagnostic system and if you have these codes then they should replace/reprogramme the EGR. There are also situations where the EGR misbehaves and yet does not report faults. The instruction from FMC is to strip the valve down and according to what is found, replace or re-fit. There is a recent PCM Software upgrade which you should get free which i

My mates 06 plate 2.0 TDCi had to be towed into the local Ford dealers today with a dead EGR. Usual symptoms ticks over but won't drive. Thing is I thought the new design of valve would have been fitted to an 06 plate car. Does this mean the revised valve can still give trouble? Does anyone know when the new ones came into use ? Bob

Hi Chris, Strictly to Ford policy is that parts fitted under warranty only carry a warranty until the end of the vehicle warranty. There has been some speculation that if you pay something towards the part - theoretically only a penny - that the warranty for that item is then 12 months from the date of fitting but I'm not confident. It does sound that the dealer is being reasonably friendly so good luck!! Bob

My 2.0 TDCi has just had a PCM software upgrade which the dealer initially claimed not to know what it was for, has now said it was to do with the EGR. I don't know if you have to pay for software upgrades after 3 years, mine is still under warranty. I can't see your dealer, friendly or otherwise changing the valve without a charge as Ford are not going to reimburse them after the 3 years. You might be able to take out an extended warranty (don't know how much) and then claim a few weeks later? Bob