Hi everyone.

I bought my blue XLT Wagon on August 12 this year, and so far it's been a great experience to own. I had to adjust my garage door opener so it would open up as high as possible, and knew that the Connect would fit before I brought one home. The stock radio and speakers had to go though. I replaced the door speakers first with some Alpines (5.25"). That helped tremendously. I've just had the stock radio/CD player replaced with a Pioneer touchscreen nav unit. I'll be having a rear camera, amp, rear door speakers, and monitor for the back seat installed on Monday. The monitor will mount on the overhead shelf. I'm using an old 2-channel 80w amp I had to drive the rear speakers. It will mount under one of the front seats.

My first tank of gas made 22mpg. I'm still on my second. My wife claims the ride is better than that in my old car, a 2003 Pontiac Vibe. I agree, although with no load in the rear it's still a little bouncy on rough pavement.

I love the view from the driver's seat. Obviously great headroom. Lots of glass, yet good shading on a sunny day.

I'm glad I found this forum. Not very many TC owners in the US seem to have found it yet. As far as I know I'm only the 3rd TC in my town.

4D

 

I'd like to know how your rig travels when it's loaded to capacity, doing continuous highway speeds with A/C on and a lot of uphill driving. None of the Transit's reviews seem to mention that scenario.
For contrast I recently took a heavily loaded 2001 F150, A/C on all the time from Knoxville TN across Jellico Mountain to the Cincinnati area on I-75, got 17.7 mpg at 65-70 mph. This was using no-ethanol regular unleaded gas.

 

Hi, Artfd. I haven't had a chance to load my TC up yet, and the one trip at highway speeds was only barely challenged by a few of the flint hills in eastern Kansas. That was brand new with just my wife and I in it. I just got it back from the A/V installers today, and it probably won't get a heavy load (except for people) until Christmas. Mine has the rear seats in it. I've seen a couple around town being used as delivery/service vehicles, and the appear to be a good fit for the people/companies using them. There was a small chance I'd be driving it from Kansas to Atlanta, GA end of August, but that fell through. I'm afraid I'm not the one to answer your questions as mine is just for personal use.

4D

 

4d;


I'm loving my 2015 Connect. I just made my first run and got 27 MPG--needless to say, I like it!


I have not liked the manuals for the TC. the quick guide is nothing more than a guide for the Sync and removing the seats. The large manual is incredibly obtuse. For example, the radio is not listed in the front table of contents. It is listed in the index, but the manual does not show my radio/CD. I love the vehicle, but I am hating the manuals.

 

What question do you have on your radio EvanBly? I'll be happy to help.

I use the digital options for hunting sometimes Owners Manual page

Open up the PDF and use the Find function to go through the fluff. The Index is pretty horrible on all Ford manuals, but the table of contents I find surprisingly useful.

 

Frantz;


I spent some time with the manual, going back and forth between the two radios discussed, and finally got a grip on how it all works. Whew!


As another example of manual dysfunction I can point to the headrests. I always put seat covers on my vehicles-the original covers on my 98 Explorer look new. To put the new covers on the Connect seats I had to remove the headrests. They would not come out. I pressed the little **** on the base of the rests, but they would not release. I went to the manual which told me to do essentially what I hade done. The good thing was that the problem brought me to this forum. In looking up ford headrests I found a thread on this forum where someone pointed out that I had to use something like a small screwdriver to press on the flush surface of the side opposite the ****. It worked--but it's odd in that it would take three hands to press the ****, push in the screwdriver, and lift the headrest.


As one of the premier auto makers in the world you would think that Ford could write a clear manual. It might also be the case that they really don't want us owners to mess around with our vehicle, preferring that we have our dealerships do all the messing around. As you can tell, I sort of miss the old days--my 53 PU manual told and pictured just about every operation needed on the vehicle. Ah, the good old days.

 

I feel you on simple. One of my bucket list items is to drive a Model T for a year as a daily driver just for the experience. I think a good amount of it today is safety and fear of litigation. They don't want it to look like the head rest are meant to come out or else if someone has bad whiplash it could come back on Ford. You have to be careful with modern seat covers too because most vehicles have airbags in the seats themselves.

 

Would be great to know which Transit Connect XLT you bought, SWB or LWB. Also how it's optioned. Most that I've seen are equipped with the 2.5L Duratec engine. Haven't yet driven a 1.6L EcoBoost version.

I've just started to look at them seriously. Really like the exterior size in relation to the interior space. Looks like a reasonable option to cart passengers, bikes, kayaks, and other gear. My old pickup is just about ready for the crusher after doing heroic duty here through 18 Winters. The corrosive salt and chemical slurry that is used on our Maine roads will eat through most metals in quite a hurry, no matter how thorough you are about trying to keep this stuff from accumulating. The latest victims of the corrosion were the truck's brake lines last week.

Anyway, leaning toward replacing the decomposing truck with a Transit Connect Wagon or Un-minivan or whatever the Ford marketeers want to call this vehicle. Looking forward to learning as much as I can about this Wagon.

 

Box.. I really think you can't go wrong with these smaller microcargo vans.. light, nimble, fuel savings and turns on a dime.. but one can't let the van get away from them. With the body made in Turkey and the engine by Mazda, one should have plenty of others when wanting small parts or accessories.. yet there are a few draw backs to this particular micro van. I'll go into that on one of my own threads.

 

Agree! Like OP 4d, I have a Vibe... mine is an '08, and my old truck... both would be replaced by the TC.

I've driven the latest Focus, C-Max and Escape. All are built on the same basic underpinnings, along with the TC. I drove a 2015 TC XLT 2.5 SWB Wagon a couple of weeks ago and noticed very similar dynamics. I didn't get a chance to go out on the Interstate, but my short 7 mile drive on secondary roads and some urban sections exposed a very well sorted small wagon. Would like to drive the 1.6L EcoBoost, if one ever shows up in our area.

I really don't want anything bigger. I find the current batch of Mini Vans not so Mini. The Mazda5 wagon is very nice, if a little short on headroom compared to the vaulted ceiling in the TC, but they never updated their 2.5L engine with the new more efficient "SkyActive" units. Looks like Mazda is going to give up on the Mazda5 here in the states anyway.

I can't find much wrong with the TC for our purposes. The only negatives are the overuse of the hard interior plastics, but have to consider that the TC started life more or less targeted as commercial vehicle. I can live with this.

Wish Ford would bring all the engine/transmission available on their European versions. At least allow us to order one with those combinations. The 6 speed manual and the turbo diesel wouldn't be too bad. Now that the brilliant ones at VW/Audi have caused an uproar with their engine mapping to defeat emission controls, really doubt that we'll be seeing that type of engine any time soon.

If packaging would allow in the TC, a hybrid wouldn't be bad either. C-Max is a great car with very poor hybrid packaging. Load space losses are too great in that car. We rented one a couple of years ago and found that it drove great, was very efficient at around 47 mpg, but load space very limited. Ford could have done a better job, although Ford is apparently not trying that hard on that front. Now that gasoline is so "Cheap" again (?) (I remember paying 17 cents/gallon in 1970, cheap is relative), we probably won't see much movement in this direction for a little while longer.