As my ownership of the Focus Electric came to a close, I was facing the question of whether to continue down the electric vehicle path or go back to a conventional vehicle. There were certainly pros and cons to both approaches, but Ford made the choice quite a bit easier by dangling a big rebate in front of my nose. Money talks, as they say.
My shopping for a replacement for the Focus began a couple of months before the lease ended, with a note in my monthly bill about lease end incentives that were pretty sizeable (at least $1500 if I recall correctly, but it could have been more). The only caveat was that these rebates weren’t available on any of Ford’s plug-in electric products, just the regular cars and trucks. Within that list we quickly narrowed our focus (pun intended) to the Escape, the Lincoln MKC, and the Fusion.
We went to the dealer armed with stock numbers of particular vehicles we were interested in and some knowledge of the rebates we were eligible for. My request for the salesman was simple – take these stock numbers, calculate lease payments for each (since cars with the same price would probably have different lease payments due to different incentives and residual values), and we’d test drive only the cars whose payments we liked best. Seems simple, right? Especially since I already had the stock numbers. Of course, nothing is that simple – the salesperson essentially refused to calculate any lease payments until we got serious about buying one of the cars. It’s the old dealer trick – get ‘em into the car, they fall in love, and we can sell it to them no matter how high the payment went, right? You’d think these tricks would have fallen off the map by now…
Since he wasn’t budging, off we went to wander the dealer lot to find the cars whose stock numbers I’d pulled. The dealer’s method for organizing stock wasn’t particularly sophisticated, so the salesman had to pull the keys and then walk around the lot pressing the lock button on the remote and wait for the honk of the horn. To make matters worse, they were repaving some of the lot so there were cars at multiple lots in the area, so we had to drive several miles to find some of them. We were able to find the Escape so we drove that first. It was…fine, I guess, but I wasn’t a big fan of it (noisy and a bit underpowered with the 1.6 liter turbo – this would be the one that tended to catch on fire, as I recall). We drove the MKC which was essentially the Escape in a fancy suit, and that was also…fine – nicer than the Escape, especially with the bigger 2-liter engine. We didn’t get to drive the Fusion as the ones we wanted were parked in and nobody could find the keys to move the cars in front.
This is when the salesman pointed out that the MKZ (a Fusion in a fancy suit) had some pretty good incentives, so we drove that car. I hadn’t really considered it because the MSRPs were pretty high, but $5500 in rebates brings that number down pretty quick. We liked the way the car looked and the 240-hp Ecoboost 2.0 liter engine definitely produced more than adequate acceleration. Rebates brought lease payments down to a reasonable level, especially in the “base” model we were choosing (no panoramic sunroof, no donk-like rims, no Bridge of Weir leather, etc., etc.). Another plus was that they had a base model in stock in a color I was particularly interested in called “Bronze Fire”. This was a three-coat color that appeared maroon in the shade but was an intense bronze/copper color in sunlight.
Despite my having bought dozens of cars over the past quarter-century or so, it still amazes me how these transactions take forever to complete. If I recall correctly, the whole process took 5 or so hours from start to finish, including wandering the parking lot like Billy in Family Circus, driving multiple cars, deciding on the MKZ, finding that car at a lot 3 miles away, getting the car, doing the paperwork, etc., etc., etc. Maybe this is why I’m not running back to the dealership every 18 months like I used to – getting too old and impatient to sit around for multiple hours waiting for something that should take 45 minutes.
Anyway, we did take the Bronze Fire MKZ home and we were generally glad we did. The Ecoboost engine and 6-speed automatic could light up the front tires pretty effectively, although when we did that the fuel economy wasn’t particularly stellar. I’ve heard people say that Ecoboost engines give you either “Eco” or “boost” but not both – our experience was similar, as I got around 24.5 mpg overall during the 3 years we owned the car. I didn’t think that was particularly stellar, especially given the engine size. Fun to drive, but if you were expecting high fuel economy then you should keep your foot out of the turbo. It was certainly effective at covering miles on the highway without any fuss at whatever speed you liked. It was a long way from my Town Car for acceleration and handling!
To me, the styling was much more interesting than the Fusion. I particularly liked the “no buttons” look of the infotainment center stack that was almost concept-car like to me (but attracted fingerprints like there was no tomorrow). The volume control and fan controls were touch sensitive sliders that were definitely “form over function” – good looking but a pain to use. Steering wheel volume controls and automatic climate control meant I didn’t need to use them that much. Cupholders were hidden by damped covers, which gave the interior a cleaner look. People made a big deal out of the pushbutton transmission selector – probably most of them had never seen mid-fifties Chrysler pushbuttons, I guess. The instruments appeared to be analog gauges but were actually color screen simulations that were easy to read. The exterior styling was also eye-catching, especially with the special paint color and the all-LED lighting (including LED headlights that steered with the front wheels like the Tucker cyclops light). The exhaust appeared to be two wide openings in the bumper (a nice visual touch) – just don’t look too close, or you’ll see that this is actually just two holes in the bumper with regular exhaust tops poking out.
This picture was in the parking lot of a restaurant on the day we bought the car…
Of course, there were a few challenges, but nothing that would be anything more than an annoyance. The instrument cluster included a center screen that showed either phone, navigation, or radio information. I kept the screen on the radio data so I could quickly see what satellite radio channel I was on, as well as the artist and song title. This being the much maligned My Ford/Lincoln Touch system (which I referred to as My Ford Bad Touch), it picked up an interesting quirk much as the Focus had. If I shut off the car for a brief period of time (5 minutes or less) for things like stopping at the post office or getting gas, when I restarted the car the center display would have the satellite radio channel but no song or artist. I found out (purely at random) that I could bring the display back if I switched briefly to FM and back to satellite. No idea why that worked, but it did. The car’s smart key system used some touch sensitive areas on the door handles to lock the doors – a real annoyance when you’re washing the car with the key in your pocket and the doors lock every time the stream of water hits the handle. I took to putting the key inside the house after putting the car where I wanted it.
The ownership experience was pretty good too – for a time, Lincoln was offering a service where they would come out to your home or office to pick up your car for service, leave you a car if you needed it, and then bring back your car when it was done. Since the dealer was only a couple of miles from my office, it was more of a novelty than anything else (getting a shuttle from the dealer only took a few minutes), so I wasn’t completely disappointed when the service was discontinued. Since the car was otherwise reliable, I didn’t have to use these dealer services all that much anyway.
All in all, this was a good car purchase. The car performed well, handled great, was pretty well assembled, and attracted attention from people for its styling and unique color. I only traded this car in within the last two months, in fact, having run it almost to the end of its lease. (I missed out on the “steering wheel might fall off” recall by a few weeks, it seems.) Its replacement is a story of excitement, disappointment, and eventual marital harmony. A story for a few weeks from now…
I’m always surprised by these stories of long dealer transactions. I ordered my Metris and it took five minutes to agree to a price and give a deposit (at invoice which was pretty good I think for a car that wouldn’t be on lots for six months.
Once it arrived I took a 10 minute acceptance test drive, went inside, and handed them a check, signed some papers, And was out with my new car about an hour total after arriving.
Yeah, I’ve experienced five hour (or mores) car deals…starving out of your mind, sitting in the show room, waiting, waiting as it gets dark outside while you meet one dealer employee after another.
Thankfully, my last two car purchases (2016 Honda Accord, 2014 Honda Civic) both from the same salesman were a lot better. Did the deal over email during breaks at work. After work, went to the dealer, signed papers, picked up the keys and drove off with brand new car. Actual time at dealer, less than an hour. Most of that time was waiting for the car to be brought from the storage lot and detailed. That salesman is approaching 85 years old and will be retiring soon. I hope his successors are just as efficient.
And even when paying cash it can take forever. I’ve had house closings faster than car purchases.
My personal record for a house closing was 8 minutes at the title company. Cash of course and I knew what I was doing and signing, as did the closer (obviously) and the other side had pre-signed from out of state.
It handily beat the fastest car transactions I’ve had, but of those, the best ones were the ones where everything was negotiated from the comfort of my couch and all I had to do was walk in, sign with my online contact who sometimes also handled the finance office portion and took a blanket “no” for an answer to the inevitable upsells, tossed me the keys and told me to have fun while he went off to try to sell another car. The longest ones are always the ones where multiple people seem to have their fingers in the pie and all of a sudden seem to make it as difficult as possible for me to throw gobs of money at them. I, for one, am looking forward to the day when I can exercise my Amazon “One-Click-Ordering” option for whatever new car I desire and have it arrive on my doorstep two days later via Prime.
@MDLAUGHLIN, you must be one of the most faithful sedan buyers out there.
Looking at the vehicles around us, there aren’t many left.
We have our car deals down to under an hour “on the ground”…quick and painless. I do most of the legwork via email and just come in to pick up the car and be shown how to work the gadgets.
Bridge of Weir leather is lovely, but as I recall SAAB used their hides in the classic 900 series and it was prone to drying out and pulling seams apart if the owner didn’t moisturize/condition it frequently. Beautiful stuff, but not well suited to automotive service. Perhaps they are tanning & treating it differently now.
I wonder if that’s because it’s from Scotland, where nothing ever dries out. My Scottish hide is drying out in Minnesota right now.
@MDLAUGHLIN,
Why didn’t you chose a middle of the road between a conventional and an electric car and didn’t get the MkZephyr Hybrid?
As far as I know the first generation (2011-2012) of Lincoln did not charge anything extra between conventional gas (V6 at the time) and a Hybrid (4 cylinder + a hybrid system).
I’ve a 2011 MkZephyr Hybrid with all the options, except a wood on the center stack, but with Bridge of Weir leather and swiveling HID headlights. Gas mileage is great when Ontario’s gas price is $3.75 a gallon (assuming 1 gallon ~ 3.78 Liters, pump price is $1.31/L Cdn and the exchange rate is $1US ~1.3Cdn).
I like these a lot, but one thing that has always stumped me is the large area of the trunk lid being painted black, no matter what the body color is. It’s barely visible in the “restaurant parking lot” shot. I don’t know that I dislike it, I just don’t know why it is there. Having lived with the car, do you have any thoughts?
I try to imagine it with the trunklid all body color and I don’t get why that would be a bad thing. Maybe the black is “slimming”, like FoMoCo thought it would look too chunky or bulbous back there without painting the lid half black? Or were they trying for more of a hatchback effect? It just is one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen.
Is it painted or is it an insert, i.e. not the same piece of metal as the trunk stamping? I never noticed it until you pointed it out! Maybe it’s to make the rear glass look more like a “canopy”, although as futuristic as the Zephyr looked until they tacked the Continental grille on, I don’t exactly think F-16 when I look at it.
I can see the appeal of a clean looking interior, but capacitive buttons are a deal breaker for me. I wonder if spending time with them would make me feel differently.
i really like the styling on these esp the rear 3/4 view and full on rear end.
the front doesnt bother me at all. from what i hear that is a minority view.
lovely color combo.
No, no and no. Doesn’t look anything like what a Lincoln should look like, and I deplore those touch screens in cars.
Fortunately, you have no authority as to what a Lincoln should look like.
Ah the MKZ
Back in 2015 my folks rented a car to drive to Canada instead of taking their Taurus. For $10 more per day they were offered a 2015 MKZ
It was a nice car and I loved the self opening and closing trunk. You pushed a button on the outside of the trunk, or the remote or a button on the dash and it opened. You pushed the close button on the remote or dash or ether on the trunk lid or in the trunk (the trunk had 2 buttons for closing) and it closed.
My father ran into 2 problems with it. One was his lack of knowing about push start button cars and the other was that the second key that Enterprise gave him for it had to be also carried and could not remain in a bag in the trunk or else the car would never lock.
I take it you got the car from Crapple Ford…….err…..Apple Ford. Yes their lot is unorganized. Try finding a parking space to go in and buy a part. Years ago there was talk of Apple ford buying the old Performance Pontiac Buick GMC building across the street when that dealer went under but it did not happen and now it is a shopping center with Green Turtle in it.
Next there was talk about buying the property across the street that faced Snowdon River Pkwy for expanding the lot but that also fell through and became a Hippie Market (Wegmanns)
Five hours?
How about five weeks?
I bought my (still owned today) 1988 Toyota (extended wb, dual rear wheel, cab and chassis) in early 1989. It stickered for $10400. They told me they would give me a fabulous deal at $8600. I offered $7400 and left them my phone number. Two weeks later they called and agreed to $8000. Three weeks after that they accepted my $7400 offer.
When I went to pick up the truck they showed me another just like it and offered to sell it to me for even less than $7400 . . . . . if I would buy them both!
Moral of the story. These are really excellent trucks. Should be no problem to get close to list. But since they entailed further work to make them usable, nobody wanted them. New car buyers want something COMPLETE, no additional work tolerated. (To a commercial buyer this wouldn’t be a deal breaker, but the Toyota didn’t fit the needs of the commercial buyer).
Later, however, this was to cause me problems. In 2006, I tried to register the truck (with my home built camper on the back) in FL. No dice. It fell into their ‘motor home’ category and under FL law a motor home could only be titled with the ‘manufacturer’s’ name. There was no brand name on my truck (The Normmobile?) so the only way they could title it was as a ‘kit car’. This involved grinding off the old serial number and stamping a new one in its place. The title would read “2006 (whatever)”. They were genuinely angry with me when I would not agree to this!
Just another cautionary tale in the slow encroachment of CorporateGovernment into the ability of ordinary people to create their own ‘products’.
Just try to build your own house in FL (and in most other states as well) and see how far you get today. The hoops you have to jump through make it prohibitive.
Yet if there is one policy change that would go furthest to help equal out today’s dramatic inequality (half of all households can no longer afford to buy a home) it would be to enable people to build their own. A commonplace in years past, even a point of pride. But doable today in only two or three enlightened jurisdictions.
(Note to Paul: Find some nice chrome script from a reputable motor home manufacturer to apply to your new camper before you set foot in the DMV).
And good luck!
This kind of stupid crap really grinds my gears. It’s not better than the way we did it before!
They hold you in the showroom office so your blood sugar drops and you drop your defenses.
I told my dealer straight up, “you’re going to screw me anyway, I don’t play this game every day like you do, I can’t compete, so hand me the damn paperwork, I’ll be on my way.”
I was out in an hour. It’s almost like they paid ME to leave.
I find these attractive and think the pushbutton shifting is way cool. I really like the color on yours. A lot.
Ironically, the easiest car buying experience I ever had was on the one car I picked that was so in demand that it had to be ordered and didn’t show up for six months (07 Honda Fit). The salesman didn’t try to sell us anything else, didn’t try to upsell us on extra accessories or services and didn’t play games. He said he couldn’t come down from sticker and I understood – in fact I was happy that the dealership was not adding to sticker because of scarcity. When the car finally came in we were there for about 40 minutes and it was done.
I’ve asked this before but don’t recall seeing an answer: EmmKayZee or MarkZ?
“Micks” (or “Mickz”, if we’re being formal about it).
I like this. Looks good in the cool colour, I suspect not a very common colour, classy looking interior with some neat touches and styles, and something a bit away from the mainstream. Loks agood choice, and sounds liek a good ownership experience.
I’m always intrigued by these stories of going to a dealer and coming home in anew car in a few hours. The quickest I’ve ever managed is a week, and that was a used car. Have lunch, go shopping, choose a car and take a photo of it in the restaurant car park on the way home. Just doesn’t happen here.
The great thing about the MKZ is that CPO off-lease examples can be had in the low 20’s. I might consider a 2017 MKZ in due time because I prefer the center stack and its actual buttons. However it’s kind of a pain to get in/out of these cars, plus the rear seat is somewhat tight and the trunk space is also a compromise.