The Edge of the Road Podcast
All about the Gadget on Wheels formerly known as your car.
 

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EOR 2: The Lazy-C Motor Lodge

On my way home from Big Mike Naughton Ford yesterday (April 26, 2011), I stopped for a few minutes on East Colfax Avenue in Denver to adjust my recorder and lapel microphone, the better to record some impressions of the 2012 Ford Focus on its maiden trip.  Shortly after resuming the drive back to LoDo, I noticed flashing lights on a Denver Police cruiser, pulling me over.  Oops.  What could this mean?

As I listen now to the recording, I wonder if the officer wasn't looking for a pretext to find out more about the Kona Blue 2012 Ford Focus. It turned out that he knew enough about the car to know it was unusual to see one on the streets already. That led to a friendly conversation, once he determined that my lingering in front of the Lazy-C Motor Lodge had been more innocent than it may have seemed.

Photo courtesy of Google Maps street view.

Direct download: EOR_2_Lazy-C_Motor_Lodge_final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:19am EDT

EOR 1 Meet the Focus

Mickey Naughton (in photo), sales consultant at Big Mike Naughton Ford in Aurora, Colorado, walks me through an overview of the MyFord Touch system on our new 2012 Focus. Darlene and I picked up the car at Naughton yesterday, April 26th, and so far it's a big hit.  As we sat in the car at the Naughton garage, Mickey showed me how to pair my iPhone with the car's computer system, and we tried out a phone call with Darlene, who had driven back to the apartment in the rental car.  One thing I'm very disappointed with is the fact that the iPhone does not work with the Text-to-Speech system for listening to incoming TXT messages.  I'll be looking into that problem in a future episode of the podcast. 

The Focus drives like a dream and actually feels very much like our Volvo S-60, which is a bigger car, so it's surprising the Focus would feel as substantial. 

I want to thank Dan Floyd, Mickey and all the crew at Naughton Ford for making our purchase of this car a pleasure.

The journey begins!

Direct download: EOR_1_Meet_the_Focus_final.mp3
Category:Interviews -- posted at: 7:14pm EDT

The 2012 Ford Focus that we ordered from Big Mike Naughton Ford arrived in Denver by train from the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan, on April 22, 2012. Thanks to the hospitality of Union Pacific management and crew, I was able to see our car roll down the ramp from the rail car, and then I had another surprise. 

We're scheduled to pick up the car tomorrow, April 26th, and I plan to record the orientation session about the MyFord Touch system for this week's Wednesday show.  Stay tuned!

Direct download: LenEdgerly-Our2012FordFocusTakesTheTrainToDenver836.m4v
Category:general -- posted at: 12:24am EDT

EOR Probe G: Drivers of the Future

Today, April 20, 2011, I interviewed three future drivers - Jack, Jamesie, and James - in the back seat of the Ford Flex that we are renting this week.  I asked each of them to tell me what they hope a car will be able to do when they are old enough to drive.  For Jack, that will be four years from now. For Jamesie, it will be seven years, and for James, eleven years.  So their views of future driving technology are worth listening to.

As for our 2012 Ford Focus, it is on the train and due to arrive sometime next week.

Direct download: EOR_Probe_G_Boys_of_the_Future_final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:52pm EDT

EOR Probe F: The Waiting Game

Our 2012 Ford Focus is not here yet.  But I did manage to make contact with the manager of the Union Pacific railyard where it will arrive by train to the outskirts of Denver from Michigan. Once I get the train car number from the shipper, I will call the yard manager. He will know when the train car will arrive, and he will escort me into the yard so I can maybe get close enough for some video of The Delivery.  The problem is that the car has not even been put on a train yet, and once it does get loaded in a train car it will take 7 to 10 days to get to Denver.  I'm not worried. I was warned that the scheduling of the assembly of the car was not a precise thing, and it stands to reason that the transportation has its complexity, too.

That said, I was slightly unnerved to across this very negative review of the MyFord Touch system in the Focus, written by Jason Cammisa on April 7. His blog post included the graphic of a "Performing Scheduled System Maintenance" screen that he said appeared as the system crashed.  Even more troubling was this comment posted to the blog by a guy named Matt: "I went in to a dealership looking for a Focus last week and the salesman said they were having 'problems' with MyFord Touch and were not shipping any cars with it right now..."  I have my doubts about this rumor, but I'll be checking it out in the coming week. 

Direct download: EOR_Probe_F_Waiting_Game_Final.mp3
Category:Probe -- posted at: 11:52pm EDT

EOR Probe E: Waiting for Doug

I sent the following tweet early this morning: "@ - Psst. How'd you like to lose @ & do your own interview today for my podcast? Follo & DM me." 

Alas, I didn't hear back from the would-be famous orange puppet and Ford Focus mascot in time to post this episode of the podcast, but he probably keeps a full schedule and I may hear from him or his partner, @FocusJohn, sometime in the coming week. Meanwhile, you can sample some of his promotional, funny work at the FocusDoug YouTube Channel.

We thought our 2012 Ford Focus might arrive at Mike Naughton Ford this week, but I heard via the train shipping agent that it's not showing up in his computer system as even being on a train yet, so that means we're at least seven days from seeing it in Denver. I'm doing my best to get access to the train yard, so I can shoot video of the car's arrival in Commerce City.  There will have to be some help from Union Pacific Railroad to get me close enough to even see the car, the shipping guy, named Jeremy, told me.  Naughton's sales manager, Dan Floyd, has been helpful in tracking down contacts for my preparation for The Arrival of the Car.

Stay tuned!

 

Direct download: EOR_Probe_E_FocusDoug_final.mp3
Category:Probe -- posted at: 8:55pm EDT