Waldo

What you see in online videos is usually the fascia getting ripped off, The fascia is not the bumper. The tow hooks thread into the steel bumper which is rigidly attached to the frame. It's generally designed for 2.5 times the weight of the vehicle and should be more than sufficient to pull the vehicle out of a stuck situation.

Not true, the hooks that thread through the bumper are specifically designed for vehicle recovery. But as noted, the North American recovery industry has found other ways to get vehicles out when they are stuck.

US (and Canadian) spec cars aren't required to have tow hooks. The ones sold in other markets do.

The amount of battery juice they consumer relative to all the other stuff going on in the car is pretty minimal. Not really worth worrying about.

Have you had the alignment check? Could be excessive toe-out in the rear.

Does it not give you the option to set it to less than 100% when you reset it? This video indicates that is an option at least on some Fords: https://owner.ford.com/support/how-tos/interior/dashboard/how-to-reset-engine-oil-life-with-lcd-screen.html#

I missed the transition in the thread from hood to doors. My 2014 Fusion will start with the door open, but will not start with the hood open.

Not in North America.

Yep, that's all it does, it just adjusts the DTE calculation to better predict when you will need to fill up.

Straight from the source: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021/03/18/ford-global-semiconductor-update.html

Traction control has 0 effect on your fuel mileage. As noted, something else changed. Traction control is regulated by the government, so even if Ford had you design a car, it would still have to have a button that turns off traction control every time you start it, just like every other car for sale in the US right now. I really don't understand why you would want to shut it off every time, the only reason to shut it off is if you're stuck in snow or sand or if you just want to make some noise spinning your tires.

You are 100% missing my point. Do those factory staggered setups run the same wheel sizes (width) front and rear? Did your Grand National and Z06 run the same wheel sizes front and rear? When an OEM designs a staggered setup, then compensate in the tuning for the difference in tire properties. They also select wheel sizes that are suited to the tires. My concern is where you say you are going to stick a 295/40 on a 9in wheel. A 295/40 should be on a 10.5in wheel (10in minimum) if you want it to perform the way it was designed. On a 9in wheel it is not going to perform the way it should, which means you're going to have the steering issues I'm talking about. There is a reason tire manufacturers publish minimum rim sizes for each tire. I'm not talking about the overall diameter difference and the AWD system. From that point of view you should be fine, the system is designed to operate on tires within a 2% tolerance.

Of course it can hurt the steering. Steering is all about the compliance and stiffness of the tire. If you cantilever the sidewall out to a wider tread on the same narrow wheel, it will not have the same stiffness. So you'll end up with faster response from the front tires than the rear, which will make the car feel disconnected and out of phase. This isn't something that you have to be on a race track to feel, this is something you might notice just driving down the highway doing lane changes or gradual curves. It might not even be something you consciously notice, but it will make the vehicle more tiresome to drive as you're constantly correcting the steering.

What exactly would be the point of doing this? Seems to me like you're going to make it steer badly and look silly. One person using a setup for a few thousand miles does not mean there are 0 potential issues.

It's virtually impossible to intentionally activate the system, it's configured to actually prevent a crash, not just to make you feel good that it's there. Anything you could try to make it work would be so close to an actual crash that it would be irresponsible. It will not recognize a big cardboard box as a box doesn't have a radar signature that the system will consider worth avoiding. When they test the system they use special "bubble cars" that have some sort of technology that simulates the radar signature of a real car. The system is calibrated to weigh the risks of activating vs the risk of not activating. So it will try to avoid pedestrians and deer, but not small animals that would not pose any risk of injury to the vehicle occupants. Only time I've ever experienced it in the real world was driving a borrowed Mercedes. I looked away for a second and the car in my lane slowed down to make a turn. It beeped and started braking just as I looked back and had started to move my foot over to the pedal. Wasn't particularly abrupt and I probably would have been able to hit the brakes in time on my own, but was good to have.