Testdriver

And there you go. 47 seems easily doable considering those test speeds.

I recently did a long trip (about 2000 miles) on my brand new C-Max. My experience was similar to yours. I kept it about 3 or 4 over the speed limit most of the time and ended up averaging 41 mpg. There were a couple of long stretches that I pushed it up to about 79 mph, and in those stretches it looked like it was getting in the low 30s. I got about 42 mph if I kept it to 66, maybe that will go up to 45 when I have 10,000 miles on the car, but the 47 mpg highway rating seems totally unachievable, unless you average around 55 mph, which is maybe what the EPA testing really does. At least you can take the C-Max up to 80 mph without having to wear earplugs...

The front defrost kicks butt. I finally needed to use it today in a rain storm, and my foggy windows disappeared in literally less than 5 seconds after turning on the defrost. Especially nice since the front defrost was HORRIBLE on my last car (Olds Intrigue).

The C-Max is really a convergence of things that will lead to a bad JD Power score -- lots of tech, 1st year model, model exclusive features in the 1st yr (rear footgate thing). Since I had an April build date, it had quite a few of the TSBs installed prior to delivery, so initial quality should already be improving. With that said, a voice recognition system that relies on exact commands is really poorly designed, especially for 2013. Sync needs to go to a model like Siri or Google Now's voice recognition system where it can successfully guess what you're looking for the majority of the time. Microsoft does have the capabilities to pull this off (Bing has a VR system), so hopefully a complete re-vamp of Sync's capabilities will happen sooner rather than later.

I said I'm somewhere in between. I hypermile somewhat around town, but I will accelerate "normally" to the speed limit (or 5 above), especially if there is a car behind me at a stop light. I definitely try not to come to a stop at a stop light if possible. That might agitate some other drivers, but it shouldn't. It might even be a more efficient way of driving timewise. On the freeway, I've been driving slower than I did before, but I'm still typically above 70 mph, which takes me out of the hypermiler category, and I don't draft. I'm not sure if I'm a safer driver or not. I probably average 72 instead of 80 on the freeway, however, I do find myself checking out the gauges a lot more than I did with my Intrigue. I've never caused an accident, so I guess it's hard to say that I'm any safer.

My wife told me today that she just realized that stopping for yellow lights is costing her mpgs,so maybe there's hope for her yet :)

Obviously, those kinds of issues are pretty rare and can be avoided by using a little common sense -- like don't park a Camry in a UAW Local parking lot or GM assembly plant.

Unfortunately not. My wife refuses to turn the AC off in hot weather and she drives it half the time. If I can get 500 miles in 11.5 gallons, I'll be pretty happy. I think my best tank is 480 miles, but we've done a lot more freeway driving than we usually do, so we've been in the low to mid 400s most tanks and a 41 or 42 mpg average (most of my fill-ups are only 10-11 gallons).

I find it even more amazing going to California where you'll get ridiculed for driving an American car (or at least you'd use to) vs Michigan where if you park a foreign vehicle in the wrong parking lot, especially the downriver area (southern Detroit suburbs), it's liable to get keyed, smashed in and flipped over. Even in Ann Arbor, I'm pretty sure foreign vehicles are easily in the minority. I'll always remember from my first trip to the Bay Area (in around 1999), visiting my brother's office parking lot and seeing about 70% of the spaces filled with VW Passat's. I have nothing against the Passat, but it was not such an amazing vehicle that you'd think everyone should have one. Strange. I suppose maybe the Prius has replaced the Passat in that sort of herd buying in areas of Cali.

I can get 50+ MPG around town if I try, however, it's easy to see how people are getting sub-40 MPG if they don't try or drive in less than ideal conditions. Running the AC in trips of less than 5 miles, cold weather, and driving above 72 MPH are all sure-fire ways to get less than 40 MPG. Most commuters are on the highway 15+ miles, and if they drive 75+ MPH, they're almost certain to have a lifetime MPG significantly below 40. I'm only getting about 42 mpg even if I keep it to 67 (w/eco cruise) on the freeway.

I saw, maybe, 2 C-Maxs on my trip to SC and back to Michigan. I saw one in Hilton Head and I think I saw another on the highway. I saw very few Prius' on the highway as well -- more on HH. I guess rural Ohio, Appalachia, and the SC lowlands are not the hottest market for hybrids. Who knew? :drop: Seems obvious, but it's interesting to see coming from Ann Arbor, which is infested with Prius', and has small but noticeable C-Max population.

Where did you get yours, out of curiosity? Briarwood? I got mine at Varsity.

Yes! I always have my iPod Touch plugged into the USB port, and I cannot remember the exact buggy behavior, but this sounds similar to it. Also, if you're listening to your USB with all your music shuffled, it will sometimes only play a shuffled album when you turn the car off then back on. My car came with 3.5.1 installed, and I experience a lot of little "nuisance" bugs like that with MFT. Nothing major like a complete reboot, but a lot of little bugs like that.

A full C-Max tank weighs about 80 pounds. The owner's manual says you lose 1mpg per 400 pounds of weight, so you'll lose maybe 0.2 mpg due to a full tank...which might be outweighed by any efficiencies gained due to a fuller tank (don't know if there are any).

If temps are below 65 or 70, it seems like the ICE will run at least for a minute or 2 after I start moving. If the battery is nearly full, it seems like it will kick over to EV mode regardless of whether the ICE is warmed up yet or not. Honestly, I haven't driven it enough to have a great feel for when the ICE will be heated up, but that's the behavior I've seen with my car so far. Keep in mind too that it's (probably) not the current outside temperature that dictates whether the ICE gets heated up, but the temperature of the ICE. When it was 60 degrees at 9am when I drove my car, it was probably 10 degrees cooler than that earlier in the morning, so the ICE may have been 50 degrees at that time.

So you didn't spring for the Iron Dome option? Pity. ;)

Considering Sync, MFT and mileage complaints are included in the JD Powers survey, 2.2 issues per vehicle doesn't seem that bad. I bought the car knowing full well that MFT was flaky and it wouldn't get 40 MPG in the winter, so those are not big deals to me. It would be interesting if they attempted to weigh the issues. Like a dead battery issue would be a 10, and minor Sync/MFT complaints would be a 1. Mileage somewhere in between, then see how it compares to other vehicles.

Earlier this week, my 1-year old feel asleep in the C-Max, so I took it for a cruise around town. I was able to get 57 MPG over 11 miles, cruising around town -- never breaking 45 mph, easing into stoplights and slowly accelerating with the AC off. I did this in a couple loops, so there was no elevation gain or loss, and I only have 3000 miles on the car. On the flipside, that morning we went out to breakfast and it was 60 degrees out. The engine immediately turns on to heat itself up, the car ride is only about 1.2 miles, mostly downhill, and we ended up getting 17 MPG. I could easily see if someone took a lot of short trips that they would only average in the mid-30s MPG, regardless of how good of a hyper-miler they are. BTW, we just got back from a 2000 mile trip to South Carolina and back, and averaged 41 MPG on the nose. Most of the time I tried to keep it to 69 or 70 on the freeway, but there were a couple 100+ mile stretches where we were in a hurry and I was going 75+. It seemed to average about 42.5 MPG at 69 MPH, all the way down to around 32 MPG at 78 MPH. Almost all of that was with the AC on, and about half of it was through very hilly terrain. I was pleased with that performance, but a side of me was hoping it could manage 45 MPG at 69 ;)

Please report back on their findings :salute:

Their bedroom window is right next to our driveway where we leave the car, which is why they've heard the noises and we have not.

It actually doesn't work in any temperature. Possibly due to a lack of a bluetooth chip in my cell phone ;)

I have a Motorola W233. Sync doesn't work with my phone in hot temps either :hysterical:

I think the AC noise is normal. It's the same with the Prius, apparently: http://priuschat.com/threads/air-conditioning-noise.64630/

My next door neighbor claims that my C-Max has been making noises at night. On 2 separate nights they've claimed that they've heard a loud alarm-like noise coming from the car, though not loud enough to be an actual car alarm. Both nights they heard it on multiple occasions, and they thought the noise started almost exactly an hour apart. Their bedroom window is right next to our driveway where we leave the car, which is why they've heard the noises and we have not. We have the base SE model (200a) with MFT and the winter package, so we do not have any proximity sensors or anything like that (I think). I've contacted my dealer and they could not find a similar issue reported in their database. . Anyone have any idea what could be causing this or experienced similar issues?

I've had a couple 100+ mpg trips on my 2.5 mile drive into my office. The net elevation drop is only 100 ft, so it's not a frequent occurrence, but it is possible.