StoBro2

If the EPA confirms Ford's numbers, will they go after the EPA instead? I'm guessing no.

Give the C-Max's camel-like ability to travel great distances without taking a drink, I nominate: SPort Utility Dromedary, or SPUD for short. If I take my time, maybe I can come up with an acronym that spells out TATER.

I wonder if it gets confused if you're only driving past your house to go somewhere else? *OK, getting close now. I'll switch to EV+ mode. No, wait! You didn't stop! NO FAIR!!*

It is my understanding that it allows the battery to be drained a little bit more than normal in anticipation of being shut off soon. It discourages the ICE from firing up with only a block or two to go. Of course, it's all about squeezing just a little bit more mileage per gallon.

I see this thread hasn't generated much interest, but I'll go ahead and post a follow-up: I took the car to the dealer. The service people gave it a look and said there is no quick mechanical adjustment they could do, so they sent me to their body shop. The guy at the body shop studied it for a while and said their best approach would be to adjust the positioning of the front fenders. Only the passenger side is actually rubbing, but the driver's side is thisclose. So I'm dropping it at the body shop tomorrow morning and it should be ready by tomorrow evening. They will attempt to get the fenders in their proper locations and they will also have to touch up the paint on the front edge of the door where it was scratched by rubbing against the fender. I looked at another C-Max the dealer had on their lot and compared to it (door, fender and rocker panel trim alignment was perfectly flush), my car definitely has misaligned fenders. This, plus the eyeglass holder missing half of its hinge mechanism and the dash pad misalignment where it meet the central infotainment pod leads me to believe my car was built on a Monday or Friday. The multitude of MyFord Touch and Sync issues are too common to blame on a day of the week.

Maybe Ford guesses that if you're applying the brakes, your eyes should be on the road and not on a dashboard display? I know that sounds harsh, but there are so many visual distractions already and after some time you eventually get the feel for how much brake pedal pressure will get you in the 90%+ range. What I'd like to see is the brake coach display when you slow down *almost* to a stop and then start accelerating again. A lot of my fringe suburban driving has almost-stop-and-go conditions.

The front seats in my cloth-upholstered SE are comfortable enough for me. The rear seats are another story. Plenty of space, very little cushioning. Fortunately, I haul cargo or my dog more often than I have human passengers in the back seat.

I've had my C-Max SE Hybrid for almost two months now. Over the weekend I had a full load of passengers for the first time. Upon returning home from my trip and unloading some of my junk out of the passenger seat, I heard a rubbing sound whenever I swung the passenger door open or closed. Closer inspection revealed that the front edge of the door is rubbing against the back edge of the right front fender near the bottom. The paint appears to have a scrape where the two panels meet that I'm sure wasn't there when I clay barred the car many weeks ago. Of course I find this on Christmas Eve, so I won't be able to take it to the dealer for a couple of days. I see in another thread where someone had a stuck driver's door. Is it possible that the door panel or the fender have shifted? Bolts not tightened properly? I will have plenty of questions to ask when I get to the dealer.

Don't pretty much all newer cars come with an anti-siphoning valve down near the bottom of the filler neck? I doubt anyone could get a tube into the tank of the C-Max to siphon the fuel. A locking gas cap would prevent someone from adding fuel or some contaminant to the tank, if your concerned about that.

That's a good tip about the bottom screws on the rear plate bracket. My plates are about 10 years old and have been transferred from one vehicle to another, so the plates are pretty scratched up around the bottom holes from the previous screws. I'll have to pop in some screw grommets where the rubber plugs currently reside so I can cover up the nastiness on the plate with some nice shiny new stainless steel fasteners.

OK, after all of the reports of heated seat backs and bottoms, I did an experiment (SCIENCE!). I ran the passenger side heater for a few minutes on 3, the felt it with my hand. Seat back heat is confirmed. Curious as to why I didn't detect it on the driver's side, I switched on the driver's heater while driving without a jacket on. Again, seat back heat is confirmed. Theory: With a jacket on, the seat back heat was so slow to reach me and the bottom heat was so intense that I shut if off before it could reach any sort of equilibrium. I'll just have to endure the burning pants torture a little while longer if I want to enjoy any warmth on my back. First world problems...

My clock at 7:45 this morning was displaying the time I shut it off last night, 9:00 PM. I drove around with it all day to see if it would skip around again, but it didn't. I reset it this evening and I noticed that at least the calendar is still correct. This is the 5th time it's skipped time. Sometimes it gets stuck on the time displayed at shut down, other times it's a completely random new time. I've had it for about 6 weeks and I have about 2200 miles on it.

The seat heaters in my cloth-upholstered SE are way too hot. At first I thought maybe they were wired backward so setting 1 was hottest and 5 was coolest, but no. Even on 1 after about 30 seconds I have to shut it off. And I agree that it seems odd that only the bottom cushions are heated. The last 4 cars I've had with heated seats all had heaters in the seatbacks as well.

With the recent run of above normal temperatures we've experienced here in Chicago the last few days, I've noticed a significant improvement in my fuel economy. 70 degrees in December? I'm getting computer mileage numbers that are almost 10MPG higher than what I was getting early last week when the temps were in the 30s. Same commute, same driver, the only difference is I told Sync "Climate Off" last Thursday and I haven't had to tell it "Climate On" since.

I guess I'm not too concerned about whether my C-Max will ever match the EPA test results. I just try to compare the C-Max to some of the other vehicles I've owned. I've logged my MPG for many years: 2002 PT Cruiser= 24MPG, 0-60 around 8.5 seconds. 2009 BMW 328i x-drive wagon= 23MPG, 0-60 around 7 seconds 2010 VW Jetta TDI Sportwagen= 38MPG, 0-60 around 9 seconds 2013 Ford C-Max SE Hybrid= 38MPG (so far), 0-60 around 8.5 seconds All of the cars are about the same size in terms of passenger and cargo volume (The C-Max beats them all in passenger volume, loses to the Jetta TDI in cargo.) I think after I have a full year of fuel-ups logged, the C-Max should beat the Jetta TDI by a few MPG and all of the gassers by a wide margin.

I think Ford made the bottom cushions in the back seat extra thin to allow them to articulate along with the seat backs when they are folded. So there's only an inch or two of padding between you and the hard bottom pan of the seat. There's plenty of space in the back seat to fit full-size adults, but they probably won't be too comfortable on long trips.

Welcome aboard! I see you are getting about the same MPG as I was with my 2010 Jetta TDI Sportwagen. My best tank was 47.1 MPG, my worst was 35.1 and my lifetime average was 38.5 overall. I'm one of the "no leather for me" people. If the weather here stayed between 30 and 85 degrees I'd probably be OK with leather, but when the temp routinely hits -10 in the winter and +100 in the summer it loses much of its appeal. The same goes for artificial leather. For me the only real drawback to cloth is that dog hair sticks to it like Velcro.

What about breaking this down into catagories? Like MyFordTouch vs. Non-MyFordTouch? Or "Bad enough that I had to take it to the dealer to fix." vs. "Merely annoying."? I voted yes because I had the dealer replace the sunglass holder. The one Ford installed in the car was only attached on one side. I also voted yes because the audio and the HVAC systems will randomly come on when I start the car and it sometimes takes 2 or 3 stabs at the off buttons to get them to shut off.

Another 390 CCA battery here, also no starting problems to report. According to FordParts.com, the 12V battery for the C-Max Hybrid is a BXT-67R, which is also used in the Fusion Hybrid and maybe some other applications. It's rated CCA is 390. Could the owner's manual have a typo?

Excellent color choice! Although it might get a little toasty in that warm California sun...

When I was researching what car to buy a couple of months ago, I test drove a Focus ST. When I gave it the once over to see if the cargo area would work for me, I discovered a couple of things. First, Ford decided that the ST trim level needed to have a full size spare, which required a raised cargo floor, cutting into usable cargo space. Second, the panel that covers the spare felt like it was cardboard wrapped in mouse fur. Very flimsy. Third, I could not find a single D-ring tie down point anywhere in the cargo area, just shallow plastic hook-shaped details molded into the side panels. The cargo area in the C-Max is light-years ahead of the Focus ST. I have a set of black plastic rectangular tubs that I use for keeping grocery bags from spilling their cargo. They are 3 different sizes and they can nest together to create bins of different sizes and shapes. They have carpet-grabbing little teeth molded into the bottom corners to keep the tubs from moving around. I got them here: http://www.containerstore.com/shop/travel/autoTravel?productId=10024142&N=259

It was always my understanding that hybrids were meant to address the most inefficient type of driving- constant accelerating and decelerating with frequent complete stops and a lot of time idling without moving. Out on the open road where none of that happens, a simpler more direct powertrain should be more efficient. I'm not sure that having the car constantly switch back and forth between charging the battery and then discharging it by operating the electric motor in tandem with the ICE nets any sort of overall mileage improvement in sustained highway driving. On the highway a hybrid carries around a lot of extra weight in the battery pack and the electrical equipment that a conventional car wouldn't have. In addition to the weight penalty, a tall hatchback like the C-Max has a large frontal area and I would imagine a rather high coefficient of drag. I don't know how or even if the EPA tests factor in aerodynamic drag in their tests. Since the vast majority of my driving is on suburban streets and clogged highways, a hybrid makes sense for my type of driving. If I had a long daily commute on expressways where traffic flows faster than 50 mph or so, or I take 400 mile trips on a regular basis, I would drive a diesel.

I just finished a 400 mile round trip that consisted almost entirely of interstate and rural 2-lane highways. I kept to within 5 mph of the posted speed limit (55 or 65 mph) for the entire trip. Despite my best efforts at keeping the demand for power as low as possible, my calculated mileage after filling the tank and running the numbers is 33.9 MPG. No large hills, in fact the terrain is as flat as a billiard table and the roads are as straight as a chalk line. No rain or snow. It was warm on the way out so the heat wasn't on. It was cold on the way back, so I did have the heat on for that half of the trip. Why the poor fuel economy? It might have something to do with the sustained 35 MPH headwinds that I encountered on the entire trip. First they were coming out of the south, then a cold front passed overnight and they were blasting out of the north the next day. Never underestimate the power of the wind.

I used the Mother's clay bar kit last weekend and the paint on my Tuxedo Black SE is as smooth as glass. First I washed the car with Dawn dishwashing liquid to strip off the quickie spray wax that the dealer applied. A reminder: You should never use dishwashing liquid like Dawn to do routine car washing. After the clay bar treatment I followed it up with some Mother's Carnauba Cleaner Wax. With winter weather almost here, this wax job will have to last until March or April. I've used Xymol in the past with good results. I switched to the Mother's products because the Xymol wax residue can be stubborn and difficult to remove. On the other hand, Xymol smells like bananas!

There are small downward-pointing triangular depressions molded into the plastic rocker panels that I have to assume are meant to be jacking point locators. They correspond with the openings in the underbody shield. The triangles are visible if you get on your hands and knees and have good lighting.