jdbob

Don't try to use anything with a motor. In fact, it says so right in users manual: "The power point is not designed for electric devices such as: • Cathode ray tube type televisions • Motor loads, such as vacuum cleaners, electric saws and other electric power tools, compressor-driven refrigerators, etc. • Measuring devices, which process precise data, such as medical equipment, measuring equipment, etc. • Other appliances requiring an extremely stable power supply: microcomputer-controlled electric blankets, touch sensor lamps, etc."

Note that traction tires also meet the legal requirement in Oregon. A couple of the common traction tires would be the Michelin X-Ice and the Bridgestone Blizzacks.

That would actually be useful, you could tell if a tire is getting a little low due to a slow leak before it gets down to 25%. Ford didn't take TPMS seriously enough to use one of the LCD screens to display the information, that's why I didn't bother with it on my snow tires.

You have a 300V charger?

I ended up using a "vent" mount unit that clips onto one of the vanes in the vent just to the right of the steering wheel.

http://www.ford.com/cars/cmax/trim/hybridse/ Select the "Power and Handling" tab. At the bottom is the tire size. It's the same for the Energi.

I just noticed that on Ford's website specs for the 2013 C-Max (all models) they list the tire size as P215/55R17. On my 2013 Energi (built in March) the factory tire size is P225/50R17, which is 1.8% smaller circumference and a bit wider. I wonder if that is the new size for the 2014 and not a change for later 2013 models. Any idea what they hope to gain?

As an analogy, think of a garden hose with a spray handle. Let's pretend that if you hold the spray handle all the way open for 1 second that it will dispense 0.1 gallon. What happens if you do that 100 times? It's just 100 * 0.1 = 10 gallons. A fuel injector is a small, electrically operated valve that passes gasoline instead of water. How long it is open can be precisely controlled by the PCM (Powertrain Computer). At some point someone figured out how the amount of fuel dispensed varies with how long the valve is opened. The PCM just adds up all those very small amounts of gas each time a fuel injector is opened and converts that fuel usage into gallons or liters. Of course if the fuel pressure varies, so will the calculation, hopefully the PCM compensates for that.

From the OBD manual: "Fuel consumed" is continuously calculated based on PCM fuel pulsewidth summation as a percent of fuel tank capacity. I don't see any sign of a flow meter in any of the discussions so it looks like they calculate it based on how long the injectors are on. Probably not the most accurate way to do it.

This is one of those cases where we've always based on whether there is a car coming by engine noise, so it should always be that way. I think the better strategy is for cars to have proximity sensors and not to move towards an obstacle. That way it works for every obstacle, not just blind people. Or, maybe we can bring back sleigh bells.

They, in their own glacial way, are working on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sounds

MFT is the same as SYNC but with a 8" touchscreen. It's basically the same Microsoft software.

http://insideevs.com/number-of-fire-related-deaths-per-year-caused-by-evs/

I made a second trip last night and the TPMS warning light was still on and the message dialog came up as well. However, today when I went out all of that was gone (YEAH!), so must be a timeout or something. I suspect it will stay off until if and when I leave town again.

I left town for the first time since installing the snow tires, which triggered the alert that TPMS wasn't working. It did not prevent me from turning off the traction control. However, each time the car is started it will come up with a warning message on the left dashboard screen, you have to hit the OK button to get rid of it. And of course the idiot light flashes for a minute or so and then stays on solid, but that can be "fixed" with some black tape. It doesn't set a diagnostic trouble code, so can't get rid of the warning using the scangauge.

You don't need to have an AT&T account. The area where you car is located needs AT&T 2G Data cell service, which Monterey has.

I really like this one on my car.

ceemax71 is right. The app is only for Energi, and only if you have AT&T cell service where you live.

If you parked your car close enough to the ocean it might :)

That was my main reason. I have about a 1/4 mile dirt driveway so there is no point in washing the car, it will just be dirty again the first time it's used.

I've read that Ford will be selling the 2014 Energi in Europe. Not the Hybrid though, probably too similar to the diesel model they already have.

I don't have the diagrams printed out (and my workshop manual subscription has expired) for the actual lamp connections, but I do have the wire colors that come from the BCM (Body Control Module), which may or may not stay the same on their way to the back of the car. Those are: Backup: Green-Brown Parking: Violet-Green Turn: Grey-Orange Stop: Violet-Brown Ground: Black-White

Just about every computer is connected via CAN bus to every other. The TPMS sensors are handled by the BCM, which will send messages to the IPC (Instrument Panel Cluster) if there is a fault. If Ford wanted to, it could easily have the ABS computer get those same messages and force traction control to stay on (which the Toyota apparently does). According to the TPMS system operation document the TPMS "not there" fault will not occur until the car has been driven for 20 minutes over 20 MPH.

Pulled off the road a couple miles from home and was able to disable the traction control. Again, since the car hadn't complained about the lack of TPMS I don't actually know what would happen on a longer trip.

I had some spare time today so I put my new snow tires on (no TPMS). I'll try to remember to see if the option to turn off traction control is available when I come back home from downtown. However, it's been reported that the car doesn't complain about no TPMS unless you have driven quite a distance (somebody said 45 miles), so my test might not prove much.