valkraider

Just scream "Free Beer". It works better...

I have always found that people in my car/motorcycle forums know more than the dealerships AND we treat each-other better too! Also, many of us have stunning good looks, but I am not sure how that is relevant. ;)

I am not sure a panic alarm would do much. When was the last time anyone ever paid much attention to a car alarm?

Volt did not exactly have problems after a crash. At least not which would be relevant to an owner. The organization which was crash testing did not use the proper procedures and left the car in a dangerous state which caught on fire several days later. GM (and all auto manufacturers who make hybrids) publish the safety information about what must be done to a car after damage occurs to the battery. If you are worried, after a crash that damages your battery - don't take the car home and make sure that the recovery company who tows away the car follows Fords procedures... Seriously, people here probably have 100 lithium ion batteries in their house... These are not new things.

Tesla has had them in their cars since 2008. We also have had them in computers, phones, iPods, tools, and other things for a decade or more... There is a right way and a wrong way to bud things. Boeing's batteries appear to be the wrong way. There is a ton of info about this. Ford took a better approach, details linked to various times.

Only turn by turn directions.

Our Camaro had a similar thing as a heads-up display. It was so awesome, I miss it. It just floated in front of you. It was incredibly customizable and could show NAV, radio, and performance details. The VW, the Chrysler, and our Truck do not have anything comparable to the customizable dash.

I don't use it much because its too slow. I parallel park many times a day, and the park assist is really slow - almost impossible to use on a busy street because while it is trying to find the spot someone will pull up right behind you and then you can't back up. I found with the reverse camera it is incredibly easy to parallel park very quickly - especially with the turn lines - I never scratch my wheels on the curbs anymore. You want tough to parallel park try a Camaro convertible. The hood is really really long and you can't see over it, the front fascia is really low and would be destroyed by a curb, the rear is really tall and hard to see over and the convertible top has MASSIVE blind spots. My truck is really hard too. It has a camper on it, it's 23 feet long, has no turning radius, and I can only use the side mirrors. I love parallel parking the C-Max. :) An aftermarket reverse camera is on the list for the truck. :)

Mostly, they all have the same stuff. They all have GPS/NAV, video, external sources like USB or Aux-in, back up cameras, hands free phone, Bluetooth streaming audio, voice commands, customizable wall papers, Sirius or XM, iPod controls, DVD, CD changers, etc etc... Usually the same features just done slightly differently. The MFT is the first one we have with HDRadio but the others offer them now too - just not when we bought them. One big difference is climate controls, MFT is the first one which has the climate controls integrated - my other vehicles have separate climate controls.

No one expects the MFT inquisition!

I forgot to mention, 2900 miles on the car with 2100 of them being EV, so there is maybe 800miles on the gasoline motor.

Took a trip to the coast today. 46.9mpg 52 degrees. About 10 miles on interstate, then the rest split half & half with driving through towns and driving on rural mountainous roads at 55mph using Eco-Cruise. (for those interested or familiar: downtown Portland to Lincoln City via I5/Tualatin Sherwood/99W/18) I have an Energi, I had already used up most of my electric range running errands but when we hit the highway I set it to "EV Later" and reset my trip meter. This trip is entirely in the normal hybrid operation for its whole length. EPA numbers for the Energi for this trip (which fits the "combined" profile almost perfectly) are estimated 43mpg.

Everything mechanically seems to get better as the car breaks in and loosens up. Also - most cars made since the mid 2000s have computers which "learn", so as the engine and transmission learn your driving style and things like altitude, humidity, etc etc etc... Just keeps getting better....

I am in IT, so I am able to deal with these problems. I am capable of finding and using hacky workarounds like the reboot stick... My whole frustration is that I shouldn't have to! It's 2013 now. These things are not new. In fact this is like the third or fourth update that Ford has made for MFT. This is an expensive add on, and while the C-Max is no Tesla model S, the C-Max certainly is not an entry level vehicle either. A fully loaded top of the line $37,000 vehicle should not have a console that is frustrating and unreliable. I have owned the GM, VW, and Chrysler equivalents and my closest friend has the Honda equivalent. They are leaps and bounds better than Sync/MyFordTouch. I don't want it to be this way. I want Ford to clean this crap up. I want Microsoft to be more successful (we need healthy competition to spur innovation) but it just seems that Ford and Microsoft are a bungling comedy of errors here...

Yeah I know. But they should show the track info in the lower left when on the home screen, and in the extreme lower left when in navigation, climate, or phone screens. They show the track info for USB devices. Just not Sirius. We don't want to have to switch to the entertainment screen to see the track info. And I know the track info shows up on the left gauge when it's set to entertainment. But the passengers can't see that screen... Why would they do it right on USB devices but not on Sirius? I know - because it's Microsoft.

No, UConnect started out as just the Bluetooth. When chrysler started the stuff - the entertainment was called MyGig, started around 2004 maybe.... Similar to how Ford has Sync and MyFordTouch. About a year after I got the Chrysler one of the updates merged UConnect and MyGig and called the whole thing UConnect. It was the system which did everything such as running two DVD players on three screens. It had a 10GB hard drive (later models got bigger drives). It had USB ports that I could connect external devices to. It had Aux in. It had navigation. It had Sirius radio. It had a back up camera. It was very stable and always worked. It's main processor was much much less powerful than the one in MFT. It had less memory too. MyGig/UConnect was based on the QNX operating system. It was made by a company called Harmon Becker and they would actually respond to emails and listen to suggestions. Although I believe eventually Chrysler took control in-house, but I stopped following that all in 2011 when we traded the van on a Camaro. :)

I have tried that. Mine just spins and spins, and the message actually gets stuck on the screen. It was that "trying to connect to a previously paired phone" message that was stuck up while I went to the dealer and it validated my concern (I always hate the "could not duplicate problem" BS at dealers).

Here is what happens to us: Problems 1. Our presets fairly often just disappear. Less than half the time they will come back on their own (as mentioned - when scrolling around or something). Most of the time I have to reboot to get them back. 2. The system somehow loses Bluetooth connections to phones. Maybe loses is the wrong word. Lets say "ignores". MFT will say it is connected, but the phone has no connection shown. Because MFT thinks it is connected, there is nothing you can do. Disconnecting via the menu doesn't do anything, it just keeps thinking its connected. MFT won't delete the phone. Since it won't delete the phone there is no way to try and re-pair it. Deleting MFT from the phone settings or rebooting the phone does no good, MFT is confused about it. Meanwhile all our other Bluetooth systems pair and work with the phones just fine. Usually a MFT reboot will fix the problem but a couple times it would stay stuck which takes a Master Reset to clear it out - but that's a major pain because I lose my 64 preset radio channels and all my other settings. 3. The clock is set to adjust according to GPS. Occasionally the clock on the dash will get out if sync with the clock on the touch-screen (we are talking hours out if sync). It requires a complete power-cycle of the car to fix itself. 4. The system will seize up occasionally, most often (but not always) somehow in conjunction with the reverse camera. 5. In the Sound Settings under "Occupancy Mode" I can select "Driver" or "All Seats". The "Rear" option is there - it is not grated out or inactive. Yet it doesn't let me select it. 6. Music files on a USB drive cause problems with MFT if there are too many in one folder. MFT will lock up trying to index them. I have to have my files well managed. None of my other vehicles have any problem. My 2008 Chrysler with UConnect will take a 32GB drive with one folder containing 20k songs. No problem. That same drive will crash MFT every time unless I split it up into a bunch of folders. 7. If I leave my USB drive plugged in maybe once a week it will lose it, with an error "device could not be detected." But I can browse the device and eventually select and play songs. user interface complaints 1. Why does the current track info from Sirius not display in the entertainment section of the home screen? The phone info shows, the current road and compass info shows, and the climate control info shows. Sirius just shows us the channel name. I know it's possible because when you play items from USB it puts the current track info right there in the home screen, so it's just the design of the Sirius part which sucks. 2. Why doesn't current track info show in the bottom left when we are using other functions (like NAV). It should show current track info instead of "Entertainment". Again all the other parts update with live info - just the track info gets ignored. Yet this is what I probably most want to see. 3. Why is there a "Master Reset" option in the settings menu but not a "Reboot" option? Reset is a destructive action - and that's apparently OK but god forbid there be a reset button. Ideally it should actually be a hardware button procedure so that the system can be rebooted even when the user interface is locked up. For example they could make it where if you press and hold the Power and Eject buttons simultaneously for 5 seconds it reboots the system. 4. What is the point of the "Sound" button being a hardware button? Do people really adjust their EQ that often? 5. When I browse to a song on my USB drive and play it, there is no way to browse to the other songs in the album without completely starting over. That's all I can think of right now. I know more annoy us...

If you have MyFordTouch look in the clock settings and scroll all the way down. If its not there then maybe it's in the settings on the left dash?

Energi, SEL 2700 miles 8 weeks. No problems other than stupid MFT issues. I use stuff plugged in to inverter, USB, and 12v outlets frequently. (I actually have a device plugged in to USB and another in 12V right now as I type this)

Eco-cruise has nothing to do with the 62mph. Eco-cruise works at any speed. The 62mph is the limitation of the electric motor in the Hybrid model C-Max (The Energi model can go up to 80 on the electric motor due to changes in gearing and computer programs). Eco-cruise is simply a setting which makes the cruise control try and optimize for fuel efficiency. It doesn't change a lot that is directly noticeable to the driver. It may, for example, not try to aggressively maintain an exact speed in Eco-cruise such that when you go up and down hills it would let the car slow a little more and not accelerate as hard to keep the set speed. It may be more prone to try and regen when in Eco-cruise. Etc etc... What you will find, however, is that over 62mph you do not have your all electric motor available and as such the ICE cannot shut off. This is one small reason why the EPA highway tests which are only 11 miles long and average 48mph and don't go over 60mph are not accurate representations of real world. Even the "high speed" EPA test averages around 48 and only goes over 60 a couple times for really short spikes. Since Ford set the electric motor to be able to run up to 62mph it really is optimized for city driving and not true highway driving.

AC is much less of a drain on the electric system than the electric heat. Of course AC reduces efficiency but it won't be nearly as much as all of us northern folks are seeing with heater use in the winter...

It really seems like the battery issues plague the SE.

I think my throttle is loose, it keeps twisting too far. ;)