mlaurence

My C-Max SEL is now 11 days old, and I've broken it in on one of my few annual road trips, along with the city driving that will make up much more of this car's mileage. My trip to work couldn't be more stop-and-go, with over 30 traffic lights on my 7 mile commute. I've made 6 of these trips so far. This weekend's trip was totally different, about 900 miles of interstate driving through the rolling hills of New England and Pennsylvania. Pretty much none of this driving was done after the 1000 mile break-in period, but if it only gets better from here, I'm feeling very good about the new C-Max, my first hybrid car. Driving was fun and easy. I'm so impressed by the way it handles, the acceleration when I need it, and the comfort of the AC, heated seats (yes, I used them both), bluetooth audio, rain-sensitive wipers, and most of all the gas mileage. I used the ECO cruise control about 75% of the time, and tried hard to keep the speed between 60 and 65. I managed to cruise on EV about 20% of the time. Going up hills or pulling out to pass the (few) people driving slower than me, I noticed EV assisting the ICE quite often. It's a challenge to grow efficiency leaves. Boosting the MPGs definitely overtook the impulse to drive 80 in the fast lane, which I admit I'm pretty used to doing. It was a little painful to live in the slow lane, but I do have to say it was less stressful when I had a clear road in front of me for most of the trip. Near the end i upped the cruise control to around 69 and it did cost me about 0.2 mpg before long, but I was actually pretty impressed by how well the mileage held up at higher speeds. I'm looking forward to the hybrid re-programming to see if I can get better MPGs at higher speeds when the EV can still kick in while you're driving 75. It was interesting to look at the fuel efficiency coach, which gave me yellow bars on cruising whenever I used cruise control. On my own, I got much better graph results, although it didn't actually produce dramatically higher mileage. There is a lot more to learn. But I'm totally scratching my head over the "experts" who find it so completely impossible to get more than 37 MPG out of this car. I don't think I could have gotten mileage that low if I tried. Let's see if I got all this attachment stuff to work right!

Wow, I have never in my life gotten the EPA mileage estimate from any car I owned. I'm on my first tank, but I'm 2 mpg over the new EPA estimate already, and it can only get better. And now I will get $550 back. That'll buy about 6,900 miles worth of free gas!

I bought my new C-Max last Thursday, which means tomorrow is its 1 week birthday. So far I've driven 135 miles, mostly stop-and start in the city, and I'm very impressed with the car. It's an SEL with just about the same features as the BMW I traded in! There are some things I'll miss about the Beemer, but I will not miss $100 oil changes or 12 MPG (premium) in the city. I read a lot about the C-Max before buying, and all the auto magazines - even Consumer Reports - led me to believe I'd be happy to get 37 mpg. But in this first week, my first week ever driving a hybrid, I'm just under 45 mpg which is a big surprise. I would have used up half a tank in the BMW and I'm just a little under F in the fuel gauge. But I've also found it has decent power to get up to speed on the interstates and to keep up with traffic if necessary. The other big surprise has been the MyFord Touch. The reviews almost scared me away from this feature, but I have found it easy to use so far. Voice commands are a little tricky but on the 2nd or 3rd try I'll get through with a command I'll remember next time. Pairing the phone was easy and I listen to Bluetooth audio from Pandora or the phone's library all the time. This weekend I have an 800 mile trip coming up and I'm looking forward to getting to know the C-Max a lot better in that time. I know it'll be different driving on a long interstate trip and I hope I can stay close to that 45 mpg mark. I'm also looking forward to getting to know this community better. You've been a great help in learning how to drive the C-Max so far, for sure.