ptjones

I should have some covers ready after New Years. It would be nice to know how many people are interested in one.

The grill openings aren't that sensitive size wise so it is easier to rip off cover and put one on with cut out in a minute. Covers can be stored on back of backseat with the Velcro strips. BTW I'm going to be driving back to Pheonix sunday and back to Georgia friday. Anyone interested in seeing the covers along the way I could stop and meet. I will be going I20-I10.

I talked to him a couple of days ago and he was very friendly and informative too. I'm going to send him some info on grill covers.

Has anyone looked at my 2 photos of grill covers in my gallery aera and what do you think?

Just added photos to my gallery. Tried to attach to this post with no luck - anyone else having problems with this site????

I put my IPhone with charging cable between brake handle and console.

You would think oil pan heater pad would shorten the time for the ICE to get up to temperature and save MPG's. So I installed a KAT's heater pad #24150, 150Watt pad 4"x5". Has anyone looked at the underside of the CMAX? Very aerodynamic plastic job, they obviously spent some serious time designing it. You have to undo 5 screws to lower engine cover to get to oil pan. The oil pan has a 3"x6" flat spot which turned out to be a problem with the pad,it is an inch to wide. This caused the pad to cook the adhesive ,but it still works. I saw a 30 degree rise in WT temp on Scanguage vs outside temp. Two things I learned was Wolverine makes a Model 9 125Watt pad 3" in diameter which would work much better. Second the engine uses the oil pan to cool the ICE and I saw my temps up 10 degrees with it on there. This is counter productive when using Grill Covers. It is possible that 3" Pad would have less of an effect than 4x5 inch pad. It looks like there is a fair amount of cooling going on around the bottom of ICE. Keep learning new things all the time.

Well the testing results are in and at 70mph I see a net gain of 3mpg at range of temps from 45-70 degrees F. This also seems to carry down to 40mph or so. The covers are not air tight(80-90%) and are easy to install. I used Velcro squares to attach Covers to Grill, it makes it easy to install and remove. The Covers are made of strong Polycarboneate Plastic that won't shatter and can take fair amount of abuse. They are hardly noticeable unless you look hard.The plan is to remove bottom Cover when temps get into the 70's degrees hwy driving. Remove middle Cover and put New Cover with cut out for radiator opening when in 80's hwy driving. IMPORTANT NOTE: radiator fan comes on when Water Temps reach 215 degrees F and thermosat opens around 195 degrees F. If there were enough orders for the Covers I could see a price around $50, maybe lower if in the volume was in the hundreds. I'm looking for someone to try out the Covers to see if they get the same results. Will have a picture shortly.

Well the testing results are in and at 70mph I see a net gain of 3mpg at range of temps from 45-70 degrees F. This also seems to carry down to 40mph or so. The covers are not air tight(80-90%) and are easy to install. I used Velcro squares to attach Covers to Grill, it makes it easy to install and remove. The Covers are made of strong Polycarboneate Plastic that won't shatter and can take fair amount of abuse. They are hardly noticeable unless you look hard.The plan is to remove bottom Cover when temps get into the 70's degrees hwy driving. Remove middle Cover and put New Cover with cut out for radiator opening when in 80's hwy driving. IMPORTANT NOTE: radiator fan comes on when Water Temps reach 215 degrees F and thermosat opens around 195 degrees F. If there were enough orders for the Covers I could see a price around $50, maybe lower if in the volume was in the hundreds. I'm looking for someone to try out the Covers to see if they get the same results. Will have a picture shortly.

Lithium batteries require a special battery charger which goes through 4 stages of charging. A cheaper Idea would be to use Ford's charging system and just supply the right voltage AC or DC. I'm working on a solution for that. I will let you know if I find anything out.

Me too.

Well WT is the problem with MPG! This morning I went on the fwy for 6mi at 70mph at 41 degrees OT and WT 175 degrees with both grills blocked. Not close to 200 degrees needed for best MPG. So much for the louvers working very well. Oil pan heater is the next step. I have submitted some ideas for solving these problems to FMC and we will see where that goes. I filled out my C-MAX questionaire form and the Servace Mgr checked my battery voltage to see what it was. He FAXed it to Ford. We will see where that goes. With the info I have come up with it looks like you could block both grills up to 65-70 degrees without over heating at 70mph. Maybe 90 degrees City driving Amazing!

Thanks for info. I'm using Lexan plastic primarily for the aerodynamics. Let's get together when you get your Energi.

I just looked and they haven't changed yet on fuelly. Won't change things much two are below and one way up.

Had a brake thru today. This noon City driving the WT only got to 150 degrees. So I covered the bottom grill with Packing tape , it is impossible to get a tight fit some air is still going to get thru. Temps went to 195 degrees close to the thermostat opening temp. This does prove that the shutters still let a significant amount of air in the radiator. Now we need to figure out the correlation between engine temp and MPG for City and Hwy driving. That will take some doing.

I had my car in for service for a seat belt problem and apparently everyone looked at my center grill cover. It didn't look like it was a Ford appoved part. I explained how it works, so they're looking for any info in the Ford world on the subject. He called me when he got the form.

You can fill it out and either Fax in yourself or give it to the Service Manager.

My dealer's service manager handed me the attached survey and I thought it would be of interest to all forum members. Apparently all Ford dealerships service managers have received this form to evaluate hybrid owner's fuel mileage concerns. Note this is for NEW Hybrid C-Max and Fusion. New Ford Hybrid Survey 12.12.2012.doc

Temperature is the problem as each drop of 10 degrees loses 1.5-2mpg. I installed a ScanGuage and the problems are very obvious. The ICE never heats up. I could only get it up to 150 degrees in city driving. Temps here are 40-45 degrees. I have a standard driving test loop on the Fwy of 14.2mi on ECO cruise. The ICE made it to 195 degrees at mid turnaround and in EV mode reached 206 degrees. When ICE came on it went down to 195 degrees. The center grill cover was on and I am going to add the bottom grill cover to see if it makes a difference. Next step will be adding an oil pan heater.

The notch in the cover is lined up with the hole in the center grill so as not to impede cooling at any temperature.

You could make one for $10 in material, a few fillups would do it, although in your case it might take awhile. :)

First there are three inlets on a CMAX. Top one lets air in engine compartment and air intake for ICE. Center and bottom ones go to radiator. Closing the center one improves aerodynamics and helps to warmup ICE sooner and wasting less gas. Radiator has an electric fan for when it gets hot. When it gets in the 80's it would be a good idea to have a notch in the cover for the hole in grill. Your MPG's go up with outside temps. Don't forget to get on Fuelly.com

I would recommend it with 302a for most value, I didn't want moon roof or auto park. Silver reflects as well as white and is cheaper. The light stone has to be cooler and thats what I have. The CMAX was made for stop and go driving, I would expect MPG in the 50's. My last tank was 47.3MPG mostly Hwy but it does matter how you drive, aggresive or defensive. You will like the power and being able to go 62mph on the battery. I got mine on XPlan and paid about 29k total. Good Luck.

I'm getting frustrated trying to make something happen with my idea. So here it is. It has four parts 1. FORD should have supplied DVD to show how to setup the instrumentation and driving techniques required to get the EPA gas mileage. This would have mitigated some customer issues and raised the overall fuel mileage by a couple of MPG's anyway at least on Fuelly.com. 2. Ford should sell an oil pan heater so at least when you start in the morning the engine is half way warmed up. It's 45 degress today at lunch time I drove 10mi. with 3 stops and the coolant never got above 145 degress. That included having my front center grill cover on. Then I made my standard run down the fwy at 62mph on ECO cruise and back to see how high it would go and how long it would take. It took 6.5mi to get to 195 degress at my turn around point. It was EV mode for turn around, temps climbed 206 degress, but as soon as ICE was on it droped to 195-200 degress. It looks like the thermosat opens around 195 degress. The results for that trip are 45degress outside temp.,14.2mi, 12mi Hwy. at 62mph ECO cruise., 5.7EV, .6 Regen, 42.1MPG, .3 gal.,BRK S 98%. 3. FORD should sell a small Lithium battery charger so you could charge your car up at home or work. This could double your City MPG's and help your Hwy if you weren't going to far. You do have 2mi range in EV. 4. My testing has shown that my center grill cover improves MPG at least 2MPG, I got 4-5MPG at 70mph. Maybe future CMAX's could have a smooth grill with decal of grill on it. :) The First three would easily get the CityMPG over 47MPG. #4 would probably make 47MPG at 65mph and 70 degress, maybe 45mpg at 70mph and 80 degress. BTW th ScanGuage is really great. You can watch the MPG's go up in ICE as the battery charges going up hill! It started at 25mpg and ended up at 29mpg before going to EV. I probably should have started new thead.

I already talked to them and they said ENERGI is an option not a separate car line. Fuelly is up to 40.6mpg and by the end of the month 47mpg. I have my ScanGuage installed so I can monitor water temp.,air intake temp, instantaneous mpg and RPM's. This will help fine tune my ideas. Stay tuned for further updates. :)