bemyax

I put the Bridgestone Driveguard tires on last summer. Two to three miles per gallon hit right off the bat. Check out my Fuelly graph. I'm running fifty PSI on them after an initial try at forty-five. The ride at fifty seems better. I was running the OEM Michelins at fifty as well. The Driveguards don't seem to quite as responsive in cornering in town, but on the highway there is some improvement. At fifty pounds, the Michelins danced more in heavy crosswind situations. Also, we have some stretches of highway in Iowa that are grooved in such a way that a lightweight car with trailing link suspension experiences severe "wiggle" with overinflated tires. With the original tires, I would have to find a different route to avoid mass hysteria in the vehicle occupants. The two different tires seem to do about the same in snow and on ice. I can't make a general recommendation based on my own experience. The safety/convenience factor was more important than miles per gallon to me. I call these my "heavy tires" and have become accustomed to a thumpier ride on the city streets. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone experiencing skeletal, or other, pain where a jarring ride would be prohibitive. I have my original tires in the garage. Maybe someday I'll go nuts and put them back on. That would give me a true comparison.

Finally found some E15 to try at a Murphy in Mason City, Iowa. I imagined the mileage would get slammed, based on the general commentary we see everywhere. Check my fuelly graph to see almost no apparent effect with this tank. The continuing variation from around 50 to around 48 looks to have come from the Driveguard tires along with more air conditioning and more highway. The crunch shown with the May 25 fill was a combination of EcoCruise at the speed limit, E0 regular, A/C, and the heavy tires at only 45psi. (Now running at 50psi with better comfort and handling.) Around Waterloo, Iowa, I have available: E0 premium at select locations, E0 regular (blended at the terminal from E0 low-grade and E0 premium), E10 premium, and E10 regular (E0 low-grade with ethanol). E15 fuel can be found at a high-priced locally-owned station and a farmers' cooperative where I'm not a member. Some day I'd like to run consecutive tanks in a variety of conditions.

Had 15E03 done at the 30,000 service. The technician said it's a "rollup" reprogramming and updates all modules to be current.

61, west of the Mississippi.

Plus 3 Golfer, Thanks for the tip. With the various custom PIDs I've entered, all worked with nothing other than the formula. Of course, I still had to remember my tire rotation sequence. Haha. Me, remember. Good getting-started tips in the thread to help others get on board. David

I entered the PIDs into Torque Pro. Oil Life produced a result, but tire pressures showed "no data".

The first place I went last year was my local Ford parts department. When they said over $200US, I politely said goodbye. My internet searches yielded prices just over a hundred dollars. In my mind I couldn't confirm those blanks were compatible replacements. We have some really good locksmiths nearby, so I assumed one of them could cut it, but I never got that far.

I, too, would appreciate any current information on the topic. In the past, I've always made a third key for self-programming purposes. Researching a year ago didn't reveal a solution that was within my budget, so I just gave up.

Yes, I can produce the error, fairly reliably, I think. All I have to do is leave my OBD reader active by keeping the Torque application open. If I start the car and try to drive away, the car computer crashes, my heart jumps up into my throat, and I get the warning to pull over safely. You would have to pay me to do it on purpose, however. Let us know if you can find any error codes generated. When it happened, I didn't look for them before a normal restart. Maybe you have a cracked control module. (You know, from doing jumps in Maxus. :wink: )

I would have to go out to the car to try this because I might not correctly remember. When we start the vehicle with the engineering test (ET) display, one of screens is an illumination test of the panel icons. This will demonstrate where all of the informational lights are located. Correct me if I am wrong, please.

I kind of felt that way, too. I never go anywhere without the jump starter, even though I've not yet experienced the battery problem. Twice in my many years, my life literally depended on my car starting. Of course, there was also the time when my son was born immediately after we got into the hospital.

I have a feeling that whether, or not, the A/C automatically activates is determined by the cabin temperature sensor. I don't know where it is located, but it must be distant from the front seating area because it takes a while to cool after the A/C is running. I'm tempted to think that the sensor is influenced by heating from the sun since it's usually warmer than the outside sensor. I, too, would like to know the logical sequence for whether, or not, the A/C automatically activates. However, lazy me will probably continue simply to press the Auto button to get the HVAC going.

Marc, Having run Torque long enough to see a relationship between the car's displays and current/state of charge/rpm I get a good value from what the CMax is presenting us. I've gone out a couple of times using only the simplified car display which now gives me a pretty fair grip on what is occurring. But I do miss glancing over at Torque to see the details. So I almost always get it running after the vehicle completes its start cycle. The car's displays do not tell me when the charge rate is low, although seeing the instant mpg going up while still charging implies this. This is a good place to discontinue efforts to keep the engine running and let the computer make decisions for itself. A double chevron for high current flow would get my vote. David

My 22 July 2013 SE does not have Lifetime Summary available, either. Thanks for the info on this.

Um, yeah, I guess we're way off topic here but: I saw that formula on Fuelly, as well. And I had no idea how to use it. So I scratched my head and came up with this: AVG*(100/27)+(100-(100/27)*48) which is the percent highway miles. Now I will go back through my records for average miles per hour for each gas receipt, then enter that into Fuelly starting with the most recent until I tire of the exercise. have fun, he said David

I discovered that my P0456 very small leak code did go away upon the fourth cold start after fiddling with the filler. This was the second time it happened at about a half tank. The first time I couldn't make myself wait and reset it with an engine diagnostic program. [insert cute "fingers crossed" emoticon here. ]

My dealer technician says they don't carry 0W20, yet, only the stock 5W20 blend. If you want to go that route, check ahead; you may need to bring your own motor oil. Whether you install exactly four quarts, or compensate for the filter, is another subject. If you can, get your fingers in the used oil that drains out. On my first change it looked, felt, and smelled almost like new. This also may be your opportunity to experiment with other fuels. I've been a little hesitant about using premium around here (Iowa) because not that much gets pumped. Even E0 regular is a little like that because the great majority goes for the cheapest per gallon, which is E10 regular.

Z axis? I can't imagine getting slammed in the Z axis. Surely the X or Y would blow the airbags first anyway. :headspin:

One of the hybrid guys at my dealer followed these instructions in February to disable the feature. Total due: $27.22. It was my way of figuring out which of the two vendors to work with. The "hybrid specialist" at the other place didn't know and didn't care. (It's the punch line from an old joke. "What's the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.")

Before I retired I worked for a major equipment manufacturer. An old saying there was, "it's not like this thing is going to be flying overhead at 20,000 feet." But in practice the general attitude was to produce a most infallible product. My last few years was at an engineering facility where I could see the practice in design and technical publications. All you have to do is leaf through our CMax owner's manual to see this is not the case at Ford. When mentioned to customer relations that items there had no bearing on the CMax, they seemed to be caught off guard. Obviously, many in the Ford information chain get treated with disregard. Worst of all, the ones who are customer facing. Ford folks lurking here, please help keep us up to date. To keep this post relevant to the original topic, just think "slippery Ford management". ;)

Well, that was fun. The power blinked while I was posting the first time. I still have the center grill covered and running tires at 48 psi. The computer says 12.12 gallons; the pump reads 12.883 gallons actual. (This is common, not related to temperatures, or vendor.) Fuelly definitely reveals the effect of warmer weather. Now I need to make CMax more slippery!

I've seen a couple out here in Iowa. A white one just today, going the other way. When I pulled up beside the black one at a light last week, we rolled down our windows and the lady enthusiastically shouted, "I love my car!" One thing that makes me scratch my head: The other drivers seem to be quite old, compared to me. I'm 60. That puts them right up there with folks who drive the wrong way on a one-way street. Can you describe the demographic of your observations? David

I've been running the OBDLink MX Bluetooth adapter. The app is Torque Pro running on a Nexus 7(2013) tablet. The video was shot with a Samsung Nexus smartphone mounted in a Scosche power outlet type from WalMart. I learned the hard way - always quit the Torque Pro app before turning off the car. I got in a hurry a couple of nights ago, forgot, and upon restarting CMax, the electronic control unit (ECU) crashed. Ouch. I think the ECU can't boot while the adapter is doing rapid polling. I suspect an Apple application is more of a rare bird. It has something to do with communications needing to work in a way that iOs won't approve. The video load and presentation was actually the path of least resistance. The way all of the Google functions are hooked together, posting stuff like this is something one needs to resist, rather than work at. In order to remove variables, I picked a long, level stretch of highway nearby using Eco Cruise. The only variables I introduced were how I loaded our machine (speeds) so we could see each combination of charge/discharge factors. The one I missed was where we know grade assist works. I don't have a long steady grade to work with.

Okay, bear with me. I've never uploaded a video, or shared a link to it. In these different charging situations, I couldn't see a difference. https://plus.google.com/103508686568546342692/posts/4twuk7vL5N9 I realize the units are probably off because of an error in the formula; this is simply to look for a change in current flow.

After I started using the OBDLink device I discovered the CMax has accelerometers built into it like a smart phone, or tablet computer. It's how they know to reorient your display when you tip the device. I've tried tapping the Grade Assist on when coasting up to a red light hoping for just a little extra regeneration without touching the deceleration pedal. Nothing, however. Works great in a nearby town with many steep hills. My hunch is that when we activate the circuitry, any extra regen or motor braking must clear two hurdles. 1) Tilt. If the car isn't far enough out of level, nothing happens. 2) Acceleration. If the car isn't picking up speed, nothing happens. Now that I think about it, I should be able to see it by watching the HV amps while coasting down and tapping the button on and off. Will try it on today's drive.