bemyax

I just passed 10,000 without a message. Did you finally get one? I'm tempted to take it in anyway, against general guidance. However, I'd like to be assured that it actually works.

Yeppir. Mine is rolling again, too. However, I'm running CM 11, so I have to patiently wait to grant Sync permissions to access messages and other stuff. That's okay. So often we grant apps and devices carte blanche to get a functionality we want. With enhanced security we'll have to start making harder choices about what's really important.

I was able to observe this phenomenon on my drive home yesterday. In the Engage display. Someone with additional instrumentation would need to report what high-voltage battery current flows are occurring. I have a sneaking suspicion we are seeing something like a toggle between plus zero and minus zero. This is contradicted by the fact that the up chevron remains. I will use the following term despite my limited ability to comprehend it: Negative power split mode. I suspect we are seeing constant charging with a toggle to hybrid drive while charging continues. The quantity of drive assist is so small that it doesn't register on the blue EV bar.

Rebecca, I tried deleting all of the bluetooth connections shown. Or I thought I had. I kept getting the message pop up that messaging was not supported on this phone. Finally, I deleted the phone from the dialer screen and deleted Sync from the Nexus, then reconnected. Then the error message no longer appeared. This was just as I was getting out of the CMax the last time, so will see how it works on the next ride. Iowa's DOT tweets road blockages/closures which I can receive via SMS. I resist fiddling with devices while driving, so this is a safe way to get timely information on the road. David

Text messages quit working with my Galaxy Nexus. It seems like it was about a week, or so, ago. It had worked from day one. Will the try the deleting/unpairing routine to see if it comes back. I carry three other bluetooth devices plus a headset, so I thought I had somehow hosed the different connections on my own. Sometimes it helps to completely wash the blackboard and start over. (I just dated myself, didn't I.)

Got the Global Open disabled today with the technician following these instructions. He said he had done a couple of Fusions, but not a CMax and that the procedure is different on them. He remarked that when venturing into the menu system, the vehicle configuration showed the option as not installed. He had to back out a step then go back in before the disable option became available. Thank you to Ray at Bill Colwell Ford. Maybe I can use this as my servicing dealer without all of the grief I had in the past. Maybe. David

Okay, Dick Witham in Waterloo should have sent me to the Ames, Iowa, Ford service department for an alternator that was only two weeks old when it failed. Bill Colwell in Hudson put up all new buildings this last year. Before that, you could sit in the customer waiting area and watch them work on your car. Twice, they "forgot" to rotate the tires, even though that was part of the scheduled service. I will say this for them, at least when there was a Blue Ribbon categorization, all the folks except for the service manager were helpful. One of the mechanics even took the time to explain some of the engineering problems the early Focus had experienced. Mine was part of the new build that I had ordered in 1999 with at least four recalls. Don't get me started. Once you find a worm in your salad, you jus never go back to that restaurant.

I realize this is a really old thread. I'm having a similar dilemma choosing a service department. I'm up to 8300 miles, so I know the initial work is imminent. The problem I face is two-fold. Both nearby Ford dealers have committed serious service fouls with my cars. When I relate the problems I've had with the one who sold CMax, I realize I am sounding like a cranky old person. Or someone who keeps returning to an abusive relationship. A couple examples: One time they charged me $50 for replacing the cabin air filter. My Focus did not have a cabin air filter. For the whole life of the car, I supplied my own full-synthetic motor oil. One time I checked before I left, my oil was still in the trunk, and the oil and filter had not been changed. The list goes on, and there are a couple of serious ones, as well. They were still putting the little sticker on my window asking me to change my oil every 3,000 miles! The last experience I had with the closest dealer was when they left me stranded overnight in another town with a faulty alternator they installed. Customer Relations said they should have sent me directly to the Ford service department in that town instead of having me drive home on the battery the next day. The second factor is inexperience. I've made Sunday visits to dealerships in my surrounding area to look for CMax for sale. If they have one, it's in the back of a long row of Fusions. Or like my local "Ford" dealer where his front row is all Kias. Since I don't want to be a guinea pig for a service department, and I really don't want to get crapped on again, I would be willing to drive a couple hundred miles to get the right things done in the right way.

timber725, I took the little fella out to about 35 miles per hour on a wide road that hadn't been plowed. Going right down the middle I started pulling the wheel hard left, right. Just about the time I could feel the ass rear end starting to come around, the "opposite corner", the one leading my direction of travel, momentarily applied the brakes to prevent spinning out. I've been on traction-free surfaces where this might not help. Neither do I know a safe place to do high-speed testing. (Not wanting to test ditch-driving capabilty!)

Got the package last week. They got my name wrong. The package origin was made virtually untraceable, obfuscated by being linked to a marketing company.

On my recent drive in Iowa, the car thermometer was showing from -6F to -10F most of the time. The Fuelly average for that drive was 32 mpg. (Trying to attach an image.) The temps obviously cast a pall on our fuel efficiency efforts. Towards the end of the drive, the winds were letting up. It was then I could high mile and pop into EV on the down hills. When you're driving into a thirty mile per hour headwind at sixty, it's really like driving ninety miles per hour! (Even the cross winds are a killer.) [Edit] If you are in Iowa you can generate a custom wind rose here: http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/sites/dyn_windrose.phtml?station=CID&network=IA_ASOS

Okay, thanks hybridbear. That explains why the one bar limit returned while shopping. So if I'm stingy with the cabin heat, I'm also keeping the HVB cold. We're beginning 64 to 83 hours of subzero temps, similar to the Twin Cities. - sent from balmy Northern Iowa

Bob @BobJustBob, That sounds like a definite improvement in materials. The larger size hasn't moved around in the car wash or the highway maybe because they are a tight squeeze. Since Matt @Recompence covered his top grill, I'll try that, too. While taking a long (100 mile) highway drive yesterday, the gauge went to center, and stayed put. But the air temperature was right around freezing. I'll repeat that drive when we go subzero again, to see if I can observe the thermostat opening and closing. Before the cover, when I would run into the convenience store for coffee in sub-zero, it was just like starting all over. :facepalm: I think our original topic was miles per gallon related to operating temperature. Since I've been tinkering with using E10, pushing up the tire pressure, and working harder at manipulating the CVT into lower ratios there's no way I can even get a seat-of-the-pants sense of how my MPGs are affected by this. Will have to leave that to the scientists. David

Because you folks have monitored temperatures with varying configurations and climates, I figure watching the user gauge will be sufficient. My only concern in hot weather is if we are corrupting some kind of highly tweaked airflow dynamics under the hood. I can't provide a link; my recollection from my 2000 Focus was that we could create unintended hot spots in the engine.

The 3/4" diameter was the only size at my store. I had to try to jam the two tube sides into the same in-between grill slot with my frozen fingers. A garage would have been nice. For three dollars (US) it couldn't hurt to try. The seven-day forecast for northeast Iowa doesn't show us getting slammed with frigid temps soon, maybe just a little below zero a couple of times. It's really a band aid type solution, so if they get blown off in the car wash, I'll just replace them. (Add: I hit the highway a 65mph and I couldn't see where they moved around, but a longer trip would produce better evidence of them working loose.)

I'll have to see if this stays on in the car wash. It's the snap-around pipe wrap you can get for a couple dollars at Wal-Mart. Since it was still dark and -18F when I did this, a nicer day might yield better looking results. I had to clip angled notches for the vertically oriented members. It might not show in the pic, but the lower grill openings are full of snow and it's way too cold to lie on the ground. From everything I've read here, tiny changes can make statistically significant changes in the vehicle performance. So I'm thinking these "covers" will also alter the aerodynamic shape along with the better temperature curve I'm after. No data collection expertise or capabilities here. I'm going to crudely follow your lead. David

Looked out the window this morning and all the windows were down. If it was a user error, I must have done it last night because there was frost on the interior surfaces. (parked outside :sad face:) For all you old folks in Calfornia, remember when you had the Western White House? Some people could tell you when Air Force One was in town by the freaky garage door activity. Jus sayin'.

Gosh, my little red cmax has only one ball compared to that setup.

Surprised it was available. Now a guy won't have to break his neck wondering if that is the other C-MAX in town. :)

I don't know any of the specifics of this product such as allowable power load. Or how well it shows the cost of operation. http://www.belkin.com/us/F7C029-Belkin/p/P-F7C029/ This is the new WeMo Insight switch. I use an older model WeMo switch on my Bunn coffee maker to automatically turn off the tank overnight. If you are stuck with a power company that has different time-of-use rates, you could choose to charge only during low-rate periods.

Your person-miles per gallon should be astounding. May the wind be at your back.

I've been wondering how the stability and traction control works since this is my first vehicle with the feature. Overnight we had a little freezing rain followed by just under an inch of snow. A neighboring church had a large blacktop parking lot ready for me this morning. There I made a couple of tight circles at about 20 MPH. Not up against the steering stops, and just a steady speed. The stability indicator light was blinking, but I couldn't get a sense of which corner was braking. I did experience a small amount of plow, or oversteer, but did not sense that I had lost guidance control. I wanted to get out of there in case someone called the cops, otherwise I would have tried a backwards doughnut to test understeer. I did do some firm braking and acceleration on the city streets and was impressed by the lack of yaw. I could break the front end loose in acceleration. But this was at low speeds and not trying to duplicate a panic-type situation. Snow tires: don't ask me. I haven't owned any snow tires since my '63 Ford Falcon! (Loved that car. A Deluxe, it had the optional seat belts.)

fuelly.com is a handy place for archiving and sharing your fuel use records.

@Recumpence Over here in northeastern Iowa a couple hundred miles closer to the North Pole than you. For anyone unfamiliar with Midwestern geography: in the Winter, the North Pole is in the Dakotas somewhere. There is a barbed wire fence across northern Nebraska that holds back the frigid weather. I've had some concern about overall operational reliability when it gets really cold. Minus 20F is not out of the question in the Hawkeye state, so I'm wondering if you have been through any of those cold mornings when the tires were hard. Also, there are a couple of batteries in this wagon. Did either of them show distress during a cold snap?I have other questions along this line not necessarily longevity related. And might be more suited to the http://fordcmaxhybridforum.com/forum/38-northern-plains/ section. David