plus 3 golfer

I find several comments quite amusing. :)

Not until the threads showing screen shots of high mileage trips stop. We know one can get high mileage and how it's done - another dead horse. ;)

I'd get it replaced rather than have a glass repair guy epoxy the two holes and live with the cracks because there's a possibility that water could penetrate the cracks and cause interior damage that you may not notice for some time. Also if you go with the glass repair guy and not replacement, when you go to sell / trade the car the value will be impaired with the cracks and at that time because you failed to report the damage in a timely fashion to your insurance provider, you will likely be stuck with the full cost of repair for a hit in the value of the car greater than the repair cost.

Thanks for the link above salsaguy. I found some info I had been looking for but not everything yet. What I'm trying to find are how the adjustments to the EPA cycle FE numbers were determined that ultimately determine the EPA sticker numbers (not the equations). Second, I'm trying to find out how the adjustments are validated - simulation, real world testing or what. I don't believe it's good enough to calculate two numbers and then say "your mileage will vary". I also don't believe one size can fit all for FE. IIRC, the tests were originally designed to measure emissions for emissions compliance of new vehicles and FE was a by product. This works fine for emissions but IMO not for FE. The consumer is generally not interested in their exact emissions - it's either PASS or FAIL. We know that vehicles can be modified like removing certain emission systems and still pass the state emissions testing. But, IMO the consumer wants a better estimate of their real world FE. I believe given the existing tests and simulations that fuel consumption data can be gathered and then used to determine estimated FE under varying driving conditions (including ambient temperature, speeds for various miles driven, acceleration rates, starts stops and so forth). It would be easy then to allow the consumer to input their driving parameters into a simulation model and get a range of expected FE numbers. As I've said before, I can't believe that manufacturers don't already have models for such.

I agree that the EPA tests suck but it's the "game" to be played when comparing hybrids against hybrids and hybrids against non-hybrid vehicles. Big $$$$ ride on the outcome. And, I have to agree with bigalpha, one doesn't spend millions (likely 100s of millions) to develop a product to have it fall short of market expectations and the competition. $$$$ will likely trump ethics especially when ones future is highly dependent on winning the game by any "legal" means. How the product actually performs in use vs the game is secondary to winning the game especially when there is a scapegoat - the designer of the game.

The point is not whether Ford can use the CR data. It's that an independent test that Ford could commision would likely result in Prius V besting the C-Max and similar numbers to the CR tests. ;)

How about the old VW 1960 vintage ads on the beetle. IMO, gives a very accurate range of FE.

Exactly, it wouldn't look good if Ford also pointed to the CR tests in their Prius V vs C-Max commercials: Prius V -- CR's city/highway, mpg -- 37/47 C-Max -- CR's city/highway, mpg -- 35/38 But then aren't the Prius V vs C-Max commercials that cleverly promote the EPA ratings misleading to the consumer who spends $25k for a car based on these Ford commercials? So now bad FE reviews by others and consumer complaints on FE aren't good for Ford's image. How does Ford build / regain consumer confidence? Offer free FE upgrades. ;)

Have you read this. Manufacturers can give other estimates of FE along with the EPA numbers. Below is an excerpt, which IIRC, I referred to in another thread.

According to Ford, no.

jmckinley, I couldn't agree more with your post above. For those that dissed CR for their December review with respect to the FE of the C-Max vs EPA rated, I believe thanks needs to be given to reviewers like CR as without such reviews, I really doubt whether Ford would have been as proactive in change (wamba2000 hit the nail on the head above). IMO, there is simply to much pro-Ford rhetoric with respect to the FE of the C-Max vs the EPA on this site and not enough criticism of Ford for it's promoting the EPA number when they obviously knew it is not a "real world" number (see Raj Nair's response to CR review in December). I also believe this update is testament to Ford "gaming" the software to achieve a high EPA number rather than optimizing the software for "real world" driving.

The penalty might be a slight decrease in performance under normal driving and even a FE penalty is one drives aggressively. It appears Ford is optimizing powertrain efficiency (similar to what tuners might do for an economy tune) especially for higher driving speeds. The update also appears to be reducing the overly conservative operational margins of various systems like grille shutters, coolant fan speed, ac compressor and so forth. I think several of us have shown the operation of the grille shutters appears very conservative. These updates are, in essence, "free".

AFAIK, you must call to cancel. I recall looking online a few years back and Sirius stated that you had to call to cancel. Also, I don't recall anyway to discontinue auto-renewal. Some have indicated that by being persistent in not giving a credit card and demanding that a bill be sent that Sirius did send a bill that they then payed with a check. Also, many have very recently stated that cancelling was no issue with minimal hold times (generally 10 minutes or less).

Here's my take on the plug and go repair kit cited above. Can the plug be easily removed? I know reputable tire shops will not properly repair a tire with an inside parch if a string plug was inserted. What I did with my C-Max when I had a small screw in my tire was to replace the small screw with a larger screw to stop the leak. I then drove 8 miles to a tire shop for a proper repair. If the above plug can be easily removed, then they are likely better than putting a larger screw to accomplish the same purpose.

Looks like Ford is certainly addressing several of the larger hits to FE. Below are 5 bullet points to boost HV efficiency from the bloomberg article cited above. Is 47/47/47 now in sight for the average driver? :) I wonder if there is enough difference with these upgrades to warrant revised EPA FE numbers. How's 49/49/49 sound. ;)

LOL, okay South Carolina law (most states likely have a similar statute) but that apparently is not the reason. :)

"C" DTCs are "Chassis" codes. The number is probably the decimal equivalent of the 4 digit hexadecimal code.

VA LAW?

Several members including myself have subscribed for a short period of time to the shop manual here. But now I can't get the subscription service to work from the motorcraft site. It directs me to the Helm site and for some reason the C-Max is not available but other 2013 manuals are. Just remembered I have to use Internet Explorer to get the popup menus to select manuals from the motorcraft site. In Chrome and Safari the selection menus are not available.. .

IMO, same reason Ford didn't put the side mirrors like the one below on Vekke's VW or something similar. Aesthetics / costs

"In neutral, the output shaft is disengaged from the wheels and no power flows through the transmission..The electric motor does not provide power to or hold the final drive and the final drive can spin freely." Those two sentences are directly from the shop manual. You are correct. I was going to further explain but forgot. Yes, there is no physical disconnection. Disengage simply means MG1 and MG2 armatures are free to rotate with the wheels. MG1 or MG2 are neither generating nor using power and thus "disengaged" from the wheels.

.....

Do you have both lower and middle grilles blocked? or are you using the cutout grille for the middle? Did you look at the average Climate load in MyView? With the temps around 90F here once the interior of the car cools down, the climate usage will run less than 1/2 kW to maintain a set point of 74Fl with clear, sunny skies - maybe 0.35 - 0.4 kW. At 110+F my climate usage averages about 1 kW. This is with fairly low humidity. The reason I ask is that if both openings are blocked it's likely that the climate usage has increased and any gains in FE from the covers may be offset by increased climate usage. Also, is the cooling fan running with the covers and AC on? When it runs, I can see a slight increase in other usage on the MyView screen but it generally doesn't run until I am stopped or going very slow in parking lots at 100+F. I don't want to run my car around Phoenix with the lower cover or the full middle cover on for the 5 - 6 months, hot season as we have about 3 months where the average daily temps are above 90F and about another 1 - 2 months above 80F.

Your right, very smooth. I didn't give any thought to use of the friction brakes but it makes sense. Think about having the rear wheels cut out going around a corner on icy / wet roads if you would simply use the traction motor to brake the front wheels when one applied the brake pedal to max regen braking.

After doing searches / reading papers on regen braking. It appears that regen braking strategy may employ use of the front or rear friction brakes to accomplish a "safe and smooth braking feeling" comparable to cars without regen braking especially when no throttle is applied to simulate engine braking and also when the brake pedal is depressed as opposed to simply using the traction motor 100% of the time. Also, I found this efficiency curve below for an electric traction motor. It shows a max.efficiency of about 92%. So again, do we really know what 100% brake score means. I would assume that since this is trying to provide a measure for the driver, that friction braking embedded in the control algorithm would be excluded and only friction braking initiated by the driver would be detrimental to the brake score. Also, regen braking strategies were road tested in one paper and the results of two are shown below. I believe the regenerated energy is the energy used to propel the car and thus the overall efficiency of the regen braking was about 52%. Of course the C-Max could be different. :)