scottwood2

Thx for the reply. Interesting, With the A/C being electric I thought it would take a while for the ICE to come on or does it draw so much power that it drains the battery down enough to have to recharge it?

I like the look of this car. I found the pic some time ago and I don't remember where I found it. Now I can't find it again. Anyone know who owns this car? I like the black grill and wheels and wanted to talk to them about how they did that. Thx

YOU BOUGHT MY CAR! Just kidding but I am also in the Detroit area and looking at black as well. What dealer? Have fun.

I heard someone say that Ford recommends to disconnect the battery before an oil change. Anyone heard of this? Anything else special to do this? What do you do to start the engine after the oil change to make sure there are no leaks? Turn on the heat?

Lots of posts here and this poll is great. I would also like to see the other side of this poll. I see there are very few SE's with the 202A or 203A packages that have had this issue. Is that because there are less issues with this model or is that because there are not many of these with this package? So seeing another poll like this for owners who have not had any issues with there C-max would be helpful in determining the percentage of ownership. Again great poll idea. Love the detail. Also good to see that the battery drain problem does seem to be less of an issue now. Maybe at this point it is not worth creating another poll?

Thx for the reply. I missed the other sections of the site that were lower on the page. It looks like most of the talk is not about the standard system. I would assume the standard system can't do very much. thx again

Hi everyone Do we have any Android uses out there that would care to share their experiences with the using the sound system. I like to stream podcasts and it would be great if I could do that with the C-max. I would also like to be able to control my phone as well. With my current system I am able to via bluetooth (without using the phone): Start podcast (Play) Skip to next podcast reverse (6 seconds back) Pause Answer the phone hands free Hang up the phone. I am looking at both the standard system as well as the larger Sony system. Not sure what to get yet. I know streaming does work at least somewhat for Apple devices but I am not sure about Android. Seems like OEM's design around Apple more so far but I think that will change soon. Any way, just looking for other Android users experiences. Thx

Congrats! I was at a few dealers here in Michigan last week. They both told me that there are no energi models anywhere due to the >$8k rebate last month (June I think). I guess that is not true or maybe they are starting to come back in stock? Any different rebate deals for the energi?

So there So there is a heating element as well as the standard heater core system?? I thought only the Energi had that? Thx

Very nice write up. Anything new to add about the update? Is the FE getting any better now?

So this sounds like it works very much like the Prius where if you need heat the ICE is running unless you have the Energi. Does the ICE also run in cold weather to warm up the motor even if there is no call for heat? I think this is true of the Prius. Thx for the replies

Great post here guys. I have been on the fence about buying the Cmax. I get excited about all the techniques in driving the car to get the most MPG. I just test drove one before I saw this post and I played around on my test drive to try to get best MPG. Not really knowing what to do I was able to get 44 MPG over 7 miles. Pretty short but found it fun trying to learn how to get the best MPG. After this post I am really wanting to play with one again to see what I can do. Thx for all the great posts here.

I tried to find look for "Ready to Drive" mode but could not find anything. When is the car in "Ready to Drive" mode? Is it based off of the gear shifter? I wonder why Ford would not want to just charge the 12 V all the time and not just when in "Ready to Drive" mode? So I guess the heater is also electric? I would think that would take a lot of power to do that. I heard that winter driving FE goes way down. I guess that is one of the main reasons? It would be nice to get almost instant heat though and not have to wait for the ICE to heat up. Are the locks only power? I would think that there has to be someway to get into the car with a dead battery? I thought I saw a post that stated there was a special tool with the SEL and the key would work on the SE. BTW where is the 12 v battery on this car? Thx for the reply.

I think this is what I am leaning towards now that I see I can get the MFT on a SE. :) The winter package would be nice here in Michigan. Thx for the reply

I am a gadget guy and like tech. I was just reading about tips on getting great MPG and some were using android apps to monitor RPM and fuel use. I can see me doing that. So is this USB stick a bluetooth device? I know that a lot of the cars seem to work with Apple much better than Android. Having an external device like this is fine with me as well. I have a bluetooth device that I use now in my cigarette lighter. My plug is only powered when the car is on so when I get in my car I just hit the play button on the bluetooth device and it plays. When I turn off the car it stops streaming because it lost the Bluetooth connection. This device receives the bluetooth signal and transmits the audio via FM. I do not have inputs so the FM transmitter works for me. I have drove 3 so far. How did you drive these for an extended time? Was it a rental or did the dealer let you take one? I would love to have one for a week or even a weekend. The more I find out about this car the more I like it. Thx for the reply

Hi everyone. Just thought I would share my experiences at a few local dealerships. Found out that the advertised prices of under $20K for a cmax was only if you are A plan (employee or family of employee) and you also have to have a lease with some other company beside Ford. My best price was around $22K for basic options. That is after rebates of $2500 but before taxes. I also found out that they had great deals on the energy last month with over $8k in rebates. Not an energy to be found here for sale. That would have been a great deal and I might have taken that one had I known. I do really like both the SE and the SEL. The big touch screen is nice on the SEL but I don't like Leather seats and that is standard on the SEL. I really liked the graphic showing the energy flow on the center screen. Do others find they use this or is this something that you only use at first? I think I can see similar usage on the left side of the gauges. Does the connection to my phone have the same features with both trim levels? I tried to stream something via my phone to the SE model and I could not get it to work. Maybe it is just for phone use? I thought the radio sound was barely OK on the SE. I did not try it on the SEL. Is the sound quality the same? The climate controls are not my favorite. Dual climate controls are nice and they are standard but I like the standard dial type. Manual, but very easy to change and fast. I can do it by feel and not have to look down to see if I pressed the same button enough. Maybe using the voice system would help with this. I picked a model from stock for my SE test drive. I played around with the gauges before I started driving. When I went to set the clock it said "Low Battery" and the display shut down. I could not get the car to drive after that but after trying a few things it started to work OK. How does the 12v battery get charged up? Is it only via the engine when it is running or does it charge from the large battery pack? Where is the 12 v battery? The salesman had no idea where it was. I like the car very much. I am a little scared with the battery issues reported. I think it is better now but seems to still to be there. Not sure if this is what I saw on the test drive or not? I also wonder about the whole package and wither the extra complexity is worth it? The Prius has an awesome track record and the vote is still out on the Cmax. I keep my cars a long time and this one is no different. So waiting to see what happens with rebates and other deals. I am also going to look at a Fit soon. Totally different car. Very basic, I think fun to drive and I can get a stick again which I like.

I did not check with the dealers here but they have ads for under $20K. Some dealers just above $20k. I did talk to a dealer today and she said the deals were better last month. Not sure why she would say that? I think more deals might be coming.

Hi all. Thx for all the responses. I do still have my Scion xB with 135K miles. Still going strong. I also have a full size Chevy pickup truck that we have for pulling a boat and trips. It would be nice to have something with better mileage for trips and around town. I like the truck but I love driving the xB. Just a really fun car (5 speed stick). The C-Max would be my new fun car. I also like tech stuff and I could see me getting into playing around to learn how to get the best MPG with the hybrid. One of my co-workers has a Prius that he installed a plug in kit for it. I think this is really cool and would not mind doing something like this myself. I don’t think there is any support for this on the C-Max but maybe one day. I like the style of the C-Max much better than a Prius and love the extra size. Much more like my xB in terms of room for 4 people. I also like the fact that there are not 20 billion of these on the road. Nice to have a car that everyone else does not have. I am surprised that some 2013 are still on the dealer lots. Are sales that bad in some areas? If they are I would think that Ford will not keep this vehicle around for that long. I would think something new is on the drawing board. I have drove the C-Max once and it was a SEL. I would like to go see these < $20K SE models. I might like this better any way and would give me some extra cash to get new wheels and such to make this my car. I like that a lot. I could see an all black C-Max with black wheels in my driveway. I think this would sport up the look. So I will keep looking and who knows, might pull the trigger on one some day. I do wish that they had the dead battery problem fixed for sure. Thx again

I see a lot of deals on the c-max. Some under $20k. Seems like a good deal. What is going to change for 2015 models? Good time to buy or better to wait? Last i heard sales of this car are not good. Maybe more rebates coming? I see ads for a few local dealers and it is the same car listed for weeks and weeks. Thoughts? Thx

Just wondering if you bought the wheels and tires? If so how do you like them? MPG? Thx

I read that Ford has dropped Microsoft for sync and is using another company now. I think the new Focus will have this. I know they made a lot of changes to the system. I think C-Net had a review on the new Focus that talked in detail about the changes. So I would really be suprized if they offered an upgrade on the C-Max.

New to the forum and would like tapatalk as well.