Alex Sams

LOL it would be better if I could afford to get one for myself. I think if I was to get another one, I'll wait to get an Energi and give that one to the wife. She would appreciate being able to cool and heat the car with an app from her phone while it was plugged up. Of course, I could also see her trying to drive off with it plugged up.

Ouch... the day I bought my C-Max, I could sell it private party for $2k more than what I paid for it. Now it's 3k less. That's still better than most new vehicle purchases. Hell some people pay more than a car is worth buying it used! Like whatever sucker bought the Windstar I turned down for my wife in town that was $2500 over NADA value. It sort of makes me wish I'd waited a few more weeks and looked into discounts on new 2013's instead of buying one with low miles. I did get a CPO warranty car so that is a bonus. Regardless, it's a great vehicle, and we get more than double the fuel economy of the Windstar. If I could only convince the wifey not to drive on the highway to work she'd probably get 50 mpg. I like Fords. I switched to them for good reasons after I ended up with one in a trade years ago. I bought one new. I'll never do that again. It's how goofy the world is. Fords have crap for resale value. The company gets slammed on every car they make except Mustangs and F-150s. It never fails. Honda can build a total POS transmission like the 5 spd that plagued Odysseys for 4 years, and nobody says anything. Ford gets bad press over cupholders that get stuck to cups and disappear. That's why I only buy gently used Fords now. I know they are good cars, but it's just financially responsible. No offense intended to anyone who bought new. I've done it too. I also made a bunch of money off Ford when the other 2 US makers crashed and burned. Ford went down to $1.15 per share- and globally they made hundreds of millions in profit that year. People are stupid when it comes to Ford. That's all the more better for Ford fans like us. Sure, the C-Max might not have the typical fuel economy of the Prius. If fuel economy was everything to everyone, then ok, the Prius would win. There's much more to cars than fuel economy or resale value. The Prius lost IMO.

I just took my first long trip to see my parents. I reset Trip 1 sitting in our driveway, and checked it when we were done to the tune of 39.1 mpg. This is averaging 55 mph with legal speeds from 40 to 70 throughout the trip. Passing through towns I did over 50 according to the mpg bar gauge that I've set for 10 minute intervals. On the highway it was less, of course, the highest I saw in a single bar was 45 mpg. The typical average at a steady 65 was under the 40 mpg mark- judging by the accumulated trip mileage probably 37 or so. There was a cross wind out of the south- we're going east or west- at 10-15 mph, and temps were around 35F to and from. I did better on the way home- 40.1 mpg, than on the way to their house, 38.6, because we were late leaving. The car has about 8k miles on it. I haven't checked anything under the hood besides the oil. I usually do better on my highway trips around here, so I blame this on the crosswind, low temps, and E10 fuels. I hope I get a chance to investigate the spark plugs, fuel filter, and MAF at some point. When I removed the factory spark plugs in my Focus, I noticed wild variations in spark plug gap.

We took our first road trip in the C-max to see my parents. Along the way I noticed this intermittent sound that sounds like when you blow across the top of a glass jug to make a low woooooooooooo. I noticed that I could reproduce the sound by maintaining a steady speed with the engine on. When the vehicle ran in EV mode, I did not notice the sound. At first I thought it might be a bad bearing in the eCVT. Later I noticed that I could make the sound quit by turning off the recirculating air function in climate control. I could swear I heard it one time at 40 mph with the recirc off, but I'd have to do more testing to be sure. The sound was very loud, reverberating throughout the cabin of the car. It was louder than a normal speaking voice, so over 85 db. Does anyone know if this is a sign of not having a cabin air filter perhaps? I will check that as soon as I can tomorrow. I feel certain that there is something amiss in the cabin air intake system, but I'm unfamiliar with the vehicle. It could also have something to do with the tube that pipes air intake sounds into the cabin if this vehicle has one of those. Has anyone experienced anything like this?

I was giving my dad a ride in the car to go to town to pick up a birthday cake for my daughter, and we crossed paths with another black C-max.

Burst and Glide is what I'm using. I got 60 mpg in a 5 mile trip last night, but only 41 on the way back. The engine was cooler on the way back, and the battery was only half charged at that point. I'm trying to learn the sweet spot in the regen where I'm getting the most regen and decel so I don't end up gliding to a stop to the point where I have to use the friction brakes to stop in time. The wifey drives the car more than I do. Most of her trips are less than 5 miles. An Energi would've been a better EV choice for her. Maybe if my investments pay off this year, I'll get her one of those. She doesn't use the storage space in the back often anyway. It would also make her happier to have a vehicle that's already warmed or cooled depending on weather. I could live off the heated seats myself. I used to own a Bug, so I can live without creature comforts (except stereos).

Well, we tend to only hear from people who had issues with fuel economy. Maybe your filter didn't have excess oil. I get 30 in my wagon, but that's mostly in-town driving. Highway is about 36 mpg. I was getting better than that until I changed the exhaust. I'll never do that again for fuel economy. Diesels see fuel economy benefit from less restrictive exhaust, but not gasoline engines! At least not until it's clogged up. There's a difference between 07 and 05's like the one I have- 07s have a second engine temp sensor on the thermostat, and have always gotten better averages than the 05. Thanks though- I wish I got 40 mpg in my wagon!

Eventually I'll look for wheels, but instead of aero, I'll go for less weight. Our C-max doesn't see much highway use, so less weight would be better for us. I put Centerline forged aluminum, made in the USA wheels on all my cars. I'm not much on style directing me to a specific wheel, so I just watch their overstock wheel sales until the size and bolt pattern I need is available for cheap. I paid $99 each for the 17's on my Focus ZXW right now. That's ridiculously cheap for a forged aluminum wheel that weighs 15-16 lbs. I am interested in hearing from people who installed 16" wheels- I'd like a little more tire to avoid pothole damage. All that is way in the future though. We'll see how long the factory Michelins last.

Looking forward to finding Centerline wheels on sale for myself. They currently don't allow looking up wheels by car for the 2012 Focus or C-Max, but we all know that 5x4.25= 5x108. I'm glad to see that people are running 40mm offsets instead of the 50mm stockers. Most all of Centerline FWDs are 42mm. I'm curious if anyone knows the weight of the Ford factory 17's? Centerline wheels in 17" are typically 15-16lbs depending on the style. The ones I bought for my Focus were 15 lbs. This is a dramatic difference between the stock Focus 17" wheels that are 22-24lbs. In my ZXWs case I wanted to find a wheel/tire combo that would weigh the same as my stock 15's with stock tires- approximately 38 lbs. In the case of the C-Max, I'd like to increase fuel economy by lowering the wheel/tire weight. Assuming Ford still makes heavy cast wheels for durability- then that's at least 6 lbs off each wheel. If I could go down to a 16", that would reduce the possibility of wheel damage due to potholes. The Centerline forged wheels are more sturdy than cast, but any wheel with a low profile tire is subject to damage from big potholes. Um... and having American made wheels is a must for me, sorry. I like Chinese people, and I wish all the American CEOs who give manufacturing jobs away to them would have to move there and have their job taken by a Chinese in America. Diversity FTW! Thoughts on the wheels?

I haven't looked under my hood because I can't get my wife out of the car when I'm not working. We have opposite schedules. If anyone changes to a oil/cloth filter like the K&N- it's been my experience that the MAF needs to be cleaned regularly, and I would say weekly for a month until the excess oil stops getting collecting on the MAF. Excess oil reduces the amount of air sensed, and makes the engine run as rich as it can in most situations until the O2 catches up with it. It has always negatively affected fuel economy, but that was on Focus' (or Focis) which have HO2S but not WHO2S. I'm assuming the C-Max is wideband since that would be more fuel efficient. I recently tried some easy ICE FE trick, like the high flow filter, and it didn't work. I've always found that Lucas FI treatment gave me about 3 more MPG on average in all my vehicles. For this to be economical, I bought by the gallon, and a quart bottle for treatments because it was graduated. This brought the cost of a tank treatment down to about $1. I also found- but forgot- that their recommended dosage was too high. They recommend 1 oz per 2.5 gal. I found that my fuel economy dropped at that rate, but increased at 1oz per 5 gal. Now I remember why I quit messing with it, because the Focus has a 4 gallon reserve, and after 4 tanks or so I had to not treat a tank in order to maintain fuel economy. PITA. Now we own a hybrid..... I'll have to see how the K&N works as well. Hopefully before the spring comes so I'm not comparing oranges to apples. For now our first modification is side moldings. I may do it after that. We still have essentials- floor mats, and 2nd key to purchase.

The only thing I would worry about is that ethanol tends to decay after 3 months. You don't want to run separated fuel through the engine. To avoid this, either fill up with E0 fuel, or purchase some fuel stabilizer. Keep in mind too that unless you run your vehicle completely out of fuel every 3 months- you'll have some "bad" gas in there. It will still burn, but it's not so good for your engine. I can't recommend a specific brand of stabilizer- Sta-Bil is what I use in our van that only gets driven like 5k miles a year or less. I just checked to be sure- our vehicles come with a "lifetime" fuel filter. No, it won't last forever. It lasts until the fuel pump is replaced. I've done an experiment on my Ford Focus that I bought new replacing the fuel filter 25k miles or 1 year. Typically fuel pumps last about 120k miles or so. I've gone 160k currently. Ford has gone to these lifetime fuel filters because most people do not ever change their fuel filters until the pump goes out. I've replaced many fuel pumps and removed factory, gooey clogged filters. What's the point if people don't know or don't care? I seriously doubt that there is some new magic technology that makes this filter last a lifetime. That being said I suggest using some stabilizer or suffer a fuel pump and filter replacement earlier than expected. Your ICE mileage will likely be better as well.

OK, I could only find the C-Max under tinted and anti-heat. Their literature says that the anti-heat glass is clear, but it doesn't seem clear from the outside. I know I wish I had that stuff on all the windows- as well as laminated! That would totally screw up some thieves around here if they tried to break into my car by busting a window and couldn't get through the glass! They make a hydrophobic glass that's like having permanent Rain-X on a windshield. Cool stuff- eh?

GOT IT!! I was there earlier, but didn't follow the right clicking. I followed this link: Saint-Gobain Anti-Heat glass, over in the right hand side you can choose a car maker, and they will give you the model that the glass is used in, and the C-Max pops up. I think these glasses are available in multi-layer or multi-style, like sound reduction with anti-heat. I'm going to do some more digging. This with global opening windows negates the need for tint on the roof! WOOOO HOOO!! Thanks Ford Global!

I can't find anything else written on it right now. I'll look again tomorrow. I was mildly shocked at how large, and old, Saint-Gobain was. I'd only ever heard of PPG and Carlite as far as auto glass goes, but I think these guys might be bigger than both of those. I'll quiz my Ford Customer service buds and see what they come up with for an answer. From what I'm reading here, it doesn't seem like I need to worry about tinting the roof. I am going to tint the side windows though, and as much of the upper windshield as I can legally here! It seems like the sun is always in my eyes from the upper edge of the windshield.

Ok, so I'm curious to see what knowledge you guys out there might have. I'm trying to find out what sort of glass the pano roof is. I know it's laminated, like the windshield, and it's made by a company named Saint-Gobain. The product line is Sekurit- which is their laminated glass line. However that encompasses several different types of glass. Those of you who have Energis likely can look at the approval marking on yours and see Saint-Gobain Sekurit or Thermoglass which is the heated glass. I'm curious to find out what sort of glass is used in the pano roof. It might have thermal reflective, and certainly UV reflective properties already. I still don't know for sure if I can tint it. I have checked "tintdude", and found an article on it "Can I tint my sunroof?" which describes that it's mostly an urban legend started by Nissan in the 80's. The other reason is that tinters don't like to get soapy water in their eyes. The tint appears to have a blueish haze to it (maybe IR reflective), and I'm going out right now- even though it's dark to see if I can find any other markings besides the approval marking which doesn't tell much. Does anyone know the spectral reflective properties of that glass?

What would really be great IMO is if the industry would switch from Ethanol- which doesn't stay in a mix with gasoline forever- to Isobutanol which does. Isobutanol doesn't have any of the side effects of ethanol, but reduces hydrocarbon emissions in the same manner as ethanol. I've been following a company called Gevo as they fought Dupont and BP who have also applied for patents. What I think is going to happen is that since big business lost their lawsuit to steal Gevo's patents for converting ethanol production plants to isobutanol production- it will now disappear. This is the same company that makes the biodegradable foam that is in the seats of our C-Maxs, and also has a contract with Coke to produce biodegradable plastic for drink bottles. I'm sure product diversification will save the company, but I will hate to see a good idea like isobutanol fall by the wayside just because big business pockets won't profit as much from it.

I'll read up on that and quiz FCS about it. There might be some factory UV tinting on there, but I'm positive there's no spectrally inclusive or tint with any solar heat rejection. There could be a number of reasons why it's not suggested that the pano roof be tinted. Metallic infused tints- which is most quality window tint- reduce transmissions of things like cellular and GPS. A much more expensive ceramic based tint would not have those particular issues. I live in the south. We have lots of sun, and so sunlight increasing AC usage during the hot part of the summer is a concern. I wouldn't tint it dark because my daughter likes it. I'm looking more for the expensive tints that don't darken glass as much but reflect solar heat and infrared as well as UV. The same goes for the sides, but I might tint those as dark as TN allows which is 30%, but use a better tint.

Here's ours in the frigid cold the morning after it arrived home. We got it second hand with 7k miles on it. SEL, 303 package, and panoramic roof.

Sweet! Like the tint. I've been looking at tints myself. Our black C-Max has the panoramic roof, and we live in the south. What tint did you use? I'm searching for spectrally selective tint that rejects solar heat with low inside reflectivity so our daughter can still enjoy the stars at night while we are cooler on hot days. TN law prevents us from using more than 30%. On my wagon I could get away with it being considered an MPV, but the C-Max is considered a car.

The first thing I looked for online was side moldings. I've found some on Amazon, and some other sites for about $130. I do not even consider people in Memphis, TN to be remotely considerate.

Yeah, I read your tips before we bought the car, thanks! I made the wife read them too. I hope to learn a lot from the other owners here, and teach if I can. I hope to try some eco-modding in the near future, but first tint! That glass roof is going to make the car hot in the summer!

We just got our C-Max, so we've only had a chance to see what the fuel economy would be any time except when it's extremely cold. I got like 26 mpg last night, but that was driving around in the parking lot with my daughter while my wife shopped. I didn't expect much. Is it normal that you can hardly seem to keep the car in EV mode when it's cold? Aside of the engine running to warm the car, that is. I'm going to tell the wifey that she's going to have to button up if she wants to get good fuel economy! LOL

I bought this for my wife to replace her aged 02 Windstar. After much debate, I decided the only logical thing to do was spend the extra money to get something that would get great fuel economy. I didn't see the sense in getting something like a Mazda5 that would get marginally better fuel economy on her mostly in-town travels. I also liked that the C-Max has a VIN that starts with 1! Now if we get rid of the Windstar, all our vehicles will be made in the US by a US manufacturer! We first looked at a 2013 C-Max SE with 3k miles on it, and she loved it. It was red. We looked at it on Christmas weekend, and didn't buy then. The dealer sold that car 2 days later before I could get back. The wife was mad at me. Then I explained that we'd just have to find something better, and that car didn't come with the extra goodies that we'd probably want anyway. Then I found (3 hours away) the black SEL that we have now. It has the 303 package, and the glass roof. We have everything but floor mats! I like the way it beeps when we pull too close to something in the front, side, or back. I love the acceleration. I know.. it's a hybrid. We're supposed to drive conservatively. Going from a 18 mpg van to a 36 mpg+ hybrid is ok with me if we floor it once in a while. This thing is completely nuts on acceleration as compared to a Prius. I love how easy it is to get in and out of our hectic and inconsiderate drivers in Memphis. I'm really curious to see how well the wife manages fuel economy on her trip back and forth to work once it heats up. The past couple of days with temps in the single digits and never higher than 20- she's getting 35mpg. I look forward to learning about this car from all of your experiences! This is the first car I've owned that I can't work on... yet.