Jus-A-CMax

I could be wrong but part of the improvements include implementing the CVT from the Energi...that would be the most interesting part to see if the MPGs are better for City driving. If they can provide quicker acceleration from 0 to 35mph with less EV usage without the heft of the 300lb pack of the Energi, that would be MOST interesting. EV/City speeds is the KILLER app of the CMax. Jus my 2c.

That may be what I am seeing too whilst I was driving around town <= 26F ambient. Darn..I need to get scangauge. Happy New Year Matt :)

The assumption that these cars continue to have issues in them as they are built in Jan 2013 is also incorrect. Discounts are they to boost sales for their end of year goals for the dealers as well and given the 14s are coming...its a bargain to be had. Also, any CMax that is purchased, Ford dealers will update it with the latest version of the software. This car is unlike other gas cars and its like driving a PC - software updates are to be expected for the MFT and other components.

Mine was a 1st year, built in Oct2012, not exactly the 1st cab off the rank but my Maxine SEL has been trouble free. The worst issue for me was the GPS issue and that was gone with a new module and thank goodness I had no dead battery (other than the one time the Ford shop test driver inadvertently left the headlight on). The ones built post 1/1/13 are fine but as always, theres a slim chance of a potential of lemon in any car you buy even top brands like Aston Martin/Jaguar - it doesn't matter as I had the latter brand happend to my family. We still own and drive Jaguars. The fit and finish for the CMax is pretty darn good, its SOLID so :airquote: once a week failure is conjecture...if it does happen, go get yourself a lottery ticket....you're good at picking the long shots ;)

Woot Mad Max is back.... :congrats: ...Good Times Again!!!!!! :love_shower: That is such a GREAT way to finish 2013, a Year best forgotten for what happened :drop: I look at those photos and I am amazed by how little that cost for the damage especially on the front with the engine et al. Happy New Year and Cheers :victory:

Well :congrats: . I can't convince you to buy a Prii now, can I ;) Someone has to supprt the underdogs :drop:

What! :twister: :rtfm: My MFT jus decided to Monty Pyton videos on its own, my CHECK ENGINE is on every time I turn on the car, the car is spewing green, glowing gas when I start, and the ride worse than a couple making out in a Prii...YOU CAN'T LEAVE!!!!!!! :stirpot: j/k Happy New Year Ashley :)

I KNOW the CMax passed a rear version of that crash. I was the test crash dummy in that report...a job I don't think I want to do again ;)

That appears to be the euro CMax. We did have some members here whos seen the 14 at the dealership and they said it was minor cosmetics with the wheel well area and the back end changes. Nothing as drastic as the front as shown in the article...who knows, may be someone will post up a new picture of the 14. You would think that in this day and age, EVERYONE has a cell phone camera and someone could snap a picture of the car...what would they do is a naked Wonderful Woman ran past them.....oh then the camera phone comes out....lol. Happy New Year everyone... ;)

I thought about the :airquote: learning curve as well..the route is exactly the same so is this CMax smart enuf to record engine temps with the GPS? I might as well keep it on and see what happens the rest of the week. Well :congrats: Paul...and YES...I AM SHOUING BECAUSE I KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO FEEL TO HAVE THE FAMILY BACK TOGETHER AGAIN.... :rockon: .... :happy feet:.... :victory: ...... :dance:

I luv the blindspot mirrors BUT it did take sometime to get use to them and CHECK them. I have driven Jaguar XFs and XJs with the electronic blindspot checkers and while they work fine, it took some time to trust them because you're relying on a light to flash at you versus trying to see the car. May be its jus me...but I luv having these blind spot mirrors. Only one time it failed to work and it was a POS 2 dollar car that had a paint job that matched the walls on the houses on the street....I nearly missed seeing him.....but I didn't hit him. Knucklehead.

I certainly did MadManMoon - Maxine was great, we took her on a 500+ return trip for vacation with the wifey and she performed like as if nothing happened. Mind you - this is AFTER the car had a major frame repair and rear passenger side suspension repair including a new tire (see my Betterment post above). She did not miss a beat and her steering is TRUE as I can remember before the accident. Ford Body Works in Van Nuys did a TOP, TOP, TOP and AMAZING job. They also have a website: http://www.prideautobody.com/

Crap, I didn't even know about this...pays to read the darn manual, eh? Learnt something today...

Ponypower...thanks for the thread :rockon: A very Happy New Year to you too..... :love_shower: Hope everyone has a prosperous and SAFE New Year. God knows, members who know me & Maxine, we so wish 2013 to be forgotten and pray 2014 will be a better year. BIG SHOUT out to Brother Mike, Fr.Bill (yes we have an REAL Father here on this site), Adair, RachelInLA, Laurel and many others...thanks for all your support this year and a :love_shower: HUGE BEAR HUG :love_shower: from moi jus cause... :victory: :)

Ashley... Improve the CMax? Your thoughts... This thread has 7 pages of member contributions on what us real owners think could be improved in the Ford CMax. Kudos to everyone who participated. Plus - it saves Ford Motor from spending more cashola on market research...(as much as I and others here enjoy doing them).

hybridbear/ptjones - sorry guys, got no scangauge to report temps. For all intent and purposes, the 2 bar burn up the hills were fine, it was only when it settled on the 3 bar and kept at the 66mph that it went into overheat. That could be on the buy list for 2014. Like I posted before, its either a golf club or these car toys, I prefer the golf clubs. Here is the link: https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=US-395+N&daddr=US-395+N&hl=en&sll=37.452649,-118.580589&sspn=0.118695,0.207367&geocode=FXz6OgIdvf3u-A%3BFbY-PAIdrpLu-A&mra=dme&mrsp=1&sz=13&t=m&z=13 that you plug into http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/profile_input I suspect it was around mile that it overheated and I dropped back down to 2 bar burn and it was fine. Temp stayed at around 1/2 to 3/4 and within the white bar range limit. Prior to that, it was P&G jus before the steep climb. Normally, I would sit on a 2 bar burn and enjoy the music going up this grade. Coming back the temps were much higher at 50F-60F and I just stick to the 2 bar burn and occassionally 3 bar burn for short periods and keeping an eye on the gauge - Maxine performed fine :) PS This is an awesome grade coming down though.... On a side note, I kept the grill covers on this morning, it was around 48-50F this morning in my drive to work, Maxine was behaving weird with the covers on, the warm up cycle would come on intermittently - usually when stopped at the lights for about 5 miles. I can't recall the warm up cycles being on so often with the covers off. I was using surface streets and mostly EV when I could. SOC was high. In contrast, typically, ICE would burn 0.04 gas and be ready without the grill covers. Consequentially, my MPG to work was like 63MPG with 20.4 miles and 0.32 gas burnt. I always scored 70s and gas around 0.24 to 0.28 depening on traffic and light timing. May be its Maxine and the high SOC and cold, she behaves weird like limited 1 bar EV burns (cannot exceed 1 bar otherwise ICE is on and the SOC is almost full) and yet the ICE would still continue to warm up (outside temps were 26F back then). Strange.

no PC bs here...Merry Christmas :)

These are not ptjones grills, jus want to make that clear. I built these myself, they are tight and removable, and unless Paul had vent holes in his grills, they are essentially similar. I have no use for grill covers in Los Angeles since temps are mild almost 365 days, but I made these to play with for the trips up north. Adair...yeah, if I kept the burn at 2 bars and not gun it (I decided to try Mcgyvers trick), I think I would have been OK. The engine had been running about 2.5 hrs since Mojave, pulse & glide and ambient temp was low, myview gauge showed middle bars. That was OK. Everyone knows I use premium. Cabin temp was 70 for me and the wifey had 75 on hers. 3 bar acceleration from the bottom of Sherwin. It was climbing nicely at 66mph at 3 bars, it was kinda sweet to drive... then OOOPS. Here's the deal, I now strongly believe the grill covers are too much for the load & grade and speed. Not even below 30f could sustain the heat at those loads. This is easily repeatable if anyone wants to try. I am posting this as a cautionary note to those who drive with grill covers or anyone who tries to block the middle & lower grills...there IS A LIMIT.

Merry Christmas Matt and everyone! May all your wishes come true and remember why we have Christmas and not jus the presets. Stay safe everyone :)

I really do not need to use covers but since I was going to the snow ala MN temps I thought I would try them. It works pretty good@2bar burn going up most grades but Sherwin is special, its a steep and very long grade. Maxine has the energy for sure...but who knew this would happen. I'll leave the covers on for the trip and see.

1 bar burn, 2 bar burn... crikey...do we have an AA pyromaniac here out for REVENGE!? Who would coin such terms, lol. Welcome to the forum John :)

Bad news, I have similar covers with middle and lower. Tonight the overheat warning came on with the outside temps at 33F!!! This was during a 3 bar burn climbing Sherwin grade at 66 mph set on eco cruise. Maxine was fully, fully loaded and it came on after 5 minutes of this moderately hard burn. I was shocked it came on at that speed and especially at that temp. Took me 30 secs to process this "wtf" moment and I backed down to a 2 bar burn and the temp dropped back to middle. That was scarier than running out of gas. I checked Maxine when I got to town and nothing appeared out of ordinary and the engine functioned fine. So yeah, it is possible to push it over...even in freezing ambient temp! ps I have climbed at those speed, load and temp, no issues back then. Scary.

Hey Paul, did you end up taking off your covers in the heat of AZ/TX? Can't remember if you reported on that or not...

C'mon...people everywhere have got camera phones, someone should be able to snap some of these pics and post'em up....you gonna make us all drive down to these dealerships....lol

As an owner & primary driver, I could not care less about what the EPA average, I more than blow that figure out of the water. I luv it when people start quoting fuelly as a group number for the CMax, when I last looked into the list - thats got so many misreporting and fake fillups like POS its only good for tracking one's MPG figure. Some people there don't know an PHEV from a HEV. It was well discussed here. Also, given that the 13b07 was released around end of summer/autumn and its jus clicked over into winter, of course you are not going to get that reflected on everyone's average on fuelly. Lets see what happen in a full year given that the colder season is even effecting my MPGs but you can't discount those reports of by many posters here about the increase in MPG. So as much as you label my post as "Irrelevant metaphors do not make an issue go away." Why shouldd it be irrelevent - it's CR, they have credibility issues with what they did to the Samurai (hence my link) and since we're talking about old news....lets bring up somemore old news. And yeah...theres are alot of threads here that are irrelevent to a whole lot of people - welcome to a forum. Ha...woke up on the cynical side this morning. Cheers :)