mikekoz

Ours is about the same age, maybe a little older. It has just over 101k miles on it and we have had no major issues with the engine. The worst thing we have experienced with it was the degradation of the main battery. It is now about 40% of its original capacity. Other things that have gone wrong with it I would call electrical. We have a problem with it dying about a year and a half ago, but after Ford removed some module in it, they said was the culprit, it has been fine.

Car would be driven about 60 miles a day. Pretty much just to work and back for me. We have ChargePoint chargers there which would be a bit faster. I think we are just going to get the Cmax repaired.

This may not happen for us. I was reading this morning about charging options, tips, etc. Apparently, you need a 240v charging outlet to charge this vehicle. I am still investigating this, but if you use a standard 120v this car takes about 48 hours to charge. Another source said that you get 3 miles of range for every hour it charges on the 120v outlet. That is all we have, and I think it would cost a lot of money to add a 240v outlet outside where I would have parked the car. This is really disappointing since I really liked the car and feel the dealer (after a bit of haggling) gave us a good deal on a 2023 model with an extended battery. I am also not happy that nobody at the dealership gave me this information. My salesman said nothing about it. I am going to call him today and tell him the deal is off unless I can find another solution, which is not likely. 😟

Looks like we may end up trading the Cmax in for a used 2023 Mustang Mach-E electric. Do not really want car payments, but the Cmax is 12 years old and has over 100,000 miles on it. The Mach-E looks like a nice car! I do not have too many complaints about the Cmax other than the loss of capacity on the main battery, which I thought was premature. Thanks for everybody's help!

That is the results the guy at Autozone got. He said the problem was the thermostat and showed me the part, which was about $22.00. Our local shop told me it would be about $700.00 to replace. Does that sound correct? Would it be that labor intensive to install where they would charge that much? 🤔

Started the car this morning and once again got the error. The red thermometer icon showed up like it always does when this happens, but the temperature reading on the dash showed the engine was cool. We have an Autozone near where we live, so maybe I can ask them if they have a device to get an error code from the car. Thanks for all the responses so far everybody!

That seems to be OK. Unfortunately, I do not have any device to get error codes from the car, sorry!

Started the car again twice last evening and once early this morning and the error did not pop up. I am now getting a message stating "Eng Oil Maintenance Engine Will Run". I get this every now and then and it should be normal, but it has done this the last three times I have started the car and while it is doing this, EV is not available. Could the Coolant Overtemperature warning have something to do with the electric motor?? Just a thought!

I just checked my display and the temp on the engine shows that it is cool like it should be. I started the car twice this morn and the first time I got the overtemp warning, and the second time I did not. The warning is not consistent so maybe it is an electrical problem, or just has something to do with the bad thermostat. I may drive it a bit today around our neighborhood and see how she does!

Thanks. I will take a look at it tomorrow if it is not storming! I will try to see if I can find the shutters and check them while I am at it.

A few months ago we were having a problem where the engine warning light was always on and according to the local place we send the car to, the thermostat is bad. A friend of mine knows something about cars and he also has a car with the same problem. He says on his the thermostat is stuck open so he still drives it like normal. I did the same thing in 90+ degree weather and the car ran fine. Engine ran smooth and did not overheat after driving it like this for the last few months. About a week ago on a cool Monday morning after not driving the car all weekend, I started her up and got that warning. There is no way the engine could be overheated as the car did not run for two days and it was about 60 degrees outside! I did not risk it and just drove our Edge to work and back all this past week. I checked the fluid levels under the hood and they seem fine. Could this be a false reading due to the thermostat being bad? We did not fix it because it would have ran us a bit more money than we wanted to put into the car. We are now considering trading it in for a used vehicle, and may have to get it fixed anyway beforehand, but just wanted to see if anybody on this forum has run into this problem and get a few suggestions! Any help would be appreciated! 2013 Ford Cmax Energi 51300 miles

Here is a pic of the device which they removed. They did not do a good job of describing how this would affect the operation of the car however. My phone is working with the car as usual and everything else so far is working fine. We picked it up a few weeks ago and so far so good, but I am not going to trust the car until it works normally for several months. It apparently is the TCU as they said though. I have never used any of the functions this module controls so will not miss it! We were given paperwork on what was done to the vehicle, but I am at work and do not have access to it right now.

I have done that a few times since we have had the car and at the end of last year the 12V battery was replaced twice. Calibration was done by Ford and our local auto repair place various times. Ford did it a few times when the car was in warranty. I am going to start driving it again tomorrow and will see how it does. I will not be able to use my phone with the car though. I do not talk and drive but have sometimes played music via bluetooth using my phone or iPad.

Thanks, but they have already done the work and delivered the car to us. I am going to start driving it to work tomorrow so we will see how it goes! If it dies again within the next 30 days (I do not know what their guarantee is on their work) I will just try to get the repair cost refunded and we may have to put money into getting a used vehicle. I am really hoping this resolves the problem because I really do not want to buy another car! 😔

Well, we finally took the car to our Ford dealer and this is what they had to say: Just got done talking with the technician about it. We have found that the Telematic Control Unit is what is turning on and is killing the battery. The unfortunate part is the due to the age of the vehicle, this part is now obsolete and we are not able to get it. This specific part isn't something we can get as a used part either because the TCU uses an internal sim card to connect your mobile devices to the vehicle allowing data between the two. When the TCU is activated in a vehicle, the SIM card becomes activated and is then tied to the serial number of the TCU. The TCU is also associated and registered with the VIN of the vehicle so the TCU unfortunately is unable to be swapped from one vehicle to another. The only options we have currently is to plug the TCU back in and risk it continuing to kill the battery or we can leave the TCU unplugged which only disables the use of mobile devices with the vehicle. They explained it a bit further to me and apparently if they leave the TCU unplugged, we will just not be able to use our mobile phones with the car. I can live with this right now as I never use this feature and just do not talk on the phone while driving. On the other hand, it is a bit odd to me that the part is obsolete, but I am betting a lot of that problem is due to the electronics in this car are made overseas. I also think Ford stopped making the Cmax back in 2018. Have any of you out these had this happen, I am curious!?

Thanks, but that post does not describe the problem we are having. I will call Ford and see what they have to say then make a decision from there. I do appreciate the help!

I guess we will have to take it to Ford. After almost 4 weeks, the car just died again! ? I searched for a recall that would fix this problem, but did not find anything. Does anybody have an idea what Ford would charge for fixing this problem? Our car is long out of warranty and we really do not want to put much money into it.

Our Cmax Energi Has been pretty much dead since October of 2022. Our local repair shop replaced the 12V battery in it and it was OK until just after Christmas. I brought it back to them about a month and a half ago and they reprogrammed the modules, whatever they are! Worked fine for 10 days, then back to deadsville! This past Sunday I removed fuse 79 and charged the battery, and so far it has not died. I may try this workaround if just removing the fuse fixes the problem. If it does, and I cannot figure out how to install this relay, I could always get a bluetooth speaker and play music while I drive from my phone! Everything else on the touch screen seems to work. We really do not want to bring the car to the dealership. It has done this a few times during the 8-9 years we have had it and may just end of selling it if I cannot get it running.

That has been replaced twice since this problem started. Once back in October and again when the car was worked on this last time. I am not an expert, but maybe the main battery is going bad. It has lost about 60% of its capacity since it was new and maybe it quit.

We took the car a month or so ago to our local repair shop and they diagnosed the problem (or what they thought it was) and reprogrammed the system computer and the car worked fine for about 2 weeks. About a week or so ago, I was driving it to work and the audio system started malfunctioning in an odd way. The system would turn on, but the volume control would not work and I could not turn it off. Fortunately, the volume was not too high! It had done this before and normally this was a sign that the car was about to die again, and that is what it did. This past weekend I jumped it and it started up, but after about 5-10 minutes it was dead again. Normally when I jumped it the car would work for a few hours. I guess the only thing left for us to do is take it to Ford and see what they can do, but I think the fix may be more money than what we want to put into it. If we do not take it to Ford, it will turn into an expensive decoration for our driveway! ?

We have had this car for about 10 years and as the title states, the car is just completely dead. I can use a portable jumper to start it, and after that it will work for several hours, but once I park it, it dies again. It has done this randomly ever since we had it, but this is happening more frequently now. About two months ago we had the 12V battery replaced in it after it died, and it has worked great up until a few weeks ago. I was going to have it looked at to see what the problem is, but has this happened to any of you? If so, what was the problem if the battery was OK? If the problem is with the main battery, the car is probably pretty much totaled. The last time I spoke to somebody at Ford about that they told me the main batteries in these vehicles were about $13,000.00 dollars. The main battery capacity is maybe 1/3 of what it was when it was new, but still gives me about 7-10 miles of all battery driving. Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you. I think I need to actually ask them tomorrow or Thursday when they get the new battery if they reset the battery age parameter. I will ASSume they do that, but you never know! ;p). Looks like I also need to invest in a battery charger.

I actually looked at that one, and the Genius 10 and am considering one or the other. How long does the 5 take to fully charge your battery?

I put off buying a charger until I was able to take the car to Ford, which was this morn. We did get a new battery for it in July of 2019 and it is bad already. The guy at Ford said it went bad because the car sat in the driveway for three months without being driven. This does not sound right to me! Our Edge also sat for several months before being driven and it was fine. I have been driving since I was 18 and I have never had a battery go bad this quick, NEVER. I am 60 now! I know everybody says "they do not make things like they used to", but really!!?? They are replacing the battery under warranty so cost is not the issue here. I guess I should buy a charger, but now we are considering just selling the car and I do not want to put a lot of money into this thing. At the same time, I do not want this to happen again. Is the person at Ford correct? Can the 12V battery go bad because the car is not driven very often?

Thank you. I was actually looking at that one. The only thing it did not seem to have that I was looking for was a way to put a quick connect\disconnect attachment on it. It would be used outdoors as our garage is used for storage. I wanted a way of running a cable out to the car from the garage. Putting a quick disconnect on the terminals under the hood then running it out the front of the car with the hood down seemed like a good idea in case it rained.