kostby

Welcome! The iithium ion batteries in our hybrid seems to have no problems sitting for a long time. (April 2013 production, purchased March 2014) Same for my lithium-ion power tools that easily hold up to an 80% charge (and 100% apparent capacity) when left for months without being used. It's the 12-volt lead-acid batteries that may lose the capacity to hold a charge over time. You have a 2013 SEL, and those have very few reported 12-v battery problems anyway. It was primarily the SE's with either Equipment Group 200A or 201A that have suffered the most 12-volt problems, as reported in these forums.

Welcome, Crystal! I sincerely hope I'll never need your assistance, but it's very comforting to know that someone from 'Corporate' is around to lend a hand, if and when help is needed.

13.5 US gallons per 2013 C-MAX Hybrid specs in the 2013 Owner's Manual 3rd printing, page 353 14.0 US gallons for the 2013 C-MAX Energi Hybrid

Yes. Car showed 12.74 consumed, pump dispensed 13.412 gallons. I let it click-off automatically at around 13.0 gallons, and then pressed the handle once more until it clicked again. I do that because when the station I regularly use is quite busy, the pressure change caused by others pumping from the same fuel selection can cause my pump to shut off quite prematurely, in some cases several gallons short of 'fill-up'. And that's how you can get a calculated 35 miles per gallon from a 1996 Ford Taurus, one time. :yahoo: Details are in Post #1027 in the '600 Mile' thread, just a few before your post today http://fordcmaxhybridforum.com/topic/1025-600mile-cmax-club/?p=45605 I won't say that it's true for everyone but I'll venture a guess that the difference in our case is because we do LOTS of short trips less than 5 miles, many less than a mile. Fairly often on short trips, the Trip fuel calculation shows 0.0 gallons used, but the Internal Combustion Engine definitely did come on briefly during the drive. That, and doing the 'second click' on the pump.

FYI: Mine came via FedEx to my home address.

FYI, in case you haven't seen it elsewhere, Sterling Gray is a C-MAX color being discontinued at the end of 2014 model year production (in mid September 2014).

I really hesitate to post this. Makes it seem like our C-MAX really DOES get just 40mpg average, and that's just not true. Lifetime fuel use is only 40.8 mpg Historical note: The car showed a lifetime fuel use of 19.7 when we purchased it with 133 miles on it in late March. The dealer is just a few blocks from the John Force drag racing teams headquarters in Brownsburg, IN. I think ours might have been a test mule ;)

Welcome! We'll be interested to hear how your new C-MAX compares to the Focus ST. I've lusted after one in my heart ever since I saw a Tangerine Scream ST at the local dealer, but I'm old and I don't even come close to fitting in those form-fitting Recaro seats any more!

IF you have the patience for it, and time to, uh, invest (*or waste) in achieving higher mpg's... In heavy traffic, at traffic lights, construction zones, and toll booths, follow behind a big diesel rig pulling a trailer. I guarantee that no one behind you will even notice you are driving a hybrid and accelerating gently. You'll stay in EV mode as long as possible, until the HVB (High Voltage Battery) is discharged far enough that the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) comes on to re-charge, AND you won't make anyone mad at you for accelerating slowly. *waste, because time is truly the only non-renewable resource for human beings.

Best possible explanation I've seen so far is that the code points to an error to do with the GPS system receiving invalid data: From 13FFH who posted in this Ford Fusion Hybrid forum thread: http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/8431-yellow-engine-and-hist-dtcs/ Service department extracted a bunch of "U" codes one of which was U046B:86-08, which looks like the C46B86 that was shown in the DTC ET window. U046B is "Invalid Data Received From Global Positioning System Module". But that kind of error would not seem at all related to your engine issues.

Welcome! Sorry to hear of your personal losses. Losing both your spouse AND an honest car salesman in a few short months? Wow! Glad you've found this forum and are enjoying the car. 2013 model-year C-MAX SE and SEL production began in the summer of 2012 and they were built as 2013's through December, 2013. 2014 model year production actually began in January 2014, and ends September 14, 2014. 2015 model year production will begin September 15, 2014. Depending upon where you looked up the date, your car could have been built either July 11, 2013, or November 7, 2013. Ford ETIS shows our build date at 11-4-2013, using the European and military tradition of day-month-year, but the door-jamb sticker shows 04-10-2013, using the US tradition of month-day-year.

Just got our $475 check from Ford, delivered via FedEx minutes ago. We purchased our 2013 C-MAX on March 26, 2014, "born on" date in April 2013. Maybe Ford is sending payments in production order?

If you have the lots of time, you can do the same search your dealer can do from Ford.com, and you can see the actual Monroney sticker listing VIN and options for each car. You won't get invoice price, or the exact location of the car. If the dealer you select first does not have the vehicle in inventory, the first dealer you select will still get your inquiry if you submit one about a specific vehicle. I quickly found 16 2014 C-MAX's listed in Blue Candy, using zip code 48235 as a starting point (Detroit), starting at $23,185 net/$25,685 list (SE, Equipment Group 200A, Blue Candy, Winter Package) and topping out at $29,735 net/$32,235 list (SEL, Equipment Group 302A, Blue Candy, Panoramic Sunroof, Remote Start). Another 100 or more C-MAX are in inventory, but NOT in Blue Candy. "Net price" is final cost after all available financing and rebate incentives that you might or might not qualify for, but before taxes, dealer charges, and license.

I saw what I think was a 1-minute version of that commercial during the final World Cup futbol game, Germany vs Argentina. The great news is that at least Ford Corporate PR is once again acknowledging that there IS a North-American C-MAX Hybrid model. For a while I was genuinely concerned that Ford was just going to pull the plug and not even introduce a 2015 C-MAX in any configuration. I guess showing the C-MAX doing a handbrake turn is about as evil (maybe more evil?) as advertising 47/47/47 without SHOWING Consumer's Union testers how to achieve those numbers in the real world. As the '600 (700/800) Mile Club' demonstrates, obviously real-world C-MAX drivers CAN achieve those numbers in the real world. Now watch as Consumers Union will blast Ford for demonstrating C-MAX 'emergency handling' driving maneuvers on TV that the Consumers Union "professional test drivers" will be totally unable to duplicate on their own test track, and ding Ford again. Do you suppose we expect a check next year from Ford as compensation for all the increased tire wear caused by all the C-MAX drivers attempting handbrake turns? ;)

Left (driver side button) controls the selected ambient color from the palette of 6 (I think) choices. The door pocket LEDs automatically turn red when the door is opened at night, regardless of ambient color palette selection.

The ambient lighting option is included on SE's with Equipment Group 201A and 203A, but not 200A (base SE model) or 202A (adds MyFordTouch and Sirius) Ambient llghting is standard on all SEL's and all Energi models (which are all SEL trim level). You need to be in a pretty dark area. Your own headlights in the garage are bright enough to overcome most of the effect, even at full ambient brightness. I think the car 'remembers' the last Ambient color setting, but I'm not positive, because I rarely drive it at night. Here are some pics. You select one color for all the ambient LED's at a time, so these are three different settings: Red in the cupholders: Purple in the footwell reflected by my son's mostly-white shoes: Green behind the door handles: (The lock/unlock buttons to the left are backlit in blue. The blue of the dash displays reflects on the door handle underneath and to the right.)

First 600+ mile tank today, our 3rd fill since purchase on March 26th, 2014. Pump showed 13.412 gallons, odometer displayed 614.3 miles, for a hand-calculated 45.802 mpg versus car's cheerfully optimistic display of 48.1 mpg.

Ford is constantly trying to help dealer service departments diagnose and correct customer issues. Don't forget Ford provides 5 years of free roadside assistance from date of purchase too. Be certain you've gotten all the software updates, any recall notices, keep in touch with your dealer service department, check these forums at least occasionally, and watch for imminent signs that your 12v battery is losing power. If you travel out of cellular-service range, far from service stations, or keep a tight schedule where waiting 30 minutes or an hour for a service vehicle to give you a jump start is not convenient, I recommend purchasing a small jump-starter battery for about $50 as 'insurance'. The car actually uses the High Voltage Battery to start the engine, but the car electronics need to be powered up for that to happen. We've owned our 'early' 2013 SE built in April 2013 with Equipment Group 201A and purchased new in March 2014 for almost 4 months. I've kept a log ever since we brought it home. We don't drive it every day, and some times we drive only short distances for days on end. Thus far we've had two dead battery incidents, both at home in the garage overnight, and the car hadn't been driven for at least the previous 24 hours or longer. Each time, I simply plugged in my trickle charger, and with power to the 12-volt battery, the car started immediately. As I'm learning more about the symptoms and causes, I'm NOW seeing correlations in my log when seemingly random occurrences now point to a low 12-volt battery charge, especially following a trip to the car wash, or driving on a rainy day. I'm still accumulating sufficient battery log data and soon I'll schedule an appointment with the dealer service manager to reprogram the restraints module per the recent recall notice, and hopefully address what appears to be a water intrusion issue causing battery discharge, in just one visit. You can check the actual voltage of the 12v using the 'Diagnostics' mode of the left steering wheel control buttons. To enter diagnostics mode, hold down the Left OK button while turning the key to 'on'. Keep holding OK until you see the 'Diagnostics' screens. Then use the up/down buttons on the left side to page through the dozen or so display screens until you see the Battery voltage screen as attached. When the car is 'on' but NOT in 'Ready to Drive' mode, the voltage should be 12.5 volts or greater. When the car IS in 'Ready to Drive' mode, it should show 13.9 or 14 volts or higher Here are some definite warning symptoms when the 12v battery charge is dropping in OUR car: The radio/CD player may suddenly give a 30 second warning that it is shutting down, especially when you listen to the radio or CD or when the car is linked to your phone via bluetooth after you've turned off the car but remained inside.When double-clicking the remote to lock the car, the horn gives a very weak beep.The rear lift gate may fail to power open or fail to power close and lock completely. If you try to lock the car with the lift gate or a door ajar, you'll get a double beep of the horn.The High Voltage Battery indicator icon in the left screen in our C-MAX SE goes completely blank (no blue at all, just a white outline) at least several hours before the voltage drops so low that the car won't unlock or start, yet the car drives properly in Hybrid mode. If driven far enough to recharge the battery, (10 or more miles of interstate highway driving) the indicator returns to normal the next time the car is started, and further low-voltage symptoms go away.The radio might not change stations at each button press, change stations with a long delay, or might not store stations properly.The center display clock might not have or keep the correct date and time.

I'm not a Ford representative. These are my opinions, and this is my attempt to summarize what I've learned, based upon several months of C-MAX SE ownership and a lot of reading in these forums and elsewhere. Most of the over 60,000 C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi owners have never experienced even one dead 12-volt battery. The 12-volt dead battery problems reported do not seem at all related to the lithium-ion High Voltage Battery (HVB) used to power the car in electric-hybrid mode. To summarize briefly, as of today, July 14th, 2014, of the 100 or so 2013 C-MAX owners reporting dead 12-volt batteries in this unscientific 2013 'dead battery poll' within these forums, the majority (about 60 of the 100) who experienced problems have the 2013 C-MAX SE, with either Equipment Group 200A (base car) or Equipment Group 201A (adds power tailgate, reverse object sensing, ambient lighting). The other 40 owners reporting problems were spread pretty evenly among the other SE and SEL and Energi SEL models and option groups with no more than about 5 in any other group. Cars built early in the 2013 model year, especially those built between the summer of 2012 and the summer of 2013 seem most affected. Very few 2014 C-MAX owners of any model or equipment group have reported multiple occurrences of dead batteries in these forums. There are several corrective actions taken by Ford that have, individually or collectively remedied many of the repeated dead battery problems experienced by many of the 2013 C-MAX owners who have posted messages in these forums: 1. Replacement of the factory-installed 12-volt battery. In some cases, the cars sat for long periods of time at the dealerships before being sold, or the 12-volt batteries were defective. 2. Customer Satisfaction Program 13B12, reprogramming one of the on-board computers. 3. Several corrective actions related to water intrusion of electrical connectors and/or the electric coolant pump under the front of the vehicle near the engine. Driving in wet weather or using a car wash can cause water intrusion in some connectors or electric-powered accessories near the engine. When wet, these can 'drain' the 12-volt battery power, eventually running the battery down as quickly as overnight, or over a few days. At that point, the remote unlocking no longer works, and the car must be opened with a key blade. In most cases, a jump start gets the 12-volt systems powered up and then the vehicle can be started again. This is not an exhaustive list of all the corrective actions and recalls taken with every vehicle, just the ones most frequently mentioned. Sometimes software updates do not 'take' correctly the first time. Apparently not every Ford dealer is well-equipped to address every Hybrid customer concern. So Ford corporate has three direct representatives who frequent these forums to offer assistance, FordService (Ashley) for most C-MAX issues and FordIVTteam (Rebecca) with Ford Sync issues. Canadian owners can contact FordServiceCA. If you're new to the forums, you must post at least 5 messages before you can use the Private Messaging (PM) feature to send any of them a private message directly. You can always post a public message in these forums asking for their assistance.

Momentarily hijacking the iPhone thread, here's an iPhone auxiliary battery pack that could solve two problems for C-MAX owners, the auxiliary battery to recharge your iDevice, and allegedly also has enough power to jump-start your vehicle. Since the C-MAX gets starting power from the High Voltage Battery, it needs just a little power to run the 12-volt systems when the 12v battery dies, so this might work. http://junopower.com/collections/junojumpr/products/jumpr-cars-best-friend-jumpstart-cars-on-the-go Brief overview from TUAW without testing the car-starting http://www.tuaw.com/2014/07/14/junojumpr-jumpstart-your-iphone-and-your-car/

I'll point out that the steering wheel both tilts and telescopes - the 'lock' permits both motions when unlocked, so adjusting(pulling) the steering wheel toward the driver might make the factory console armrest workable. I didn't realize it telescoped until I read about it in these forums.

I think I can safely say that EVERY C-MAX owner wants their car to be reliable 100% of the time. Ford wants to build cars that are reliable. Reliability is one of the factors that makes for happy customers. Ford dealers want happy customers too. Happy customers tell their inner circle about their great experience. Unhappy customers tell EVERYONE WHO WILL LISTEN about their bad experience! So become proactive, if you're not doing it already: Report your dead battery, and every other recurring problem you encounter, especially if you're not sure of the cause, because you're ultimately helping Ford and your dealer service department find solutions and apply fixes sooner and ultimately, helping all the other C-MAX owners. Call your dealer service manager to report a dead battery or other problem every time it happens. If they sense no urgency from you, they're less invested in getting YOUR car fixed, permanently. Call the Ford Customer Service 800# to report a dead battery every time it happens. Ditto. Use the free 5-year Ford Roadside Assistance for a jump-start whenever possible. Ditto. If your schedule doesn't allow for unexpected delays, you may wish to carry a 12v jump start battery for your convenience. Long term, keep a daily log of your driving habits. If all that writing is too much trouble, use your smartphone or camera to take snapshots or record audio memos of at least the left-hand trip display every day when you turn off the car. A daily log may reveal patterns that helps Ford and your dealer service department isolate, diagnose, and correct the problem for your car, and ultimately all C-MAX owners. A daily log is great supporting documentation if you decide to file a 'Lemon Law' claim later. What to document?First, what model and options and factory equipment group(s) does your car have?Enter your VIN number in place of the one at the end of the URL here to see the Monroney sticker showing your exact Ford or Lincoln vehicle and the factory-installed options. When was it built? The door-jamb sticker will reveal the exact date of manufacture. When did you buy it? When has the car been to the dealership for service? Which dealer? What problems did you report? What actions (including recalls and service advisories) were performed? What were the results? How far, when, and where was the car last driven? Include time of day, destination, outside temp, weather conditions, and any other unusual things you notice. Specifically for dead-battery events: Notice if each event follows within a few hours or days after a car-wash or driving the car in wet conditions? (Especially helpful if water intrusion into the electrical connectors is suspected.) Are there other symptoms of a low 12v battery charge several hours or days prior to a no-start event? Radio-system shut-down message, center console clock display incorrect, HVB display showing incorrect state of charge, radio not saving station presets or changing stations, unexpected error messages for other systems such as Dash lighting dimmer, MyKey, Start Fault, or the internal combustion engine running 100% of the time, to suggest a few.

That's just so offensive to so many people on so many levels! And another great reason why I don't have cable...

Outbacks, Legacys, Tribecas, and Toyota Camrys (until 2016) are assembled at the huge Subaru Indiana Automotive plant just up the road from me in Lafayette. One of my friends is on the final quality control team as the cars are driven off the line. They inspect and OK them them for sale to the marketing arm of Subaru who then ships them to dealers. Trying to keep up with buyer demand, Subaru keeps increasing assembly-line speed, so reducing the time to build and inspect each vehicle. Doing the same thorough job, ever faster, while maintaining quality is always a challenge.

Please do come back and tell us what vehicle you decide to buy!