Ryan McEachern

I was up too Laurel! Very good game, although Sweden didnt have anything left in the tank by the third period. Not a really fair contest with so many excellent swedes out due to injuries. That being said, it sure felt good to hear that beautiful anthem again!!! The only anthem sung in that building(twice). Oh Canada!

Very cool!

I wonder if the european C-max comes with an "SL" trim option and in the beginning they thought to call it that here too?

Okay, I understand what you are saying now. My personal experience is quite different. I have 20,000 km on the car now, under a lot of different conditions, and I achieve the best MPG at the slowest speeds. The slower I can drive, the less gas I burn getting to the destination - I haven't figured out how slow is too slow, but there is a stiff penalty in going fast in my situation. We do a cross-province trip that is about 800 km round trip, and it is obvious, that in my situation, the slower I drive, the more efficient the car is. When we are in a rush, we cruise at 10-20 above the speed limit, so figure about 120-140 km/h, mixed terrain. When we are not in a rush, we drive the speed limit, or 5 over, and burn much less fuel on the trip. The very best efficiency I have seen on the highway trips was when there was a pretty good blizzard going on, and I was slowed to 50-60 km/h for a lot of the trip. The city driving follows the same pattern. Picking a route that keeps my speed to 50-60 km/h burns far less fuel that routes that have 80 or 90 km/h sections in them. Each to their own I guess.

MacGyver, I have followed this thread with interest, but I need you to explain to me slower and more carefully how you came to decide that 75mph is the C-Max's most efficient speed. As a physics guy, I just can't make sense of it. I have an open mind about these things, so lay it on me.

I am on a blackberry and laptop, and use the mobile version exclusively. The forum automatically switched to the mobile version as soon as I log in, even from a totally different PC, so it must be the Forum itself that is remembering my preference

nice work!

Dijman, yes that sounds about right.

You can't just remove the steering wheel and turn it a bit and put it back on anymore. The steering wheel is index keyed to the shaft and will only go on one way. Older vehicles could be adjusted in this fashion, but not for a long time. Sorry for the bad luck. Perhaps you will end up having to jump a curb again to avoid a collision, or get pushed into a curb, or something like that will happen this winter, and the off-kilter steering wheel may end up fixed at the same time as the new damage.

Mamalou, I just looking on-line at some diferent crockpots, and was amazed to see that some only drew 125 watts on the low setting, and one even says 60 watts on the keep warm setting, so I was wrong. Depending on your crock pot, you could very well run it off the on-board inverter, as long as it is under 150 watts. Look on the bottom of the appliance, it should say the amperage needed, and times that by 120 volts to get the wattage. It may say the wattage needed instead, which is even easier. Let me know! The one we have just says 600 watts, but I bet that is only for the high setting, and would be lower on low.

That's amazing. My Mom has had Anna's stay before, but it is a bit hit and miss. We built a house quite close to hers, but only seem to get Rufous. I have lots of different foliage planted for my beehives, but the hummers don't seem to like our yard that much. Too many bees perhaps? We have a red fox hanging around this winter though, which is very cool, a first for us. Back on topic of winter driving in the snow, we are headed up to Chase on Tuesday - it's an odd numbered year, so we spend Christmas with my in-laws. I have had the blessing of rescuing a few folks on our winter jaunts, but I am having a hard time figuring out where to put my shovel in the C-max. With my truck, and the old minivan, there was never really a limit to gear, just throw whatever you want in there.... now everything has to be considered carefully. I guess I'll have to get a compact shovel to go with our compact car. :)

Laurel, Yes, definitely going to be a learning curve for me/us with the regenerative braking coming on when on hill assist. The effect of hill assist to the driver is just like the front brakes ONLY coming on, on their own, usually right when you dont want them on. On our drives back and forth to Chase and Kamloops, we have been careful to turn the hill assist OFF anytime the roads aren't totally bare. Driving in the "L" setting on the eCVT will have the same effect, when you take your foot off the gas in "LOW" it is just like having ONLY the front brakes applied lightly.(This can be dangerous in some situations) Merry Christmas! edit: spelling

Hey John, I am also 6'4". We have the panoramic roof. The amount of headroom is staggeringly huge. You will have no problem at all. My hair rubbed on the roof of the Prius we test drove, but no matter how high and upright i put the seat in the c-max, there is still a large gap above my head.

No, even a small crockpot draws 600w. The max sustained wattage of the on-board inverter is 150w. Your best bet is to get the crock pot extra good and warm with your product inside, then wrap it up with multiple layers of towels, and put it in a box, then garbage bag over it all. The product will stay hot for an amazing long time. We have a big cast iron dutch oven that works well for this, I suppose a ceramic brown betty would work too.

Hey Laurel, I made three trips to town today in the C-max too, I chose it over the truck to give it a good test. I was pretty impressed - I didn't notice the back end breaking free at all, but the Energi has a much, much heavier battery back there, so maybe that helped. What tires did you go with? We are running Michelin x-ice3. Sounds like you north shore folks got more snow than us valley folks, as expected I guess. We are sitting right at 12cm exactly right now, switching between a light rain and snow.

With bulbs included and free shipping, that is an amazing deal!

drdiesel1, Yeah, there is a lot of funny bits and pieces of old tech vocabulary left in the manual. Some of it is probably intentional so that people can relate better to what is going on under the hood, in terms that they recognize from their previous car.

We have a CVT, so there is no overdrive. The hill assist just uses the regeneration circuit and/or resistance from spinning the engine to hold your speed to whatever it is when you push the button, when the car would otherwise speed up when coasting downhill. It does nothing when the car is not coasting downhill. It is very useful to stop the car from overrunning the speed limit on long downgrades. The rational for turning it off sometimes, is that in some situations it actually makes more sense to allow the car to coast faster downhill, rather than recharging the battery, because you are just going to have to use the energy to get up the hill that is coming on the other side.

Never had a problem with Sony or Panasonic or IBM power adapters working with square wave or modified wave inverters. Sometimes the adapter runs a little hotter than normal, but never had a problem.

We were just on a holiday on the big island of Hawaii, and were pleased to see two c-max hybrids in the same town as us while we were there. I think one had a "z" for the first letter of the license plate. Does that mean it was a rental car? Anyway, very cool to see. It was frustrating to drive the fancy new Nissan we rented - our Ford at home was much better!

Hey Laurel, Something is not right with your upgrade. try the reset, then try to get it reinstalled if its no better. If you don't have any luck out there with your dealer, maybe try West Coast Ford/Lincoln out here in Maple Ridge. They seemed pretty eager to play with our C-max when it came in, and knowledgeable. They called a couple times to find out what my actual mileage has been, and got me to come in and talk to a potential C-max Energi customer once. p.s. - 17,000 km on ours so far, things still going perfect!. Best car we have ever owned between the two of us. p.p.s. - going to get really cold for us next week!! :(

The Canadian numbers have always been unrealistic. This is due to totally different testing methods. I have always considered the canadian numbers to be what a decent hyper-miler could achieve under ideal conditions. Laurel, as unrealistic as our Canadian C-max stickers were, consider the expectations that came when the 2011 Prius was sold in Canada, it shipped with a window sticker of 3.7/4.0 l/100km, totally over-the-top!! Your dealer should have informed you that NO CANADIANS ever hit the window sticker numbers, but that they are equally unrealistic for all companies. Here are THREE samples I picked at random from the .pdf to show how different the US and Canada ratings are. I have converted all units from the original l/100km into US gallons per mile, because most of our readers are American. MAZDA 2 Canada = 31/39 US = 27/33 SUBARU IMPREZA AWD Canada = 23/31 US = 20/26 TOYOTA PRIUS Canada = 64/59 US = 51/48 Here is link to some info from the Canadian equivelent of the EPA, notice that the average speed in the city test is only 32km/hour, and in the highway test, is only 77km/hour. Notice how they do two city tests, one cold start, and one hot start, but only one highway test, with warm engine. Notice how the 18 stops in 23 minutes, and 4 minutes of idling time in the city test really favour the hybrids in the Transport Canada test. http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/oee.nrcan.gc.ca/files/pdf/transportation/tools/fuelratings/fuel-consumption-guide-2011.pdf Here is an passage that deals with the testing: "The FTP is composed of two tests – the city test and the highway test. Simulated city course The city test simulates a 12-km, stop-and-go trip with an average speed of 32 km/hour (km/h) and a top speed of 91 km/h. The test runs for 23 minutes and includes 18 stops. About four minutes of test time are spent idling, to represent waiting at traffic lights. The test begins from a cold engine start, which is similar to starting a vehicle after it has been parked overnight during the summer. When the test is completed, the test cycle starts again with a hot engine start, and the first eight minutes of the test are repeated. This simulates restarting a vehicle after it has been warmed up, driven and then stopped for a short time.6 2011 Simulated highway course The highway test simulates a 16-km trip with an average speed of 77 km/h and a top speed of 97 km/h. The test runs for 13 minutes and does not include any stops. However, the speed varies to simulate different kinds of highway and rural roads. The test begins from a hot engine start. Fuel consumption values from these test cycles are calculated from the emissions generated. The fuel consumption ratings, shown in the Guide, are generated based on fuel consumption values from the laboratory testing and are averaged based on Canadian production volumes. They are then adjusted, using Canadian factors, to reflect real-world driving conditions. For more information on vehicle fuel consumption testing, visit TC’s FCP Web site at www.tc.gc.ca/fcp"

Laurel, Yes, the rain is back with us, eh? :( Our Energi EV range has drops from mid-40km per charge down into mid 20km per charge with heat defrost use. Like others have said, the defrost is the cause here. It uses both the A/C compressor, AND the heat. Obviously, if people are getting in and out of the car with wet clothes, wet boots, etc - there is nothing you can do, you will have to keep running the defrost to keep up. The amount of super-high humidity days we get here are hard to deal with, but I have found that starting out with some defrost, then switching to vents after a few minutes is sometimes all that is needed to keep those windows clear. Limit the amount of water that comes into the cabin space - it all has to be removed by the defrosting system or it condenses on the coldest surface it can find, usually the windows. -Ryan p.s. Up to 13,000 km on our C-max now, we caught up and passed you!

Grade assist will use regen to try to maintain your speed when being pulled downhill by gravity. If you engage it at 50 miles per hour, it will apply progressively more are more regen as you speed up past 50 rolling downhill. It will not apply the friction brakes though. In one sense it is like a reverse cruise control for downhills. I like it very much. Using low gear, is just forcing the regen to maximum as soon as you let off the gas pedal. It is useful for slowing down the car as fast as possible without using the friction brakes, however, once you drive the car for a while, you will get a feel for how much you can push the brake pedal to get max regen, without using any friction brakes. The problem with using low is that coasting is always more effecient that regenerating power and then burning it again, so for downhill driving, it is better to use "D" and engage hill assist to hold your speed down, because then it will let you coast more once the speed drops below the hill assist threshold. (yes, I know there is still a little regen all the time in "D", but it is much closer to coasting than "L")

Where do you live/work Bruce? We are in Maple Ridge, BC.