Ryan McEachern

Gas gauges aren't accurate like that. The drop downwards is not linear, and different parts of the gauge drop faster or slower, depending on the resistance in the float switch, and the shape of the tank. All my cars have done this. The worst one I have is my 1969 chevy truck, which drops all the way down to 1/4 tank left in the first half of the fuel used, then slowly drops the remaining quarter tank over the next half of fuel used.

Heavy rain will not be a problem for this car. As a resident of coastal BC I can tell you ours has been tested to the limit of driving visibility severeal times since March, with no issues. :)

The reason they are saying the 7 mpg shortfall at 47 isn't that bad, and comparing it to a 2 mpg shortfall at 24 is because using mpg isn't a linear comparison. On a 1000 mile trip with a car that you expected to get 47, but actually got 42 - you would have expected to buy 21.3 gallons of fuel, but actually had to buy 23.8 gallons. That is 2.5 gallons extra for the 1000 miles. On the same trip with a car that you expected to get 24, but actually only got 22 mpg - you would have expected to buy 41.7 gallons of fuel, but actually had to buy 45.5 gallons of fuel. That is an extra 3.8 gallons of fuel for the 1000 miles. So, in actual fact, have a car fall short by 7 mpg at the 47 mark, is going to cost you a lot less "extra money" than having a car fall short only 2 mpg at the 24 mpg mark. This is one area where the metric measurement of liters per 100 km really works better, much easier to compare what you are actually spending between cars. EDIT - I typed a 7, where there should be a 5, first sentence of the last paragrah. I won't change it because I don't want to screw up the message immediately below this one in the thead, but I meant to say 5 mpg short at the 47 mark. :)

I'm pretty sure "normal cars" get the best mileage at way less than 45 mph. I don't have access to documentation right now, but from personal experience I would say its more like 50 km/h, or less. Maybe way less. I would guess the mileage just gets better the slower you go, until you reach the point where the majority of the fuel is being spent to overcome the friction of the drivetrain, at which point it would make sense to speed up.

I am still waiting to see another C - Max or C - Max Energi in the wild. So far I have only seen the dealer's car, our own car, and the nice red one that came in on the same truck as ours to our dealer in Maple Ridge. Anyone in metro Van lurking on here? Laurel, I see the C - Max made it into the Province paper again. Page C7.

Laurel, I have found that having all the windows down approx 3/4 of an inch works well for me, So far I only use AC when the kids are in the car (DaaaAAAAAaaad, I'm tooooooo HOT!) Our garage stays pretty cool so the car usually starts out at a pretty comfortable temperature, I did seek out the shady parking spots while in town this weekend though. Good luck on your upcoming freeway trip, I have been pleasantly surprised at how good the highway fuel economy is with the C-max, especially after hearing all the horror stories from down south, but I guess our speed limits are so much lower up here that it makes a difference.

Laurel, Just went for two quick trips to gather data. Exact same starting and stopping point. Route is along lougheed hwy for 7km, then up into the whonnock hills, and then back to the starting point on back roads. Trip one, 15km, AC on low, blower on high 5.6Le/100 Trip two, 15km, no AC, no blower, all 4 windows cracked, 4.4Le/100 So it would appear that the AC can take away 20-25 percent of your fuel economy if the conditions call for it. I noticed that having the AC maxed out really drives the numbers bad at slow speeds, not so noticeable at higher speeds, I guess because the energy used to cool the car is spread out over more km when driving fast, the penalty per km is less. I took photos and will post then in a separate thread later.

Laurel, Good - those numbers seem more reasonable. We did a trip from Maple Ridge out go Coquitlam and back this afternoon, slow speed driving, nothing over 80km, had the AC set to 21, blower on 5 out of 7 bars. Outside temperature was between 29 and 32 degrees. I had air recirculation on most if the time, except the fresh air turns on automatically after each stop, so I forgot to turn it back to recirculation for a while. 35.6 km, 5.0Le/100km I'll go do a test drive with the AC cranked to max just out of curiosity. What an amazing hot spell recently and on the horizon, surely we are breaking records left, right, and center?

Laurel, The AC has a very minor impact on the mpg. You have so few miles on that car that I don't think you will get any value out of a fuel cleaner. I doubt you have bad fuel, although you may be running on an ethanol blend. Most of our gas up here is still 0% ethanol, but Husky and Mohawk both use ethanol blended gasoline. Was it a Husky or Mohawk you fueled up at this week? The type of fuel will not be causing this problem though, those 10 and 11 runs are way too high for that. When you say you don't go into EV downhill, do you mean that's because your foot is off the pedal? or is the engine idling even when coasting down I have to make a 40km run this afternoon, and I will do it in hybrid mode just to test some things out. If you don't see an improvement today, maybe we should meet for a coffee somewhere and I could check out a few things. I am certainly curious what could cause average runs of over 10, that's about what this car would burn if it had a v6 squeezed under the hood and a regular powertrain. You could use the info screens to make sure the climate control is not drawing an unnatural amount of power.

amoredsaint, no - the cargo 12 volt plug does not time out. It is always hot. very handy for connecting small chargers, or a solar panel to keep your 12v topped up

Laurel, Hello neighbour! We are also enjoying then good weather. We have also been getting 4.0-5.0 l/100 km once the plug in battery is depleted. This sudden low mpg you are experiencing is not normal, and you should hunt down its cause ASAP. Like others have said, check the tires, do this even if you don't have a gauge, for the tires to cause this dramatic decline you would notice a soft tire just by pushing on the side wall. Check that there is nothing hung up under the car, there has been so much construction around here lately. Like mentioned, put the rpm up on your my view screen and go for a spin, report your findings. Someone else will have some numbers to compare it to. Actually, your downhill numbers are so high I wonder if you are even going into EV? Does your battery gauge discharge and charge normally, or does it seem really high all the time lately? I'm tempted to come over to your side and take your car for a spin, my curiosity is certainly piqued. Give us more data!! Lots of troubleshooters and problem solvers on here.

Max range isn't a practical contest for the Energi, If I didn't take the C-max on an occasional road trip, i don't think my wife would have half a tank burnt yet, and she is over 3000 km....

Too short for a c max.

Sorry that happened to you. On the plus side, you will be one of the first early adopters to get upgraded to MFT 3.5 ;)

Thanks for that. For what its worth, my blackberry 9900 and Z10 both work flawlessly with SYNC and text to speech.

Welcome Fotomax! Everyone here is pretty nice, it's a great place to learn! Watch out for that C-Maxer though. Nothing but trouble that guy.

It depends your speed. Air resistance is a big drag (ha ha), so at a high speed lots of potential energy gets wasted pushing air around. - so that would say to slow the car down and store some energy into the battery. On the other hand, there are efficiency losses in both storing the energy as electricity, and then turning it back into mechanical energy. Someone would have already done the science on this, but I have been following my gut feeling by using the brake to regenerate some power, as long as I can tell the hill will still provide enough speed to coast me to where I would normally either apply the gas again, or come to a stop in the case of traffic or lights, etc.

total trip was 504 miles. about half was in ev (279). Nice numbers by the way.

The bigger issue here is, how is water getting inside the hatch? Obviously it us better to remove the stickers and let it our, but it really, really, should not be getting inside that space.

It's no just that they don't display, it also turns them off until you go back in and turn them on in the settings. It is definitely tied to something I do, because the lines will stay for days when my wife drives, but disappear as soon as I take it for a spin. Thanks for the tip, I will try pausing before backing out of the garage.

I believe it. Constant headwind is an absolute killer on a bicycle, not surprising it sucks up the fuel too.

Sounds perfect, did you check that the seat doesn't contact the radio when folded down? They drop quite a bit as they fold.

Scary stuff, glad you are okay!

Interesting question. My wife and I both try to take the C-max out when we go anywhere, but she generally gets it the most (okay, she wins all the time) so I do end up driving the old minivan mostly. I have noticed that I "surf" the terrain now when driving the minivan, a direct carry-over from the driving style i picked up in the C-max. I can tell I am getting way better economy in the minivan now, because it is taking forever to get through this tank. There is no read-out in this bare-bones van at all. odometer and trip meter is all i get, so i have to wait until i fuel up to confirm that my changed driving style has made a difference. I think if this van would give me as much info as the c-max, i would definitely find the sweet spots and use them to save money.

Laurel, that link seems to be down. This one is up, let's see if it stays. http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/cars/Ford+offers+pleasure+drive+hybrid/8201178/story.html?rel=5104655