Lance Merlees Gundersen

Been awhile. I'm following along with you guys and hope to install the foam inserts in my C-Max, Carly, today or tomorrow. Question, though. Regarding the oil pan heater, this is a plug in device for when the car is off, yes? For the sake of honesty and accuracy, does the electric cost of running the heater need to be factored into the total fuel cost of running the C-Max since we're basically trading off cold oil needing to heat up for warm oil that was heated by an outside source? It seems it would be similar to the whole e-mpg equation for plug-in hybrids like the Energi.

I think the issue here, MTB, is that one expects the car to achieve at or near the rated gas mileage under reasonably normal driving conditions and not through a bunch of tips and tricks that turn the vehicle into an eccentric hobbyists dream come true. It is fair to point out that those friends of mine with Prii treat their cars like crap. One even uses it to haul produce from farmer auctions for the local co-op. They all massively outperform the C-Max in MPG in all weather and all terrain conditions without a bunch of hokey tire over inflation, time wasting pulse and glide techniques and brain-surgery-like mental concentration making sure one's foot is providing an exactingly perfect pressure on the pedal to balance energy in/energy out on the battery. It's enough to make a person break into a cold sweat. Having said that, I very much enjoy the car. I bought it at roughly 16,000 miles used and just went over 23,500 miles on the way to work tonight. My to-work driving (10 miles back roads and 40 miles 65 mph highway) is hovering between 37-40 mpg without getting too anal on all the tips and tricks. My mixed city/country driving (the one time that ever occurred) was 41-43. I have no credible experience emptying a whole tank in city-only driving to be able to tell if mileage gets even better in that condition. Certainly, like most other people, I have individual trip averages that can approach 80 or 90 mpg, but I don't think my 1 mile each way run to the grocery store and back is properly representative of my normal driving. If I remember correctly, MTB you and Jus live in California. Scubadad lives in Florida. Scubadad probably has the absolute best environment because Florida is one big pancake. You and Jus might have a lot of hills, but there is a relative same-ness to your atmospheric temperature that doesn't exist in upstate NY. I NEVER expect to see the kind of mileage you guys achieve, and I am unwilling to devote more hours to my already 2 hours per day commute in order to achieve elusive legendary gas mileage figures. I am content with the 37 to 41 mpg because it is already more than twice what I was achieving with my 2013 Ford Escape Titanium. Unlike the horror stories Wendelina and others have written about here, I have not had any major engine or battery difficulties. I did have a neighbor back into the left side of the car and it was off to the dealer for repair for a month because of that. The dealership, Brown's Ford in Johnstown, NY, did a superb repair job, including replacing the driver door completely. I can't help but wonder how much of the problem some people are experiencing is dealer driven. My dealership (managed by a childhood friend of mine) is always on top of issues. Others, from what some of you are telling us, are a bit less so. I certainly hope the original poster, Wendelina, finds satisfaction. If I were her (him?) I would consider a new Ford dealership right away.

ScubaDadMiami: Sadly, there will be no dry suit for me in my immediate future. I only get to dive perhaps 4 to 6 times per year (work, family, work, other hobbies, work, honey-do lists and, if I forgot to mention it, work rather cuts in to my level of fun). I currently have a 3 year old Tilos 7 mil semi-dry seal suit in perfect operating condition. I'll end up staying with that until some time in the future when diving can actually become a reasonably common part of my life. Besides, I'm still rather new to it all and need a lot more skills training. My dive master, John Ball, is making that happen. Loved the cave diving clip, by the way. Cave diving is still a far off dream for me. I only had my first wreck dive in the St. Lawrence Seaway two years ago, and my first ocean dive in shallow water (40 feet) playing with seals off of Gloucester, MA last year. Regarding the cost for the gas pods, did I see somebody above post a price of over $500.00 :drool: ? Surely that was a mistake. Less shipping and handling (tax, tag and title too) they appear to be $54.95 for nine of the little buggers at www.gaspods.com. Salsaguy, I'll eventually get around to the test you suggest, but since I'm already seeing improvements (a couple of individual runs in the 50+ range! Woo Hoo!) I'm disinclined to use my extremely limited spare time doing research when I instead could be out sailing. Let me tell all of you that as I am becoming more accustomed to the vehicle my mileage is improving. Naturally, as all of you have indicated, my high proportion of highway miles has a negative effect. There's not too much I can do about that, unless the gas pods work (which is why I'm following this thread). My per tank average has moved up from 33 to 36mpg, Individual trips in the local area are now hitting in the 40's with a few into the 50's now. I will say that I puffed up like a peacock (no, it wasn't the excessive number of hamburgers!) when I managed, even with all my highway miles, to start my journey at 39.1 mpg and finish it 12 hours later on my return from work at 39.2 mpg. I now know that it is, in fact, possible to maintain decent gas mileage even with the highway component. And for those of you in the 50+ club, please understand my reason for getting the vehicle was that my 2013 2.0 liter Ford Escape, as nice a vehicle as it was, was only averaging 18-21 mpg. So doubling my gas mileage in the C-Max was my goal - a goal I've met. Anything else is just icing on the cake.

Since our last dialog on this, I found that raising the tire pressure did lead to improvement. Slowly implementing some of the techniques all of you have mentioned has helped (though nothing, really, helps life on the highway). I'm only on my fifth fill-up (which amazes me all by itself!) and averaging about 38.4 mpg. Today's mpg was 56.4 right up until I hit the highway. Bummer dat. The next thing is to see if this whole gas pods deal actually has some value in it. By the way, I'm into scuba diving too. We just came back from a DUI dry suit demonstration dive in Gloucester, MA.

ptJones; Sorry for leaving out those particulars. I live in upstate New York (an old industry city called Gloversville) and commute 49.5 miles to Glenmont, just south of Albany, NY. The weather here covers the entire range annually from bitter, frigid winters to blazing hot (and often humid) summers. Gloversville is at the base of the Adirondack Mountains, so my route to work is generally downhill into the Mohawk Valley before hitting the New York State Thruway to Albany/Glenmont. Unfortunately, that means it's all uphill on the way back - a few straightaways and downhill slopes but generally uphill. I bought the car used at a tad more than 16,000 miles I was initially going to buy a C-max in November 2013, but chickened out. Then, I discovered the trade-in value of the Escape I bought was only $900 less than the purchase price of the used C-max my dealer had on the lot, realized that the Escape was costing me over $200/month more than my previous gas costs (from a Ford Focus), and decided that it was worth the shift to a C-max to at least double my range (incidentally, I saw a $75 reduction in monthly payment, what appears to be a $150.00 monthly decrease in fuel expenses and a $47 semi-annual insurance reduction) So far, that reasoning has worked out well. Since my last post I'm on a trip to Maryland to visit family and learn some sailing skills. We're up to 38.2 mpg for the journey and that includes using cruise control on the highways and babying the car on city streets to the point of annoying my girlfriend. My regen score is 94%. It was 96% until some stop and go traffic in New Jersey began impacting it. I have yet to do the tire inflation trick. I think I can get to that on the return trip Sunday. Other than the occasional warm blooded body, I'm not carrying anything extra in the vehicle normally. Of course, on vacation I have luggage. It's looking like I'm set to get 458 miles out of the current tank - my third. That's just great compared to the Escape. That one tank has lasted me from Orient, NY, on the northeastern tip of Long Island where this tankful began (long, unrelated story how we got there) to Annapolis, and then from Annapolis to Washington, DC and back. It says I still have 83 miles to go, but, then, I took a roughly 100 mile round trip to Washington when it said I had 137 miles left and ended it with 83 miles left. I'd say that's pretty good. So, yes, I love the vehicle. My skeptics nature just doesn't understand how anyone can routinely double the recommended mpg. Those stats, by the way, do not seem to exist on Fuelly, where I would expect them to shine out as super outliers on the fuel chart there. That adds to my skepticism (though I do allow for the possibility Fuelly is not being used - which is a shame since seeing those stats would be a real welcome bit of news to the vast majority of C-max owners stuck in the high 30's and low 40's.

I've had my C-Max for a mere five days now and would just absolutely LOVE to know how you are racking up numbers like that without having a horse in front towing it. Don't get me wrong, I love the car and at 36-38 mpg I've doubled what I was getting in my 2013 Escape (and thereby halved my costs). that was my initial goal, and it has been successful. For the record, I haven't even finished my first full tank in this vehicle so I am the absolute greenest of newbies and I am humbly aware of that fact. I just see 80 mpg and (like you, Mr. Skeptical! :) ) I can only think, "Wow, give this guy an Energi and 200 mpge is a real possibility! Now, for stats. I have a 50 mile commute to work and back with about: 35 of that on 70+ mph highways10 on roads that are mostly down hill heading to work and uphill going home5 miles are a mixed bag with a small hill that probably doesn't amount to much in the mpg game. I'm a regular driver with a long commute. I'm not interested in adding an hour to my drive by creeping along at 35 mph in EV mode, or hypermiling behind some trucker just waiting to become a spattered fly on his rear door. i assume, since it sounds like you, Jus, are also a reasonably long distance commuter, you are not interested in spending half your life behind the wheel either. Given that as the case, how on Earth are you racking up numbers like that?! My brake score is >95. I religiously use Grade Assist, and I try hard to avoid cruise control for any reason in town in order to work the battery as much as possible. And 36-38 mpg is what I'm seeing for that effort. I am, by the way, convinced that in a few years we'll be looking back at these cars as the standard transmission equivalents of the auto industry. There is just waaaaay too much thought that has to go into this.