mlsstl

Scottwood2 hit the nail on the head. Ford simply isn't putting any more work/money into the C-Max because it has been discontinued. All the design effort for new features in a hybrid are going to go into the new model, which is still two or three years away from being on the showroom floor. Keep in mind that Ford executives made the decision about the C-Max's fate well before the news became public a year ago, hence the dearth of major changes to the model over its lifespan.

That is a perfect example of my prior comment. Why would any web site operator program their site in a manner that runs poorly on a major web browser used by a significant percentage of their users? A lot of people will never try other browsers or switch -- they'll just have a hard time viewing or participating in the web site. Some will just quit (as did the original poster). Others will stick around but not engage as much as they might otherwise, and they certainly won't have those good fuzzy feelings a web site owner want all their visitors to have.

Keep in mind that things do change over the years. The use of break-in oil to capture metal debris from the machining process (and therefore the need for an early first change of the oil) dates back many years to older production processes. Modern manufacturing and quality control techniques give high precision tolerances that used to be impossible and leave just-manufactured engines much cleaner than they used to be. (Also keep in mind that oil filters really do keep debris out of circulation.) However, it is human nature for most of us to hang on to the rules we learned early in life and are reluctant to let go in the face of change or new knowledge, whether it is how to break in a car engine or another subject. For me, I'm willing to follow the manufacturer's instructions. In roughly 45 years of car ownership, I can't say I've ever had a malfunction that I feel I could blame on my not doing more than the maintenance schedule called for. But, if someone else wants to do more for their car, its no skin off my teeth.

I am always amazed as to how many web sites let advertisers ruin the user experience. First, it hurts the users who are interested in that web site, and second, why would any advertiser want viewers cursing their ad? It also bothers me when a web designer comes up with a site that works with some web browsers but poorly with others. Again, why would the operators of the web site wish to make things difficult for a fair percentage of their users? Weird.

Maxheadroom - 2 comments. First, regarding " When you're out of gasoline in a normal pure-gasoline (ICE or C-Max) car, or out of battery charge in a pure-battery (BEV) car, your car quits cold, and nobody gets sued because that's all physics will allow." You grossly underestimate the imagination of the plaintiff's bar. There have been plenty of lawsuits over cars suddenly stalling in traffic due to an empty gas tank. Second, regarding your comment about the issue happening "over and over again" for 80 miles. I would argue that the driver is an idiot. Why would you continue driving in unsafe conditions? Pull over to the side and call for help. Most space saving spare tires have a distance limit of 50 or so miles and a speed limit of 50ish -- limitations quite similar to the REX in limp mode. The tire was designed to only get you to the next stop where you could get a real tire back on the car. Is it the tire's fault if the driver leaves it on for a couple hundred miles and goes 70 or 80 mph or the driver drives 50 mph in heavy high speed traffic causing problems for others? At what point do you look at a person and say "you're an idiot. You bought the wrong car!"?

As a point of information, the REX's backup gas generator comes on much sooner in European models (in fact, I think you can turn it on anytime you wish.) That wasn't permitted in the U.S. version in order to meet the EV requirements in California. The generator cannot come on until a certain battery depletion level is reached. Even the size of the gas tank was limited -- California rules said the car could not drive further with the engine running than it could on battery power alone. This is hardly the first time that rules in one or a few states affected products that are sold in all 50 states.

Nope. I fully understood that was the situation when I considered the car last year. It is disclosed in the owners manual and the info is readily available with even a modicum of research. The i3 has several discussion forums similar to this one where you can read about all manner of praise and complaints. The REX is an emergency backup system -- an electric car equivalent to carrying a spare gas can around. Another analogy is a space saving spare. They are only good for a few miles and at very limited speeds. They are only intended to get you to a spot where the situation can be correctly addressed. Yes, some people will buy a city car and take it on a highway. Some people carry mattresses on top of their cars because the interior isn't big enough, or drive around with their tailgate open with lumber sticking out. Some people try to take their sports car off-road, and so on. Any car that has ever been sold has its limitations and people find a way to exceed them. Rather like buying a hammer and then complaining it won't drill a precise 1/4" countersunk hole in a 2X4. "I'm suing!"

I've test driven an i3 and it is a very good car, fast and fun to drive, but it is designed for a very specific use -- it is an urban use vehicle. It comes in two models. One is electric only and has no gas engine at all. The other, the "REX" model, has a small gas engine. It is not hooked up directly to the power train in any fashion; it simply runs a generator that will recharge the battery, basically for emergency situations. The gas engine limitations have far more to do with tax credits in California than anything else. If the backup generator engine and gas tank had been any bigger, it would not have qualified as an electric car under the law. Once again, a case of "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." The C-Max hybrid is basically designed as an all-purpose car to get more mileage out of a gas engine situation. The Energi can be electric only, but only in a fairly limited set of situations. The i3, including the REX, is designed as an all-electric, all-the-time, urban only vehicle. Anyone who gets caught by surprise by the speed limitation with a depleted battery didn't bother reading the instructions. It's a limp mode.

Regarding 4WD in hybrids, Subaru does have a hybrid version of their all-wheel drive Crosstrek, but the gas mileage increase is quite marginal. The main benefit seems to be some extra torque off the line. I suspect the car was mainly an experiment for the company and also a token for a certain segment of their customer base -- Subaru is known for many of their buyers having a very active, outdoor lifestyle so there are going to be a number of serious greenies in that group.

I'll second what Zalusky said. I forget the details, but I read a few months ago that Ford has a completely updated hybrid in the works for 2018 or so that would be replacing the C-Max. Don't remember if they said they were going to keep the name or not (though I've never thought that "C-Max" was a particularly catchy name for a car.)

I second the motion - only $1,500 for 13,000 fewer miles works out to 11.5 cents per mile. Strikes me as a pretty good deal. Of course that assumes the overall pricing on either is acceptable. You didn't indicate how much was being asked for either of them.

Most of the gas sold in the US has 10% ethanol content. Ethanol has less energy than gas, so E10 gas generally gives 1 or 2 miles less per gallon than straight gasoline. I'd be very surprised if you're not putting E10 in your car now. The stations that have E0 available are pretty few and far between in my experience/ The pump should have a sign on it somewhere that says whether their gas contains ethanol or not.

"En route" did not apply in either situation noted above. The first dealer later assured me on the phone the three cars were all on their lot and they were quite embarrassed that one of their salesmen didn't know their inventory. At the second lot, I've seen the red C-Max on their lot for months as I've driven by -- I think one of the salesmen was driving it on his day off Thursday. My whole point is that many Ford dealers just don't seem very prepared to sell this particular car.

I know this thread has sat quietly for the last 9 months, but the title seemed like a good place to recount my experiences this week. We've started shopping for what is going to replace our Mini Clubman and the C-Max is back in play. However, as the primary driver of the Mini, my wife has a much larger say in how this goes. The interesting part is last weekend I stopped by a Ford dealer -- the 2nd closest to my house -- and was told there were no C-Maxes in stock. That evening, when I checked their web site, it said they had three in inventory. In a subsequent phone call they assured me they had plenty for me to look at -- things changed quickly when they found they had screwed-up with an on-site customer visit. Then, yesterday afternoon, I finished a work appointment early and stopped by the Ford dealer closest to my house on the way home. They said they had none (though I did peruse the Escapes), but, again last evening, they showed a red C-Max as being in stock. (My experience in buying a car last fall indicated that dealers were very good about keeping their web sites very current as respects inventory.) The story was "they can't keep them in stock" even though that red C-Max SE has been in their inventory for months now. Weird, but I guess that is how car salesmen get and keep their reputations. So, the saga continues in a similar vein to my prior experience -- just not much C-Max enthusiasm or awareness from the dealers.

You could ask the dealer for a test ride in another C-Max off the lot and see if it is making the same noise under the same conditions. That should go a long way toward settling the question of whether yours is acting "normally".

I got my drivers license in October 1968 in Springfield, MO. We routinely had gas wars around town that kept the price at around 18 cents a gallon and sometimes a bit lower. It always irritated me when it went past 20 cents. But, that magic kingdom completely disappeared in 1973 when the oil embargo arrived.

Very few people buy a car based only on the financial numbers involved. Yes, most people have a budget that heavily influences the process, but even then there are usually a lot of cars in each category to choose from. New C-Max prices run from the low $20s to the $30s -- there are dozens and dozens of cars to choose from in that price range. Emotion plays a major role. I think this is particularly true for hybrid shoppers and perhaps rabidly so for those buying an EV -- there is often an element of "making a statement" to show where you stand. That situation gets complicated a bit by the fact that many (most?) buyers don't think real hard about the post-purchase operating costs like insurance, personal property taxes and maintenance/repair. In fact, a lot of car salesmen are trained to focus only on getting to the desired monthly payment, regardless how ill equipped that leaves the buyer to deal with those other costs or even how upside down they are in the loan. Lots of emotion and impulse typically involved in the process and the car dealers like it that way!

New 2015 C-Max SEs are going for about $22K in our area. As for the EVs, I think you are usually getting into year 4 or 5 before you start noticing any decrease in the battery. What I've read is that at the end of 8 years (a typically battery warranty period) that you should still be at 70% or more of the original capacity.

Deleted duplicate post.

Left a message with the local Mercedes dealer the other day and heard back yesterday. They said that the Class B Electric car is not being released nationwide and our region (St. Louis area) will not be getting the car. I suspect that is true for many other areas in the U.S.

Some of us are simply interested in cars and actually read a variety of user forums for several different cars. Is that OK? I follow the Volvo forum even though I no longer own one, as well as this forum and the one for BMW, though I don't own either car. I also follow the Mini and Subaru forums, the brands of cars we currently do drive. In the case of the C-Max, it is a car I'm still interested in as we will probably trade our Mini sometime within the next year or so. I'd actually like to see Ford come up with a solid diagnosis and announce that they have cured the problem. . I realize that a car that doesn't start is not as bad as a car that quits running in heavy traffic, but neither does that make unpredictable starting acceptable behavior in a new vehicle. Different people draw the line for "acceptable" in different spots.This problem started in the 2013 vehicles and we are now well into 2015 with still no firm solution. I'd like to see that change. Now, if my comments are simply not welcome since I'm not a current owner, let me know and I'll take the hint.

None of the Mercedes dealers in the St. Louis area have one, but I believe I've seen them listed in the inventory of some California dealers.

For me, and many others, the issue was not the cost of maintenance but rather the extra measure of unpredictability. It is one thing to go 4 or 5 years and have to buy a new battery -- that's pretty much a way of life with any car on the road. However, with the C-Max it has been the noticeable number of cars with multiple battery failures in the first year and Ford's seeming inability to diagnose, much less fix, the problem with certainty. While things seem to be better with the newer model years, we're still not at the point where Ford has been able to say 'this was the problem and we have fixed it." For me and lots of others, while cost is certainly a factor, reliability is a bigger issue. Low operating costs don't mean much if the car isn't operating. ;-)

The i3 has a "pre-conditioning" feature where the cabin (and battery) are brought to the correct temp while plugged in prior to your departure. For the daily commuter, that solves a lot of winter and summer range problems tied to battery temp and climate control use since it is a lot easier to hold a temp rather initially get to it. The pre-conditioning can be set for a regular time or started from your smart phone. Pretty clever. However, went back for a second test drive with my wife and she had pretty much the same response to this car that she did to the C-Max -- interesting, but not to her taste. So, she'll stick with her Mini Clubman until something else grabs her attention.

Regarding the LP/CD analogy, just checked Nielsen figures and LPs are about 2% of all album sales including downloads & streaming equivalents. This is about 6% of the music sales on physical media. While LPs have a solid niche market, that is all it is -- a niche market. And LPs often come with a free download and surveys show the download is often played more than the LP consumers bought. Yes, CD sales did nearly, but not quite, wipe out the LP. Then, some years back the CD started getting it's rear kicked by digital downloads. These days, digital downloads are getting their rear kicked by streaming services, which is up in unit volume 42% from 2013 to 2104 and now almost half of the entire market. The future is hard to predict. As for electricity and cars, the current challenge will be getting the battery charged in the same time frame that you can currently fill a gas tank - about 5 minutes. There have been some interesting articles lately on the unforeseen factors that have interferred with new battery technology. I am sure they'll get there, but there's a very good chance that we currently have no idea what that will look like and how it will be accomplished.