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You can. Go to Coastal E-Tech and Dave will hook you up. http://www.coastaletech.com/mytouch.htm.

I hope you are back to 100% by Christmas. Having Maxine back should help. Welcome home maxine.

Welcome Wb8nbs. I have the same problem (ritual), but it has mostly gone away in the Max. For the times when I lapse, I found that you can hold the handle by its top and bottom (rather than wrap your fingers around it) and it won't unlock the door. The fob is also a good option. Hit it once and you can hear the locks click. It will sound the horn if you hit it a second time (I can't do that because my car sits right underneath my neighbor's bedroom window). My wife still prefers to drive our other cars - partly because she feels that it has too many distractions, partly because she prefers the visability of her minivan or the small size of our Prius to the C-max, and partly for other reasons like the smaller trunk (a prime reason why many C-Maxers didn't go with the Energi). This saddens me a bit, but it has a side benefit that I get to drive it more and my settings aren't constantly getting changed. I am delighted with the C-Max as you will be too.

Jus', You are right, but I disagree with you about the word "awesome". That word isn't strong enough to describe my feelings about the C-Max when taken in total, but I guess it is the best we can do. I just celebrated one year with my Energi and in that time it has been in twice for service. Once for the MFT updates, a (premature) free oil change, and tire rotation. The second time the door chime recall, the fuel vapor valve CEL (remember that one?) ond state inspection. Total 1st year maintenance cost - about $30. And got the free loaner both times. Great job Ford!!!!

It is fun to explore EV+, but I am not convinced how useful the feature is in the Hybrid. It does allow you to run lower as you approach a familiar destination because it knows it normally shuts down there and that the ICE will charge it at start up. This is more useful in the Energi because it will likely be charged while at rest so the ICE will not need to come on. In fact, you have to force it on if you want to run when the battery is full. The other side of EV+ is that the car knows when it is about to enter an EV+ area and will actually run the ICE in advance to build up enough charge. Thus, I am not sure there is benefit in training it for familiar waypoints between home and the local store. Even so, it would have been nice if they added an EV mode for the Hybrid, where the ICE won't run until there is no choice. I guess they want the ICE to run for a full warmup if it runs at all.

Nice directions. I can't believe I missed this when originally posted. My Max already has the mirror, but this writeup opens a whole world of possibilities fro those of us who like to do stuff but are missing a few key essentials on how a modern auto is put together.

Some, but nothing like before.

There goes the blender.

Almost any modern device should work with a square wave, especially if it goes through a power supply that is basically turning it back to DC. I have used a TV, a CPAP, and a DVD player off of inverters for many years and never had a problem. I would think that a recent inverter should be even better than my old one. The biggest problem I foresee here is the 150 W limit, but what would you really want to run?

Yes, but our prices never got as low as you are describing.

I hope the wife is feeling better. The new knee will be better in the long run but is probably no fun now. Sorry to hear about your Max. Somebody did the same thimg to the front bumper of my Prius a few weeks ago while at a church parking lot. Left a BIG dent in the left side of the front bumper and scratched the entire front of the hood. The only clue we found was a mud flab that they left behind, so we are constantly looking around for a large 4x4 with only one flap.

I seriously doubt Ken Block is heading for an 800 mile tank!

You may get some better responses on the Energi forum, but the 18 mile range doesn't surprise me with the cooler temperatures this time of year. However, the 3/4 charge sounds wrong, as does the whole thing about charging at the wrong time. I would re-check all the settings and give it another night before getting concerned. The car sometimes forgets what to do (or maybe it does whatever it wants). I stopped using go-times when I found that the charger melted the outlet it was plugged into, but I found the car preheating itself as usual this morning despite the change in settings, so I re-set everything from scratch and am hoping for the best. I had a bad feeling when I heard that Sync runs under Microsoft Windows CE or whatever they call it now.

You are right. MPGe sounds like a number you can relate to but it is not sufficient to figure actual costs per mile. Taking the loss from wall to battery and the high electricity cost in my area into account, I figure that gas and electric are nearly equivalent in cost. The best chance at efficiency then becomes when to use which energy source. I make sure i have enough battery capacity left for heavy traffic, where electric blows gas out of the water. The funny thing is that my electric usage compared to last year has not gone up since I got my Energi and I can't explain why not, since I use about 7KWH at the wall every day to charge up. So it feels like those 21 or so miles each day are free. I replaced some old ACs and switched to energy efficient light bulbs, but that was before I bought the car.

I don't buy into the whole idea of higher octane gas paying off in MPG. Octane rating measures the ability of a fuel to resist detonation (early ignition). Ethanol increases octane rating but decreases mileage, as it is less volatile than gasoline. A higher compression engine needs the detonation resistance but can get better performance from the higher compression. It needs to detune itself slightly or risk damage if a lower grade of fuel is used. Our Atkinson-Miller cycle engine is more of a high expansion engine. It doesn't use the high compression to get more fuel into a tighter space like a performance engine. Rather, it uses a normal charge and retains it slightly longer to get a little more thermal efficiency. The energy from fuel comes from breaking carbon bonds and turning them into CO2. Ethanol has fewer carbon bonds and thus less energy. I believe that Ethanol is all they have used to raise octane rating since MTBE was banned, but I am not sure of that.

Nice trip this time of the year. I am a little jelly.

But stay away from a Job 3 if you can avoid it. This is a major thread on the Energi forum but might be important here too. Ford stopped displaying MPGe and Lifetime statistics some time in July. I don't know the exact date. MPGe is meaningless on the hybrid but useful for a plug-in. Lifetime statistics are useful for all. I never had lifetime stats on the Prius and didn't know any better, but I really like it on the Max. I guess Ford didn't want people to be too focused on fuel efficiency.

CVT transmissions on conventional cars may have a tarnished reputatio, but the eCVT systems on hybrids have a good reliability history.

Have a great ride. I don't know what your area is like this time of year, but here in NY the foliage has turned and it is a beautiful time for a road trip.

You got it.

The heater penalty is even bigger on the Energi because it has electric heat. I usually don't turn the heat on until the ICE is fully warmed up, so the trip can get a little chilly on all EV days or I will end up burning gas for the last mile or two of the trip home. Luckily the heated seats work really well. One unexpected benefit- if you drive that way when it is snowing the snow that lands on the car doesn't melt and form a layer of ice the next morning.

Driving all EV is sweet. I would have been quite happy with an SE, but I like the Energi so much that I don't think I could switch back. The cargo space has not been an issue for me, but I could clearly see that it could be. You are better off with the hybrid if you drive more than about 70 miles in a day and can't recharge. The 21 EV miles are nice in really heavy traffic though. As mentioned above, the prce of electricity in NY is close to the price of gas. HOV lane access was the deciding factor for me.

Maybe your driving patterns are somehow different this month (or maybe the traffic patterns). Also take a look at your MPG from last year and you will probably find that you took a drop in late October. I used to go through this every year in the Prius until the pattern became so familiar that it didn't matter to me anymore. Don't sweat it. You have a great car. Enjoy the ride and other cool things until the mileage comes back up again.

How many miles did you get on your Michelins? One of the first things I liked about the C-Max is that it has real tires. I hate how quickly my Prius eats tires. The early ones had very small tires that wear too quickly. The tire is simply too small for the car and needs a a high load rating to hold the weight. The high load rating and unusually small tire (175/65-14 81S) is barely used anywhere else and so not many manufacturers make them in the right load rating. This was fixed in later generations.

Nice tip. Thank you.