Marc Smith

rob I usually run until the gauge turns red. and then the red line will actually drop a tic below the empty line.. I have not ran out yet. my last tank i was shooting for 700 wife was out of town so i was able to use her car for any trips that involved the highway. so mine was strictly commuting. 673 at 13.44 gallons 415 miles EV with an average speed of 23....so close...the trip meter showed me only using 13 gallons... so by no means should you rely on that. my closest gas station is five miles and the roads are mostly two lanes with no shoulders and I have a few hills so it would be very easy for the fuel pickup to run dry and I haven't walked to a gas station since I owned a motorcycle 20 years ago... I probably could have gotten to 700 on this tank......

A month later. no follow up from the OP. hopefully he's not going around in circles...

welcome, tires may "break in" a quiet down in time... I'm still on my factory tires on my 2013....have not noticed any more or less noise when compared to my wifes saturn vue. Noise can be so subjective and road dependent. what tire pressures are you running. my current tank I'm at 49.7 half way in running 40psi . trying to hit 700 miles on this tank...gonna be close have had nice weather, no need to use heat or AC.

might have better luck posting this in the for sale section

I've been happy at 40. every now an again I get a low pressure waring never the same tire. but this time of year with the wild temp swings not uncommon to have pressure changes in the tires IMO 40 is a nice setting for comfort/mpg. any higher and it feels like I'm getting rabbit punched over ever bridge and concrete joint and since we are finishing up the winter season potholes are blooming faster than pimples on prom night.... definitely don't need a cut tire or bent rim...

mylast tank was 42 with temps in the low 40's and the occasional snow this current tank about half way through and I'm averageing 47. but the temps have been in the 50-60's and limited use of the heater or the defroster(which runs the ac compressor, and sucks battery juice) going to have a few days in the high 60's this week so I'm hoping to get into the high 48's by thursday... these nice spring day where you don't have the run heater or the AC are great for the mpgs... i did a real long trip to florida last february and averaged 42 for the entire 2500miles. While the highway milage is not bat, this car, IMO, was built for the commuter and not the long haul driver. But it is capable. take it with baby steps... try to stretch each tank further and further. remember that the speed limit up to 5mph is your freind. don't try to race to keep up with traffic from the stop light, coast and anticipate stops so you can get your battery regen. IE maximize your brake score. It taks a while to get used to driving a hybrid.... on any given tank, you should have half of your rmiles be EV

Andrea My last tank in northern VA was barely 44. and thats with an 18 mile drive to and from work. yeah I don't run the heat much in the early stages of the commute. the cabin temp setting makes the ICE more likely to kick on with moderate throttle inputs.. but I do have a seat heater which helps and the car is garaged which also helps. I had the same disappointing fuel efficiency when I went from my chevy HHR to a prius. its takes a lot of getting used to on how to drive a hybrid to get the best MPG. As others have stated the combo of short trips and winter fuel means you are likely just running on the ice and never getting the battery to kick in. It will get better...

lets look at the nox numbers. the VW cars are labeled for LEVII which means its .07gm/mi NOx for the usefull life of the car the EPA averages for Class IIb trucks GVWR 8500-10,000 lbs(ie most pickup trucks on the road) that were in use in 2008 is 3.08 grams per mile.... for Gas and diesel in 2008 WVU(folks who broke the story) ran tests on the jetta and passat. the range of NOX on the jetta was .61-1.15 g/km Average .88 and the passat was .034-.067 g/km average .50 g/km convert those numbers to g/mi .813 for the passat and 1.41 for the jetta... Soin 2008 2 million pickups were sold in the us... assume then that over the course of the last 6 years 12 million trucks were sold. compared to 500,000 VW's(audi ect) Yes they conspired to cheat the law... Yes the cars pollute at a higher rate than advertised up to 15x higher than a the LEV II standard which they wanted to achieve, but only 2x higher than the Teir 1 LEV. and far less than a lot of vehicles already on the road... So, yes lets teach VW a lesson and let it be a warning to other car makers (don't f%^& with the emissions) and at least get them to bring the cars into compliance with the what the emissions of a car should be. Then lets go after the real big pollution center of pickup trucks and other larger vehicles, which pollute far more per mile, and of which there are for more of them on the road than the TDI VW's but that another thread.

the car has 36K I've put 24k on it. it had a tick over 11K when I bought it...

Yes I get that VW knowingly broke the law... and ford did not break a law, just knowingly used a clever loophole to not test a car. I'm sorry I'm not that naive and I have to believe that as smart as ford engineers are they had to know that two different body styles of cars would perform differently. They knew what they did since they wanted to "kill the prius". so its not as egregious as what VW did but the end result is the same. cars that didn't perform as advertised. I think VW will be taught a lesson and made an example of... by the feds, and also by lawyers and class action lawsuits.... It will interesting to see how it unfolds... but long term or short term won't affect me.

my take on it... the cars are not clunkers...they just are not clean diesels...As advertised. they are just normal cars with diesel engines Their actual MPG numbers usually exceeded those indicated on the window sticker. Ford had the same problem but the mileage was usually much lower and indicated on the window sticker (present company excluded of course) In the end, the ford Cmax pollutes more (present copmany excluded of course) than what ford had originally advertised...The TDI's are the same. they pollute more than advertised... I think ford played with the numbers to get what they wanted,...VW did the same thing (albeit on a much larger scale) and it took much longer for them to get caught... So how should they be punished...Ford paid us off... I would imagine the VW will do the same, and i'm sure they will come up with a recall fix as well. Of course there is no law to mandate anyone to get a recall done, so if the fix is offered, who's going to voluntarily take their car in to get its "nuts snipped" so to speak? Now if the states (california will take the lead) decide to start not passing the cars unless a visual inspection that the recall was done, may be needed for the car to pass inspections. Of course this only applies to areas where emission inspections are done... not sure how much in fines they should pay. 18 billion in fines... they will scoff at it... in 2012 on 254 billion in revenue they netted 28 billion. assets world wide exceed 450 billion... I woudl imagine that VW will opt to buy back some cars older high mileage cars where the recall fix dosn't make sense VS car value. Now if the rest of the world jumps on the band wagon and follows the EPA and hits VW with a fine of $37000 per vehicle (like the us is proposing) it woudl bankrupt the company. Fines on top of repairs/buybacks. VW would fold like a cheap suit. Only the lawyers would win. and youd end up with lots of people out of work... Yes they should be fined, and yes they should compensate the car owners... It will be interesting to see where the middle ground ends up being... Id be in favor of no fines being paid to the feds in lieu of significant reparations to the owners...

well just rolled over 36K miles. so I'm out of the bumper to bumper warranty... my current life time 11652 ev 1534 regen 44.8 mpg 95% brake score 24,000 total miles driven... surprised how close the fuelly mpg is to the cars mpg

when it comes to seals. it always takes longer and cost more seals are cheap and easy to repalce but usually very hard to get to. I had a rear main seal start leaking on my 94 impala SS. it was a 20 dollar seal. butto gain access I had to drain and drop the trans. doing the actual seal replacement was 10 minutes tops but took several hours to get to the seal...

Zal, Try to realize that its much easier to take the posted MSRP and crunch some quick numbers. Yes with oil so low hybrids can come in cheap and get very close to their ICE equivaents. So yes if you make a better deal the payback could happen quicker. But by all means be my guest to go research current prices ensure same trim levels, ect and post back what you come up with...

when I was comparing the HHR to the prius I was looking at cars with similar age, milage and price. when the prius got trashed i was comparing the prius and Cmax on price, I was able to get a 2013 with 11k miles while the comparable prius' were a couple years older with more miles. When I got my prius it had been sitting for about 3 months on the dealers lot and with cash in hand I got a real good deal. I feel I got a deal on the Cmax as well 45 days on the lot...

Just went on on Ford.com... to compare the Fusion ICE/Hybrid MSRP S ICE- 22,110 City 22 S HYB 25,185 City 44 Price Diff 3075 SE ICE- 23,680 SE HYB- 25,990 Price Diff 2310 Titanium ICE 30,630 Titanium HYB 30,940 Price Diff 310 Current Fuel prices are hovering around 2 buck a gallon So if we assume 10K miles per year. @ city driving.... in year one S ICE will use 454 gallons of fuel at a cost of 909. S HYB will use 227 gallons of fuel at a cost of 454. year one saving of 454 bucks. at the current fuel price it will take 6.7 years for the hybrid S to break even with the ICE S. this does not take into account consumables (oil changes, brakes ect) In theory the HYB should have a lower maintenance cost, less use of brakes, and longer oil change intervals. So the SE payoff will have the same fuel consumption but the price difference is less... the break even is a tick over 5 years. The Titanium payoff is less than a year. The Linc MKZ ICE/HYB the prices are the same.... So in this instance, I am assuming the trim/tech between each package s, SE, Titanium is the same. if fuel jumps to $4 a gallon...the break even point is halved...just on fuel usage... With the ford its easy to compare the models HYB vs ICE Obviously when comparing across brands it makes it a bit harder to compare vehicles, trim levels, ect... Fuel economy did pose a huge factor my orginal prius purchase VS the Chevy HHR when the tree fell on the prius and I was comparing the prius and cmax the fuel economy was close enough that interior fit/finish became more of the driving factor.

if the seal is between body panels.... IE it wasn't sealed properly when welding at the factory prior to paint. then yes the car will need to be repainted. and its one of the roof seams. then yeah in all likely hood the entire car will need to be repainted. since by the time they try to blend the roof with the rest of the panels you end up with most of the car getting repainted. Document the amount o time the car is out of service. this is one main aspect of lemon law. if the car is out of service for more than X number of days your state lemon law may force a buyback Upon return of the car ask to take the car into a lighted paint booth. this way you can do a thorough inspection. with good consistent light all the way around. you will be looking for paint lines on body parts and trim that were not removed and replaced. also look for overspray on windows where they did a bad job taping up....look for any sanding marks, orange peel, ect... A good body shop will remove trim and you may end up with a better paint job than the factory. If its a quality repair, I'd have no qualms, but I'd ask the dealership for some money back... It was a brand new car... this is a pretty major fck up...

Adrian, I've gotten used to it. After several months in the prius, when I bought the C-max it was very noticeable... The UK version of the cmax, turns 3ft tighter. not much different but still wierd...

Heck that fact that we have another true hybrid to choose from with a serious electric range. Especially from a new manufacturer. I wonder if Chrysler is using Fiat's EV tech coupled with the fact that car companies are starting to look at putting hybrid drive trains in vehicles that are not aerodynamic or small is also a step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see how it does in real world testing...

Is it SE or SEL... based on what you hear on the site the SE i s more prone to the 12v battery problems. while the SEL with the touch screens did not exhibit the 12v battery problems. might want to run a search on that...

I think a school bus can make a tighter U turn than a C-max

for every bad car, there are plenty more that have had no problems. and for every bad dealer there are quite a few that do not rip off their customers. Id have no qualms about buying another c-max or a fusion hybrid. I had some problems with my saturn Vue hybrid. it sat in the dealership waiting for a battery for almost three months. got GM corporate involved and even faxed them filled out forms for a buy back/lemon. it got them in gear pretty quick. that was 50K miles ago. wife still loves the car, and it will probably become my daughters car. But I'll never buy another GM product based on the way that they did their chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. Killed my great grandfathers, grandfathers, and uncles 95 year old GM dealership. But in the end you gotta do what your gut tells you. Otherwise you'll never be happy.

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/chrysler-to-debut-new-minivan-1338741604122678.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma First, there’s the plug-in hybrid powertrain. This is a first for any minivan, and it’s certainly about time. The hybrid Pacifica, which newly developed electric variable transmission uses two electric motors to drive the wheels and 16 kWh lithium ion battery pack, will achieve 30 miles on electric power before the engine kicks on to help. It hits 80 mpg-e in city driving. Other fuel economy numbers were not released.

You car must have been built on a monday after a big football weekend...

sounds like the apim is basically being hacked... 600 is a bit much for a hack that you could loose if the dealer does something. would be nice to just go out a buy a used apim with nav already installed from factory. Still might loose the nav though if the dealer ever reflashes and the Vin would not match up so it could make warranty stuff and vehicle health reports not work properly. here is a a link to a Ford Escape guy who did the mod whith just the apim swap... I'm still under warranty so Its not really an option right now... http://www.fordescape.org/forum/diy-garage/41362-successful-nav-upgrade-my-2013-fe-se.html Iwill say UI like using my iphone for nav not as nice as using the big screen. Plus you are bale to mke changed while moving. not usre if the ford gps/nav will allow route changes while moving... http://www.fordescape.org/forum/492970-post47.html