kaptnk228

I do not have any problems with efficiency, just the replacement price. 2013 cmax sel 56227 miles and still could get a bit more miles. Changed over to Continental Purecontact on 11 Sept 2017. No noticeable loss in mpg's. Driven about 400 miles on new Purecontact tires, noticed that we do not feel most of the road joints like before. Handling is great. Feels like you have tiger paws on each wheel. Tires rated for 70 k miles. Price was important along with LRR and performance. $550 from walmart plus $40 to balance and -$70 visa card as we bought them in August 2017 when rebate was on. Consumers Report say both tires very similar. Still have a bit of noise at the back but less now with new tires. :) :) :wub2:​

I do not have any problems with efficiency, just the replacement price. 2013 cmax sel 56227 miles and still could get a bit more miles. Changed over to Continental Purecontact on 11 Sept 2017. No noticeable loss in mpg's. Driven about 400 miles on new Purecontact tires, noticed that we do not feel most of the road joints like before. Handling is great. Feels like you have tiger paws on each wheel. Tires rated for 70 k miles. Price was important along with LRR and performance. $550 from walmart plus $40 to balance and -$70 visa card as we bought them in August 2017 when rebate was on. Consumers Report say both tires very similar. Still have a bit of noise at the back but less now with new tires. :) :) :wub2:

2 years ago we purchased a 2013 hybrid cmax and after fixing gps, found the car had a dead battery next morning. ford replaced charging unit and battery but still car not in spec. told them to fix it and find out where the battery drain was occurring. 2 wks later said it was something to do with the large 150 A fuse? replaced it and now no problem for 2 years. make sure system voltage is 14.5 and and not 13.5. 13.5 indicated problem.. bought a cheap volt meter to plug into cigarette holder to check

August 15 2015 Bought our CMax 2013 last October. Battery failure due to charging unit not working and a short in "a fuse". Make sure the the dc voltage is within spec and you should be okay. It took them 2 weeks to resolve but we have had no problems since. I have a have a HUGH concern because the failed charging unit did not alarm the low battery voltage causing the car to die on the highway. Wish they had a voltage meter that you can easily read while running the car. We bought a plug in unit as a stand by. All is working well for the past 10 months.

We bought our used 2013 last October. It took Ford several weeks to find and fix the electrical short which was causing the batter to drain. They also replaced the battery charging unit which I believe that the tech damaged as it appeared to be fine before servicing the Nav and other parts. The good news is since that time all has been great. We have had no problem with the battery which we were told was due to a faulty fuse??? Once replaced, all is well.

Wow!! I wish I could get above 40 mpg at 65 mph. We run on cruise control and push the vehicle to use the battery when I see it charged. Here is what I remember about my engineering design vehicle course. There are two different types of loses: Rolling and aerodynamic. At around 60 mph and above aero starts to exceed rolling due to the increase according to the square of the velocity. The cod of drag is built into the vehicle. The C-Max has a high celing and most likely not the lowest projected frontal area. I hated the Toyota corolla's small size that I had difficulty (only 6ft tall) getting in and out. I will take the C-Max any day. So the faster we go, the more fuel we use. Some suggest increasing the tire pressure which does help but you don't want to exceed the max or even get too close to it IMHO. The Michelin tires that come with the vehicle are the best out there. Going to another make might make things worst. At 70 mph, we get 35-37 mpg. Again tail winds and head winds do and will effect your numbers along with hills. Remember to check pressure in the cold weather as it will drop down in winter and increase in summer. Nissan post amazing numbers with their CVT's even with what appears to be an old engine design. Ford uses a eCVT. At high way speed there are only small gains from the hybrid and mpg largely depends on the ICE. Therefore the best engine is the Mazda Sky with their 14:1 CR Efficiency is directly proportional to the Compression Ratio period. It may be possible to get 50 mpg at 70 mph with this engine. Tests with this engine in other hybrids showed great or outstanding results. The Ford approach with a different cycle and a CR of 12.3 falls short here. Mazda typically sell this engine with a CR of 13:1 but they have run it with 14:1 CR. A small diesel engine may help also. Gas seems to cost a lot less these days than diesel fuel.

Battery problem fixed going on 2 months and no issues. Purchased as off lease and ford had to fix gps and some other things and then the battery died. It took 2 weeks but the problem was reported to be the large fuse? Still concerned with lack of charging system failure alarm.

Ford fixed our battery problem over one month ago. Replaced charger and found that the output voltage was around 13.5 V below the spec of 14.3 V. They then replaced a large fuse element (one with large wires) and the voltage when up to 14.3-15 V. The fuse was causing the problem. No warning lights came on when the charger failed. We now monitor the charging voltage with a small voltmeter in the 12 V plug. You can test it via the ETM but this is a pain. We can't get a good reading that I believe on the battery voltage.

Our battery problem is solved for now: Cause: 1. Failed dc/dc charger that floats 14.3-5 Volts on battery when car is started. 2. The culprit for the battery drain was a high amp fuse!! It caused the charging voltage to drop to 13.5 V (no alarm but there should be one) and to drain battery when car is off 3. No battery low or charging system alarms to tell you. As soon as it failed it told the dealer not to just replace the battery but figure out what caused it to drain. The fuse was the difficult one. An infrared camera might have picked up the hot element. I told them to follow the current to the component that was draining the battery. It took 2 weeks but we are working again and enjoying our C-Max. Ford still have to fix the NO ALARM problem. Until that is fixed we will run a volt meter in the 12 V socket to monitor the battery/charging system. This should be part of the standard instrumentation ofthe car. You may have another cause but I suspect this fuse problem is causing a lot of batteries to fail. IMHO the battery is NOT the problem but the symptom of something else not working properly. If you monitor the charging system via the 12 V plug or use the ETM you can check if your charging system is working. ie 14.3 V + and not below the 14.0 value when running. You can try to check the green light on the battery after a trip to see what color it is. Red is not good, black you most likely need a new one. My wife and I love this little car. Now we must get Ford to fix the alarms via IMHO a software programming error of a set point of 12.0 Volts verse 13.0 V and please put a voltage meter on the dash board instrumentation. ie just like the ETM will be fine. I don't want to have to drive in ETM all of the time. retired P.Eng. 21 Nov 2014 Two weeks and all is well. Still awaiting the battery monitoring system update. No more battery problems so far. suspect fuse link may be defective which caused our problem. I would have loved to give a better explanation but ford did not give me the proper part name. Just that it has very large cable size around 4-6 which is huge. We were told that we would be receiving a report in the mail but nothing so far. Must send a letter to ford. 19 December 2014 Still working great. Using a voltage meter to monitor charging system. Wish it was put on the dash as part of the instrumentation cluster

We had a trailer hitch installed and also have the foot release switch on our 2013 with no problems. I will be modifying our luggage carrier to also fit on the hitch like the one above.

Our battery problem is solved for now: Cause: 1. Failed dc/dc charger that floats 14.3-5 Volts on battery when car is started. 2. The culprit for the battery drain was a high amp fuse!! It caused the charging voltage to drop to 13.5 V (no alarm but there should be one) and to drain battery when car is off 3. No battery low or charging system alarms to tell you. As soon as it failed it told the dealer not to just replace the battery but figure out what caused it to drain. The fuse was the difficult one. An infrared camera might have picked up the hot element. I told them to follow the current to the component that was draining the battery. It took 2 weeks but we are working again and enjoying our C-Max. Ford still have to fix the NO ALARM problem. Until that is fixed we will run a volt meter in the 12 V socket to monitor the battery/charging system. This should be part of the standard instrumentation ofthe car. You may have another cause but I suspect this fuse problem is causing a lot of batteries to fail. retired P.Eng.

Our battery problem is solved for now: Cause: 1. Failed dc/dc charger that floats 14.3-5 Volts on battery when car is started. 2. The culprit for the battery drain was a high amp fuse!! It caused the charging voltage to drop to 13.5 V (no alarm but there should be one) and to drain battery when car is off 3. No battery low or charging system alarms to tell you. As soon as it failed it told the dealer not to just replace the battery but figure out what caused it to drain. The fuse was the difficult one. An infrared camera might have picked up the hot element. I told them to follow the current to the component that was draining the battery. It took 2 weeks but we are working again and enjoying our C-Max. Ford still have to fix the NO ALARM problem. Until that is fixed we will run a volt meter in the 12 V socket to monitor the battery/charging system. This should be part of the standard instrumentation ofthe car. You may have another cause but I suspect this fuse problem is causing a lot of batteries to fail. Update: 13 Dec 2014 Car has been working great. No new issues. Got our voltage meter to plug into the 12 V socket. You can monitor it via the ETM but that is a pain. voltage while operating 14.3-15.0 V. What out for that 13.5 V which in our case was the defective fuse. Don't believe the battery voltage of 12.2 V when car is off. Updated 17 Jan 2014: Runs great. good mileage even in winter. Not great mileage above 65 mph. Too bad they didn't put the Mazda Sky engine 2 L or so in it with 14:1 compression ratio. Then might see 50/50+ mpg. We can dream. Tests with the SKY engine in another Hybrid showed outstanding results. retired P.Eng.

Our battery problem is solved for now: Cause: 1. Failed dc/dc charger that floats 14.3-5 Volts on battery when car is started. 2. The culprit for the battery drain was a high amp fuse!! It caused the charging voltage to drop to 13.5 V (no alarm but there should be one) and to drain battery when car is off 3. No battery low or charging system alarms to tell you. As soon as it failed it told the dealer not to just replace the battery but figure out what caused it to drain. The fuse was the difficult one. An infrared camera might have picked up the hot element. I told them to follow the current to the component that was draining the battery. It took 2 weeks but we are working again and enjoying our C-Max. Ford still have to fix the NO ALARM problem. Until that is fixed we will run a volt meter in the 12 V socket to monitor the battery/charging system. This should be part of the standard instrumentation of the car. You may have another cause but I suspect this fuse problem is causing a lot of batteries to fail. retired P.Eng.

6 Nov 2014 This is an update to my post regarding monitoring your battery. After 2 weeks, we got our C-Max back from the dealer after our first battery failure. Our Cause: 1. The Dc/DC converter that charges the battery seems to have failed and was replaced 2. The battery was dead and was replaced 3. They could not get the proper 14.4+ volts across the battery. They were getting some where near 13.5 V Cause: Replace a high power/amp fuse with the heavy cable. After the fuse was replaced, everything worked again. A thermal camera would have shown the component that was hot or dumping the battery power. Outstanding issues: Nothing here fixes the battery monitoring system and low battery setting of 12 Volts. I suspect that this will require a software upgrade Yes, the Engineering test mode has a battery or voltage monitor. We are now getting 14.3-14.4 V. You can't use it while using the standard instrumentation. You can only access it at startup while holding the ok button. The coolant temp is also there but not much good unless you leave it in ETM. So I still want an accessible battery and engine coolant gauge while I am driving down the road. Ford has come through for us in fixing what appears to be the root cause of the battery failure ie a short in the fuse. I will give you the name when I get it. Trust all will be okay in the morning. I am still going to use our 12 V battery monitor while driving to make sure everything is working okay. Way to go Ford. Our lives are surely worth more than $2.40 as per GM while the GM pig CEO made $42 million a year. Now fix the BMS alarm. These may NOT be the only causes of a failed battery but they appear to most likely what is causing a lot of people problems. One person related wires damaged from a leak of the water pump.

Fix the battery monitoring system. Our 2013 cmax hybrid only alarms when the battery voltage is 12.0 volts or a dead battery. This is an extremely small item with life and death consequences. See the GM ignition switch 31 deaths when the car turned off. Our C-Max turned off when the charging module caused the battery to die. Build more reliability into the DC/DC converter -12V Have power seats that raise and lower for short passengers. Have battery/charging gauge and coolant temperature gauge as standard instrumentation. Overall we still love our cmax but have 10x's the miles on the loaner fusion (love it) while it is taking 10 days to fix ours. ICE - increase the compression ratio to over 13:1 or 14:1 to increase efficiency.