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.

Check the terminal voltage under the hood and compare. It should never be that low. Your charging system is working typically 13.5-14.5 V At 12.1 V I would be attaching my battery charger to check out the battery. Check the battery to see if the green or red light is on. Red is dead. You most likely will have to remove the back cover by pushing in the 3 buttons and lifting it up near the latch. I have not done that yet but the tech showed me how to do it. I would be checking battery fluid level if possible. An over charged battery will boil off electrolytes (or just water) exposing the plates in the battery. Only add deminerlized water to a battery.

That is a great question. Ford is advertising all of their parts now have two year warranty. I believe that would apply to all of our repairs under warranty. Just get some type of documentation. Ford dealer said that there was no extended warranty on any of the parts. I can only speak from our case, IMHO it was a failure of the charging system that caused the 12 V battery to fail. Both parts are being replaced and must always be checked when the battery is dead. See my post on how no alarms came in to show these faults and how our car died on the road, just like the GM ignition switch problem. I recommend getting a plug in volt meter so that we can monitor the battery and charging system (cost under $5. ebay, $3 Amazon). We also are concerned about the cost of the dc/dc module and the failed navigation system parts also. I will ask Ford ASAP when we see them and get our car back from the dealer. Dec 13, update: Fixed charger, replaced defective fuse that I believe is causing the batteries to die. One month and no problems. You need to monitor the charger voltage as there is a problem when our battery died with no notification. We put a nice volt meter in the 12 V socket. Voltage should be above 14.3 V when running. Can't believe the off voltage of 12.2 V. It is way too low of a reading. If your charger and fuse are working no problem. If the voltage when running is below 14 V check the fuse as it was causing our voltage to drop to 13.5 V. After it was replaced, the voltage jumped back to 14.3 V to 15 V

By the way, 31 deaths associated (100's injured) with the GM ignition switch which basically turned the car off. The battery failure and component turned the car off. If the highway was busier and I was going at 60 mph I don't want to think about what could have happened. I didn't use the parking brake but will immediately if something like that happens again. I prefer to check the battery voltage every day until this problem is properly fixed by Ford. Remember with no power steering you naturally put two hands on the wheel making it much more difficult to use the parking brake. Stop driving the car if you start seeing your 12 V battery levels below 12.5 volts or piggy back another battery with jumper cables and drive to the dealer. Keeping the 12 V battery fully charged with a small charger just might be very very good ideal. The way to check your battery is first by voltage and second by the green/red light on top of the battery. Unfortunately you have to remove the panel to see this light which is a big pain. I will add the coolant temp to my view. I had problems trying to change my view because I need to have both keys in hand to do that. There may be other causes to why the battery dies. That is why I asked Ford to tell me what happened. No matter what, it will not run with a dead battery so monitor it closely. Write Ford about this concern. One poster blamed coolant leaking onto the unprotected wires had caused a drain. Using the hand brake is a great thing to remember but you most likely will need to have both hands on the wheel as you lose power steering, brakes, air bags and hopefully not your life. Remember to GM their customers lives were worth $2.40 We live in Canada less than 50 miles from where the car was built. Ford USA must be made aware of this problem. To them, Canada is some 3rd world country. Please let your voices be known. If we know that the battery level is low we can stop driving the car, charge or replace the battery and find out the cause of the problem. Not knowing could result in your death like it did to 31+GM owners (100's injured) who had their ignition switch move to accessory position. Don't you just love how GM tried to cover it up by fixing the part and keeping the same part number on never models.

THANKS for your input. Our car has been in the dealer's shop for over 1 week and we are driving a rental Fusion. When we get it back I will look into the ETM. Ours did die while we were driving. Luckily we had stopped and were just going though the light as the car died. It was very difficult to steer and when I was on the shoulder I had a heck of a time stopping the car from rolling. i had to force the dealer to explain to me why or what had caused the battery failure. It took over 1 day for them to tell me that the module for the charging system had failed. We had no engine light or indication of this. My wife would have had a terrible time driving the car under these conditions as would most people. I have written Ford and will write to the NHTSA tomorrow. If we had a battery failure light or the equivalent of the alternator light, I would have checked the voltage across the terminals in the front. I will continue to check the running and stopped voltages until my meter arrives from China. I had a spare battery in the back with cables but did not know how to access the battery compartment at that time. I do now. The charging system must have redundancy to prevent this from occurring. It is very similar to what happened with the GM ignition switch failure. GM were fined $51 million. We have been driving a 2.5l Fusion which I love. We have driven over 1000 miles on the Fusion and under 100 miles on our C-Max. The fusion gets over 42 mpg at 65 mph, 37 at 74 mph. Your help is most appreciated. Thanks. I have been reading the manual for weeks to learn what I can about this car.

Our battery and charging system died last week. Unlocked the door with the key okay. Put a booster battery on the terminals under the hood and the ALARM would not stop. Called 2 dealers to find out what to do. Push the door unlock on your remote control to Stop the Alarm. Our battery was dead and the vehicle would not run when boosted. I charged the battery to 75% and tried to drive to the dealer some 20 km away. The car died with little warning on the road. This is a very very bad thing to happen. No power steering or brakes. NOT WARNING LIGHTS OF THE PROBLEM. Pushed the dealer to tell me WHY the battery failed and it took them over a day to tell me that the charging module had failed. Four days later and we are still driving the rental Fusion which I love. I have put over 1000 miles on the Fusion 2.5 l which at 66 mph gives around 41 mpg and 37 mpg at around 72 mph. I have written Ford to modify the instrumentation panel to include a battery voltage gauge and a temperature gauge for the coolant. I will be using a plug in Voltmeter until this is fixed. ($3 from Amazon). My 2013 C-Max is Not fault tolerant. The car must never died on the highway as ours did. There is always power in the Li battery and the ICE can also work to keep the Li ion battery voltage charged. The current battery alarm did not flash until the voltage reached 12.0 V or what a completely dead battery voltage is. I believe that this is a programming error. The alarm MUST come on at and below 12.8 V so that we know that the charging system is not working. YOU COULD BE KILLED BECAUSE OF THIS SMALL PROBLEM. UPDATE 19 Dec 2014 Ford replaced the dc/dc charger, battery, and most importantly the high amp fuse which was causing the drain in the first place. I don't know if the dc/dc charger failed of if the system voltage was lower than specification. I do know that the fuse element dropped the bus voltage down by at least 1 volt and once replaced it is now showing 14.7-15 Volts when turned on. Off voltage is way to low to be correct. No problems for over 6 weeks. I am checking the charging system voltage daily via a small plugin voltage meter, you could use the ETM but that is a pain. There should be a voltage meter on the instrumentation panel. Alarm problem requires a software update. Batteries normally don't just die. There is always something that is draining them and in this case (and possibly others) it is a large fuse that is causing a short circuit and draining power. It must have been hot also.

So far our C-Max has been living longer at the dealer than in our driveway. We are now members of the C-Max Dead battery club. - Battery and Charger system failed with no warning displayed. MUST ADD TO INSTRUMENT PANEL ON LEFT SIDE: 12. V system voltage GAUGE display. I have to buy a volt meter so that I can monitor this critical detail when the battery charger system fails. I am getting a $3 meter from Amazon to plug into the 12 V socket. Coolant Temperature gauge is REQUIRED. No problems yet but if we drive in Las Vegas I would like to see how the system is working. Currently the C-Max battery alarm only works when the battery voltage fall to 12 V or the battery is about to die in 10 seconds.

So far our C-Max has been living longer at the dealer than in our driveway. We are now members of the C-Max Dead battery club. - Battery and Charger system failed with no warning displayed. MUST ADD TO INSTRUMENT PANEL ON LEFT SIDE: 12. V system voltage GAUGE display. I have to buy a volt meter so that I can monitor this critical detail when the battery charger system fails. I am getting a $3 meter from Amazon to plug into the 12 V socket. Coolant Temperature gauge is REQUIRED. No problems yet but if we drive in Las Vegas I would like to see how the system is working. Currently the C-Max battery alarm only works when the battery voltage fall to 12 V or the battery is about to die in 10 seconds.

The dead battery thing almost always happens when the dc/dc step down voltage module fails. It just happened to us. NO F***** WARNING, NO BATTERY ALARM, NO ALTERNATOR ALARM (no alternator in car), AND THE CAR CAN DIE ANYWHERE, EVEN ON THE HIGHWAY. THEN YOU HAVE NO BRAKES, NO STEERING, NO FLASHERS. The good news is for $3 you can buy from amazon a plug in voltage meter (which is missing in the car) so that you can monitor the charging system and the status of your battery. Any voltage when running below say 13.5 V may show a problem. A fully charged battery is 12.8 V+ A dead battery is 12 V. Ford must fix this and it is must that they add a voltage meter on the left side with a temperature meter. I believe someone programmed the battery alarm to trigger at 12 V verse 12.8 V (no charging) The battery light did come on about 10 seconds before the car completely died. Not much warning. No time to get off of the road. This mistake has BIG consequences. Everyone should write ford to fix this. Other than that, the car looks great for us. We only have had this car for 2 weeks and drove it for 3 days and it has been the shop. One tow job to the dealer. We were lucky that the battery failed when we were going about 5-10 mph and I had one heck of a time stopping the car with the normal brakes. Remember you have a parking brake. I do like the Ford fusion rental with the 2.5 l engine which gets 40 mpg at 65 mph.

We are now one of the new members of the Ford C-Max Hybrid dead battery club. There is no battery monitoring system (BMS) on our C-Max 2013 that works. Failure of the battery at highway speed could end your life as you lose steering and brakes, air bags. At 5 mph I had a hell of a time stopping the car! I REPEAT. FORGET ABOUT MPG'S FOR A MOMENT. IF YOUR 12 V BATTERY DIES YOUR CAR DIES PERIOD. IF THIS HAPPENS ON THE HIGHWAY THEN YOU MIGHT DIE LIKE ALL OF THE 31+GM OWNERS WHO HAD THE FAILED IGNITION SWITCH. PROTECT YOURSELF. Buy a volt meter from Amazon for under $3.00 that you can plug into the 12 Volt cigarette socket. A fully charged battery will read 12.8 Volts+ A charging system voltage will be at least 13.5 to 14.5 Volts. Use it regularly until Ford fixes the system. You will have piece of mind and a great way to monitor your car's battery. A dead battery will read 12 Volts that is what we had when the battery monitoring system kicked in 10 seconds before the car died, losing brakes, steering, flashers and everything else. Be prepared to use the emergency parking brake. Check your battery voltage daily until you get the meter. Buy a regular volt meter and check the system's voltage by using the two terminals located in the front right side of your vehicle. One is + and the post is - You NEVER know when the charging component will or has failed. That is one of the big silent problems. You just don't see it coming. Send a letter to Ford to first fix the BMS and second to add a visual voltage meter and Coolant Temperature gauge on the Left side of the panel (available in My View). They should also add parallel redundancy to the battery charging system with at least 3 systems and to redesign the system so that the car will not die once started if the battery dies. We live in Canada 50 miles from where this car was built but we are a 3rd world country to Ford. Write Ford USA. They can ignore me but not the USA citizens. Battery (12 v) failure MUST NEVER SHUT THE CAR DOWN WHEN BEING DRIVEN. NO POWER; NO POWER STEERING, NO POWER BRAKES, NO LIGHTS/FLASHERS AND MOST LIKELY NO AIR BAGS. If you do not see the battery being charged while operating the vehicle contact your Ford Dealer ASAP and perhaps don't drive the car. I am trying to warn all C-Max hybrid owners of this problem. We had the most recent upgrade done on October 23 2014 when our Navigation System was repaired, one day before the battery died. Ford tech's did not notice that the charging system was not working because no alarms were showing. The C-Max hybrid is different than a standard car. The ICE (engine) does not have a starting motor or an alternator. The EV motor starts the ICE. The Li ion high voltage battery charges the 12 V system. The 12 V system runs things like the radio, standard instrumentation and I believe the air bags. UPDATED 7 Nov 2014 Found dc/dc charger for battery was not working ......No Alarms Found high amp fuse with very heavy wire was replaced and solved the problem - it must have be shorting out putting a drain on the charging system and emptying the battery. Still not BMS update. You can access the charging system voltage and coolant temp via the ETM mode at startup. Suggest check regularly until you get a voltmeter and Ford fixes this end of the problem. It took 2 weeks but our C-Max is up and running - charging voltage is normally 14.3-4 Volts. Note: 13.4 V or so might indicate the fuse problem as was in our case once the Dc/Dc charger was replaced. Check the battery light is green located on top of the battery and very difficult to see.