SPL Tech

For warranty validation? If an engine fails and you change your own oil, is that a problem for warranty service? Most extended warranties require you do all maintenance at the dealer, so I am wondering if the OEM requires the same. I have never brought my vehicle to the stealershit for maintenance, I always do it myself, but I have never had an engine or transmission fail, so I am curious what would happen if I did experience such.

Meh, almost all vehicles are considered reliable when they are new. They should be, they are new. That doesent reflect how reliable the vehicle will be later. The C-Max is too new to call it either way, all we can do is look at Ford as a whole, which is below average. Ford has never really been known for reliability, although they seem to be doing a bit better than they used to be. Determining reliability is extremely hard. I have seen Ford come up on charts ranging from almost dead last to in the top 4, although they seem to be on the lower end on most charts. More people might report more less problems with a particular vehicle, but that does no in itself prove the vehicle is less or more reliable than others. Maybe owners of that particular vehicle tend to be more Internet savvy and therefore report problems more than other vehicle owners. Or maybe the repair experience of owners of a particular experience is worse than that of others, so they are more inclined to go online and complain about it. Without including ALL repairs at ALL authorized dealers, we dont know how accurate the data on True Delta is. It could very easily be skewed for a number of a thousand different reasons. For example, a person is MUCH more likely to report a repair to True Delta because they are having problems. People who are not having problems are less likely to mention that on any site.

It would be interesting to see some other cars on that graph like a full size sedan, a pickup truck, SUV, full-size truck, ect. It would be interesting to see how the drag compares to other cars out there besides the Prius.

Also, there is no ios 8.2. As of today, 8.1.2 is the latest.

ios 8.1.1 works fine with MFT in my car. both of our iphones do, 5S and 6.

I bought a used CMAX, and I am unsure if they flashed the ECU with the fuel economy upgrade. I checked with one of the local dealers and they said they have no way of knowing if it was done even with my VIN. Is there a way I can check? Will the code come up in ETM?

Tell her that either you put the tire in the tub, or she can go to Wal-Mart and buy you a plastic tub to put it in. Or just do it when she is away. Problem solved. What she doesent know cant hurt her. ;)

Why not just go to a different dealer? Many people have at least 5 Ford dealers within a 150 mile drive.

Well, I was talking about installing a permanent shunt with a permanent reading in the cabin. The battery problem is intermittent, as it would be silly to connect a multimeter to your car every night to check up on it. As far as the car not going to sleep if in close proximity to the key, what is close? I have the traditional key CMAX, not the push start. I was always under the understanding that the NFC communication in the key typically only has a range of about 1" or so, so it has to be in the keycylinder for the vehicle to recognize the key chip. I ask because I sleep in my car on camping trips one and awhile, and I keep the key in the car with me. I just press lock on the doors inside and call it a day.

I got out of the business over eight years ago. So no, none of the 2005 and older model vehicles I worked on had a BMS on the battery terminal.

LOL those are not good deals unless they are 14's. That's way over market value. CMAXes do not retain value well, and drop $10k in the first two years alone. A quick look on Car Gurus shows many Cmax SEs going for under $17k with some as few as 15k miles, and most under 40k. Some are going for just over $15k with no more than 60k miles.

Leave the covers off. It's not worth risking it. If you damage the engine, you are looking at a $10,000 bill from the stealershit, and warranty wont cover it. A 3 MPG difference is less than $40 over the course of the entire winter. You are looking at tens in thousands in repairs if you mess up to save about as much money as needed to feed a small family for one meal. On the other hand, it would be nice if someone could program a hack update to run the vehicle in S3/4 at all times. Completely remove the warm-up period for the ICE. That would do a lot more.

Does the car actually need electricity while towing? Just disconnect the 12v battery. You can do it in 60 seconds.

Sure, but those circuits typically go to sleep as soon as you press the lock and arm button on the key, or within a minute or so of doing so. In any case, it's not hard, just watch the readings until they drop to under 100mA and you will know the idle current draw. Most vehicles draw under 50mA when turned off. From what I am reading, people often experience a dead battery after driving home at night and trying to start the car in the morning. So we are talking fully charged to completely depleted in under 12 hours. The current draw would need to be at least 3000mA for that to happen, and more likely around 4000mA+. That is 80x what the car should draw when turned off.

Also, the 12v battery is not sealed as some suggested. There is a vent that leads to a tube that goes outside, just like the 12v battery on the Prius.

Sensor of some sort on the ground terminal. At first I thought the voltage meter, but I thought the ECU reads the voltage right at the HUD, which is why the HUD displayed voltage is lower than the actual voltage at the battery. Whatever it is, there are two wires on ground, one on +12v and the white box on the ground terminal.

Take the wheel off, fill your bathtub with water and completely submerge the wheel. Come back in five minutes. That will identify the leak 1000 out of 1000 times.

There is a lengthy discussion about them on other forums. The short answer is no, they are not effective.

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Sure, but the advantage to an ammeter is you can detect if the intermittent problem is occurring or not by looking at the gauge. The voltmeter wont tell you that. So if you turn your car off and the gauge normally shows, say, 250mA draw, and one night it shows 2,000mA draw, you know the interment problem is occurring, and you can start pulling fuses to isolate the location of the draw.

I thought lemon buybacks still come with the full manufacturer warranty, no? I was looking at one and the salesman told me it comes with a 12 month/ 12k warranty through the dealer AND the full OEM warranty. If Ford is confident they fixed the problem, there is no reason why they should void the warranty for a non-salvage buyback.

Actually I think dead battery problem is only 3 years 36,000 miles. Battery and electrical are not normally covered under powertrain warranty, and the 8 year warranty is only on the hybrid components, which I am confident excludes the 12v system.

Easy day: http://www.ebay.com/itm/100V-100A-DC-Digital-Voltmeter-Ammeter-LED-Amp-Volt-Meter-w-Shunt-F-12v-24v-Car-/221273641721

With all these people having dead batteries, why doesent someone install a digital shunt inline with the ground cable on the 12v battery? You can get one on eBay for like $20. That way you can always know exactly if the 12v battery is being charged or depleted, and to what extent. No more guessing, you know exactly how much current is flowing in and out of the battery. Seems like a pretty basic troubleshooting step.