Catmobile

:) Funny. I went from a BMW to a Honda Civic Hybrid to my C-Max, and one of the reasons I got rid of the HCH was the doggyness. The C-Max just responds with no hesitation. Ahhhhh.... I'm really happy with the mileage I'm getting. I have a very light touch on the gas and brakes, and all I can say is use the forward momentum of the car (i.e., coasting) as much as possible, even up exit ramps. It does take really paying attention to get the best mpg out of it. Unless I'm trying to get a good reading, though, I just drive the thing, and I'm still getting better than 40 mpg a lot of the time. Congrats on the car and welcome to the board!

I have an idea... use the base color touch-up paint and follow it up with a nail polish that's as close as you can find. Might work at least on small chips. ;)

I have the stone interior on my car, which has to stay outside since I have no garage. What do you guys recommend I do to maintain the leather? Thanks!

Tried a highway drive today to see how the cruise affects the mileage. First, let me give you the specifics: weather was in the 40's, little to no wind, a full tank of E10 gas, and as I've mentioned before, there's no place around here that doesn't have some hills, so this was on the outer belt highway (virtually no traffic until I hit close to the exit I wanted) but was definitely not a flat drive by any means. I put the cruise on (NOT the eco cruise, which I don't think I'll use much if at all, considering it would tick off the drivers behind me) on the drive out. Mileage was 38.7 miles, and I got 39.4 mpg. On the drive back I turned off the cruise to see if I could do any better just working it myself. The answer was no! 36.4 miles back, and I got 37.6 mpg. My car is still a little south of having 1,000 miles on it. From what I've been seeing with mine -- and granted, it's not broken in yet -- if you do most of your driving in the city you're going to love the mileage you get with this car (I expect to get mid-40's or better on my normal commute to work if I'm at all paying attention to how I'm driving). But if you do a lot of highway driving, unless it's as flat as western Kansas where you are, it will probably be less than the 47 Ford is touting (which also means the combined is off as well). But that's true of a lot of cars. With this one, the 188 horsepower it has was a draw for me, as when I go up into the mountains west of me I wasn't sure my Honda Civic Hybrid was even going to make it, it really strained the engine. I won't have that worry with the C-Max. Not to mention the ability to merge into highway traffic is more of a sure thing. So it's still getting better than the doggy Civic Hybrid I had was getting, and it's a much bigger, heavier, more powerful vehicle. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the mpg, especially since the bulk of my everyday driving is 55 mph and under.

I have the same hills both ways (i.e., the aforementioned "rolling hills), so my mileage is pretty close in either direction. Granted, I am an experienced hybrid driver and was really watching it to see how well it would do, but still I think I can manage to get better mpg than Consumer Reports without even trying. Not sure what's up with those guys.

Love the Pinehurst area, very pretty. Congrats on the new baby! I have yet to see another one "in the wild" where I live. Since I don't have a garage (and I hate to wax my car anyway) I took mine to a detailer for a good hand wax. They have waxes we can't get anywhere. I may do that a couple of times a year ($50, with tip $60). I have the White Platinum metallic paint, and boy, did it look pretty when they were done! I have to give Ford a thumbs up for the paint job, it was flawless.

So I tested the mpg on my normal commute to work and got 54.3 mpg! Temp was in the 40's, the drive is 55-60 mph and under, E10 gasoline, and terrain is mostly rolling hills. The drive is about 13 miles. Woohoo!!

Well, I did end up putting some stuff on USB drives, since I apparently have no other choices in this car. But since USB drives don't know from playlists, I ended up getting 3 4GB drives for $25 from Target and putting some stuff on one drive and some on another. But it's a PITA compared to just burning a cheap CD (and if you're as old as I am you still have a lot of CD's hanging around to convert). Frankly, if you're buying a $30,000+ vehicle the CD player (not to mention the voice recognition) should just work. If they can't get that right I'm depressed about what's ahead with other stuff. A friend of mine wanted to look at mine as he was interested in buying one, but right now I don't know if I can recommend this car. I love the passenger space, the cargo space, the nifty automatic liftback, etc. etc., but this was a leap of faith for me to go back to an American-badge car, and it's not starting off well.

The CD player in my SEL was working fine until I turned it off (with the CD still in it), and when I turned the car back on it wouldn't play the CD, wouldn't recognize there was one in there, and wouldn't eject it. I took it into the dealer, they were unable to fix it so they're ordering a new unit. Granted, this was a burned CD and not a manufactured one, but the player had been working fine up until then. And no, I didn't have a label on it. Just wondered if anyone else had had an issue with this. The dealership suggested I put my music on USB drives and use that instead, which I did, because I also discovered there's no jack in this car to plug my iPod into. Yippee.

My Nav doesn't understand anything I'm trying to say. I just use the Google Maps nav on my smartphone instead.

Even Fuelly.com is showing 39, though, and I can't for the life of me figure out why Hybridcars.com would think the city mpg would be less than the highway, not with this car. With its ability to stay in EV up to 62 mph I'm getting a lot better mpg driving in the city than the highway. If you read the review they haven't even driven it.

The owner's manual says: "Prolonged use of recirculated air may cause the windows to fog up" and "To reduce humidity build-up inside your vehicle, do not drive with the system switched off or with recirculated air always switched on." This is under "Climate Control"/"Hints on controlling the interior climate." I assume this is why Ford decided to make it a manual switch.

If you go to HybridCars.com you can see the C-Max is listed there on the right rail with an mpg rating of 35/40. Apparently they've arbitrarily changed it from the 47/47/47 EPA estimate. I posted on their forum that I thought this was unfair, as myself and other C-Max owners have reported getting mpg better than this. I hope the administrators of that website rethink this. I'm not sure how they came up with these numbers or why they thought it was appropriate to change the EPA estimate, at least until these cars have been on the road long enough to get a good handle on what they're getting. I'm able to come close to 47 in city driving, even with the rolling hills we have here. Highway so far has been around 41-42 average although I haven't driven a lot of highway miles yet and obviously my car is far from being broken in. If Ford and the EPA estimate is high I would say it's on the highway/combined numbers. But certainly I think listing it as 35/40 is unfair.

So sorry, Hughesblues! This is my first Ford (if you don't count my ex-husband's trucks, which I don't) and my first American-brand car since 1988, so I'm hoping for decent reliability. If not, it'll be out the door. I'm taking a real leap of faith with this thing, I usually wait at least a year when a new model comes out to let the manufacturer shake out the bugs but I really wanted out of my old ride. I've just gotten mine, but so far my only frustration is that I can't get the voice recognition to understand anything I'm trying to say. I end up using the Nav on my smartphone because it doesn't understand addresses, and I've pretty much given up on using the voice commands for anything at all. And I'm originally from the Midwest, so it's not like I have a Southern accent, or a Jersey accent or something, and I think I speak very clearly. I'm not sure what the problem is, my phone doesn't have a problem understanding me! I'll cross my fingers for ya that everything gets straightened out.

Love the SPUD. So does this mean that a C-Max that's been left in the hot summer sun is a Baked SPUD? And one that's been in an accident is a Mashed SPUD? Or maybe it's just Friday and I'm ready for the weekend!

The Detroit News is reporting that a law firm has filed a class action lawsuit against Ford for its mileage claims on the C-Max and the Fusion hybrid. http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121226/AUTO0102/212260404/Class-action-lawsuit-disputes-Ford-C-Max-Fusion-hybrid-mileage-claims?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE In the week that I've had my car I've been very happy with my mileage, I would say coming close to averaging 45 or so in around-town driving (I haven't had it out on the highway long enough to be able to test it). This with only 500 miles on the odo, winter gasoline blend, and 10% ethanol. So I'm not sure what some people are doing that they're only getting in the 30's (granted, I had a hybrid before so I know how to drive one). But we'll see what happens with this.

I've heard the C-Max called everything from a hatchback to a wagon to a compact crossover, and even a minivan (?). I can't find anywhere where Ford calls it anything other than just a "hybrid." Edmunds and Kelley Blue Book both call it a wagon. It's up for North American Truck/Utility of the Year instead of Car of the Year. So what do you call it? And does anybody know if there are any generally accepted standards of what fits into which category?

Hi! I took delivery of my White Platinum metallic SEL last week, and so far I love it! Now if I could just get the voice recognition to understand what I'm trying to say...

I believe there's also three buttons for a garage door opener,aren't there?