jestevens

My muffler looks funny too - soot around the ends - I guess subconsciously I'm just ignoring it until it makes a larger noise. We have annual vehicle fitness and emissions inspections here so I figure if it was bad/wrong they would tell me about it then.

Next time you go to the dealer ask them to make sure your car has all the 12V battery updates. There was a customer satisfaction letter that was sent out about it but I forget the number. I have a 2013 SEL and Ford kept telling me that my 12V battery was good but I started to have issues with the smart key not unlocking the door. In my opinion it was worth the $200 (parts + labor) to let them do it. The battery alone costs at least $120 on sale from Motorcraft - it was going to cost $150 on Amazon + $30 shipping so why not just let them do it considering it's hidden under the floor in the back. I did replace the 12V battery in my Prius and the procedure is about the same, not very much fun outside in 4F weather. So between replacing the 12V and the coin cells in the FOBs no more issue. I had already replaced FOB battery a few months prior to having the unlock problem so I knew it wasn't that. Hopefully you already know about the emergency key that is hidden in the FOB? Useful if the battery dies and you can't get the car unlocked.

The car ended up being fine, within 24-48 hours after the change it now operates normally and the dealer tested it, found proper operation and didn't reprogram anything. I guess maybe when I went to grab the front door handles maybe I inadvertently touched the lock pad or for the first day or so between the new 12V battery and brand new FOB batteries everything was hypersensitive.

EV+. there's a GPS module in the car and if you visit the same location, like 11 times - the car figures out that you like to come here a lot. It will allow you to run on electric only with extended range within vicinity of one of these spots and draw down the charge on the HVB. I guess the idea is that let's say from home you might restart the next day from a cold engine and it's going to have to run to warm up the engine, catalytic converter and possibly the cabin anyway at which time the battery would be charging up. Remember that even if the high voltage battery gauge shows empty on the dash, the battery management software typically keeps the battery within 20-80% state of charge to preserve the longevity of the battery, so despite what the gauge says it's never physically completely empty or full unless the car sits for a very long time or I guess goes up or down a very steep, long hill. Someone else here explained it a while back..

Yes thanks, I changed the FOB I use the most about 2 months ago, and I changed the batteries in both FOBs last night. That was a weird experience, the dealer shop replaced the battery and glued the loose carpet strips in the back with some double sided tape but when I went to leave touching the front door handles locked the car and touching the back handles unlocked it. The FOB buttons work as expected. The Advisor offered to have the car reprogrammed but I was there late and all of her techs went home already. I'm guess I'm taking it back in to get flashed tomorrow at no charge. I drove it to a restaurant for dinner and when I came back out the car seemed to work as expected, then when I got home I tested things and it was like the driver's door was alternately hypersensitive to putting your hand anywhere near the lock pad on the front door handles, if I grabbed it ONLY on the front part of the handle it would unlock - sometimes it wouldn't respond at all for a few seconds. The BCM seemed to be acting slowly.. So I'm not exactly sure what is failing - the antenna? the BCM? Bad settings? I don't know for sure. I guess I'm glad I have the new battery anyway, it might have lasted one more year if I was lucky probably. The dealer didn't want to change it because it tested good. They thought I would be mad if it didn't solve the problem. They apparently have a "hybrid specialist" that only works certain days for $105/hr .. I guess sort of like how some shops bring in a specialist for transmissions? They wanted to have that person do a diagnostic. I guess if the re-flash doesn't work maybe I will. This is a presidential award winning dealer that does work for miles around. and I'm glad they are trying to help me but It's funny that the shop where I bought the car at a little country dealer seemed to know more about hybrids. Oh, the new battery with tax, labor etc. was about a $200 charge. I remember how much fun I had changing the battery in the Prius and the C-MAX looked to be about just as much fun so I guess it was worth it. By the time I would have bought all the deep sockets or whatever, and it's cold out this time of year I guess I would have spent about the same amount. Amazon wanted $140 for the battery + $26 for shipping. Some of the online Ford dealers were selling it for about $90.

I'm going to Ford Service this afternoon to replace mine. In the cold weather I had to use the emergency key 3 times to unlock the door. I think maybe I just wasn't making a good ground connection since I was wearing thick soled hikers on snow when I tried to open the door but it's time - the battery is the original battery from the factory and the car was built May 2012 according to the VIN check. I suspect I need the Motorcraft "MAX" battery which is on special for $129, not the other one for $99.

I just went through this - a friend drove me around in their car so my 2013 C-MAX just sat there over the weekend, short 12 mile trips to and from work followed by the two coldest days in the last 10 years. 3 times now went I went out to clean off the snow and when I went to unlock the door with smart key the car was "dead" and I had to use the emergency key in the FOB to get it open. As soon as I started the engine everything was fine. I had just changed the FOB battery about 4 months ago and neither FOB worked so I suspect the car was going into a deep sleep mode to protect the battery. As someone else said, you really shouldn't have to run the engine on the C-MAX to charge the battery since there is a 12V inverter that is powered from the high voltage battery. You just need enough juice from the 12V battery to have the computers boot and close the relay contacts on the high voltage battery - then the car will use power from the HVB to spin the crankshaft and start the car and the power goes from the HVB to the 12V inverter which charges the battery. Just for good measure I went out on the cold mornings and started the car, I also hit the red MAX DEFROST button which will override all of the temperature controls, blast heat out the vents and ensure that the engine keeps running. I guess I sort of ignored my own advice about not needing the engine but I figured one thing the battery does need is heat, and it was 4F outside for a few hours. I actually made a few trips yesterday and there were no issues this morning so I have to assume that it was indeed that the battery was low, probably old and not keeping a good charge due to the cold. I think these batteries also have less cold cranking amps because really they don't need it, they aren't trying to turn over an engine, that's the job of the HVB. I think just to be safe I'm going to arrange with Ford service to have the 12V battery replaced as I still have the original which by the VIN that car was produced May 2012?? I have all of the software updates which you should visit the service shop and get if you don't have them already. I think they are doing a special for $99 motorcraft battery. The 12V battery on its own ranges from $87-$150 depending on where you buy it from. Plus it looks like you'll need some Torx and metric sockets to get to it, pull up some panel covers, disconnect some vent ductwork. I did it with my Prius, they don't make them easy to get to because it's an item that seldom needs replaced. All things considered by the time I buy the battery and the tools and take the time it's probably just worth letting Ford Service take care of it as long as that special is still going on. I know some folks who don't drive very often or have classic cars use battery tenders but I think it would be pain to hook one up in this car unless you do it at the jump points under the hood? I remember panicking a little when the guys in the garage across the street said "oh we work on hybrids!" then opened the hood on my Prius and were trying to figure out where to put jumper cables when they didn't see the battery. These cars have multiple expensive computer modules that don't like being shorted out.

So it happened again this morning (the weather is actually colder today) - I was able to insert the key and turn it to the right this time - the courtesy lights came on and it immediately triggered the unlock command to open the doors. You only have a few seconds to get the FOB near the steering column to start the car before the alarm goes off. I don't know why I couldn't turn the key to the right before, maybe the lock was partially frozen. The FOB works fine now that the car was started and driven. As for why the car won't initially respond I guess I better ask my Ford dealer about a new battery just to be safe. I'm not getting any battery minder notices and once the car "wakes up" everything seems perfectly fine.

FYI, if you squeeze the indentations on both sides of the narrow part of the FOB itself the Ford logo decal will pop up enough on the underside that you can pry it up with a fingernail and get to the emergency key that supposedly unlocks the driver's door (some doors covered with a cap to the rear of the handle), but like I said, even after inserting the key in the door I still couldn't get it to unlock.

This happened to me twice now both times when I was shoveling snow and clearing the car off with wet gloves, 20F weather. I replaced the battery in the FOB about six months ago with a new one. The second FOB also wouldn't work either so it must've been something with the car itself. I tried to use the emergency key to unlock the drivers door and I could only turn the key to the left and hold it (spring loaded) pulling on the handle wouldn't open the door. It seemed like I could not turn the key to the right, but there's very little to grab on to with that key, it's just a metal "T" shape with no real leverage outside the lock. It tried it both with gloves on and with bare hands. By some unknown miracle after trying for about 5 minutes the car eventually finally registered the ground loop by touching the door handle.and allowed me to unlock, started right up without a problem after that. I have the original 12V battery still, last Ford service as of a month ago said the battery status was fine. I wonder if the car goes into some sort of "deep sleep" mode - the Prius used to have an actual switch by the underside of the steering column to turn off the smartkey radio sensing so as not to drain the 12V if you were parking the car for an extended period of time

I got the recall here in PA, I think my back doors are worse now than when they were stock from factory. The bottom line is that you have to slam the back doors and make sure they latch - I can see some folks not doing that and thinking they are closed when in fact they are only half latched I still have to do that, even more now that I have the new "improved" parts. I don't know if they can actually fall open or not if they are completely latched with stock from factory but the back door latch mechanism seems extra "stiff"

My Prius had Xenon lights, A regular parts place wanted $130/bulb and Toyota wanted $300 per headlight to change them. Thankfully you could get the bulb for $82/ea on Amazon and if you had really small hands and a cosmetic mirror you could change them yourself without taking the bumper cover off and the headlight assembly out per the shop manual. The HHR had some weird thing where you had to turn the steering wheel all the way to lock position so you could reach up, pull out the push pins and pull back the inner wheel liner so you could reach up into the headlight housing and change the bulb. I'm sorry to say the C-MAX was actually the easiest "modern" car to change - using some hex bits and a push pin removal tool you can flex the front of the car enough to pivot the headlight assembly and remove the bulb cover to access the bulbs - I remember doing this on a nice, breezy 4F day. On my '94 Cavalier you'd just basically open the hood, pull out the bulb and change it in like 30 seconds.

ETIS would maybe show it.. Go to http://www.etis.ford.com and click VEHICLE, then type in your VIN and hit search?

I've never received a letter for this CSP. I think I have a 2013 that was built in May so it doesn't qualify. So far no problems but I've only got 77K and mostly around town driving with occasional highway trips on the weekend. Still doesn't make me warm and fuzzy but I guess if it fails I'll look for another car. I like the C-MAX, probably more than any other car I've owned but vendors are on the verge of releasing models with even better technology in the next few years.

So did they actually improve the bearings by now or will the transmission still fail if I buy a new '17 C-MAX?

The embedded computer is probably underpowered, and it's Microsoft software - if you've ever used Microsoft software then you know exactly why Sync 2 behaves the way it does. Having said that I've never had a problem to the degree that I felt the need to sue anybody. I just curse a little whenever the screen lag gets slow. If you think Sync 2 is bad I really dislike the first generation of Toyota and GM's touchscreen interface - Sync 2 interface was laid out a lot more intuitively. You should see the way my friend's Mercedes infotainment system operates - it's horrible - if you want to use the backup camera the radio must be on. He has sonar sensors in the back but you have to be about to hit something before it gives any indication at all and the warning he gets is not like the sonar overlay on the C-MAX. Whenever Sirius does a channel update the "radio" locks up due to memory overflow issues..on a $65K car! Apparently the push button engine start doesn't always work reliably either. I can easily see how they'd want to move on from Sync 2 to Sync 3. Car manufacturers regularly change model features, It takes a lot of effort to make completely new software backward compatible with old hardware and they may not have the expertise in house.. Plus, my Ford dealer can't wait to sell me a new C-MAX with Sync 3 - too bad this one is so reliable already.

I think that worked, most of the time I put the parking brake on after I'm done driving without even realizing it, I took it off and it passed without a problem. I guess it reads any lights on the dash as a problem. Thanks!

I'll check that, thank you!

When the car was first introduced I think they originally advertised it as 60MPG and then had to revise it down. I'm mostly happy with the mileage I get since it's still twice as high as the average US gasoline car. For short trips when everything is just right I can get in the 50's, on a day when the weather is 0F (thankfully we don't have TOO many of those but there are some). I can get 30MPG - still better than most domestic gas cars. I've seen evidence of people getting 60MPG scores so they weren't really wrong, but it takes planning and extra effort. On the other hand in 2010 some other domestic manufacturer's local dealership seemed to be outright lying about the possible MPGs on their gas cars and they didn't even advertise the electric one. They treated it like a publicity stunt, and still kept it way in the back lot.

I hadn't run it in a while so I thought I would run a vehicle health report. It's intermittently returning a "problem" with the brakes or suspension. I'll pop the hood and look at the brake fluid level later today but I don't feel any problem with the brakes and no wrench or engine light. Anyone have any experience with this? The car has 77K mi's on it. Don't you get into ETM by holding down the left OK button while starting the car? For some reason that doesn't seem to work anymore on my vehicle.

There were a few problems - they really wanted to compete with the Prius V so they overstated the MPG, originally telling people the car would do 60MPG city/highway/combined. So people would buy them, be disappointed and trade them back in. Lucky for me we had some C-MAX at work so I already knew how it would drive and 40MPG is still twice as good as the typical American car. I actually hated the car the very first time I drove it, the battery was almost depleted so then engine was really whining when it first started up but after driving it in traffic a few times I really started to like it. Compared to Ford's first generation hybrids which we also had it was amazing. Some folks here have proven that you CAN do 60MPG but you have to drive very judiciously in just the right type of environment. They also initially had voltage drain problems with the 12V battery on the SEs. I suspect they also wanted to sell more F-150s, Escapes and Focus.

I can ask Siri to dial a number, or send a message, but if I ask Siri for directions all it says is "Getting Directions to.." and then it cuts off - I think it probably shows them on the phone but I can't see because I'm driving.

My 6' 7" friend sat in the front seat, it was a tight fit but he made it..I was amazed. Some cars driven on the highway a lot have problems with transmission bearings, some have problems with 12V battery (although 12V seems to be more SE's than SELs?) I have 73,000 so far; 36,000 of that is basically around town and weekend trips on the highway to museums and state parks. Service-wise I have only had to take the car in for tire changes, inspections and oil changes. Replaced cabin air filter, headlights and turn signal bulbs myself (what a pain). I topped off the orange coolant for the inverter per Paul's advice on here. You aren't kidding - I got into a fender bender and had to rent a Nissan Versa with a CVT - it was so noisy compared to the hybrid. After owning a Prius and a C-MAX I forgot what it's like to drive a "normal" car. It was especially cute that they programmed the CVT to act like it was shifting..geesh. Sounds and vibrates like a prop (propeller) plane taking off..

Hmm, mine had absolutely no response at the switch on dash until after the BCM was reprogrammed; when engine was in "run" the lights were on. The operation you describe sounds like DRL as cr08 suggests. My chevy used to switch off the DRLs if you put the car in park and set the parking brake, does the CMAX do anything like that? I can't test because when the dealer reprogrammed the BCM the DRLs are also now off on my car. I actually loved my 07 Prius sedan, The seats fold down, plenty of room, 49MPG, it was no mustang but it goes faster than a lot of people think. However the battery pack was getting old and I was getting tired of having more than one car so I traded the Prius and the HHR in together to get $10K off the CMAX. I'm still happy. I tried the Prius V of course but it's an absolute dog compared to the C-MAX - it had this cute button next to the shifter that said "POWER/ECO" - but as far as I could tell they must've left it unwired at the factory. They basically took the original prius drivetrain and added another 2,000lbs. Lucky we had C-MAX at work so I knew there was an alternative - Ford really doesn't market the C-MAX well.

Some cars (such as mine) were also fleet vehicles that were programmed to have the lights on all the time whenever the "engine" is on, like a motorcycle. The headlight control on the dash has literally no effect. It's very annoying since the houses where I live are close together and my headlights used to shine directly into neighbor's house late at night. As cr08 suggests a competent dealer can reprogram the BCM to disable this and enable control of the lights via the switch on the dash. You may have to reset your driver personalization settings when that's done. The best time to do it is after you just bought the car and the dealer is still in a good mood, I think they charged me $30 but it was worth it. My former fleet vehicle also has no tinting on any windows other than the panoramic glass in the roof.