jestevens

Never had a 12V battery problem with my SEL (with "keyless"), although Ford still sent me a customer satisfaction program letter/invitation the other day. Thing is, I don't take my vehicle to the dealer on a frequent basis because of the 10K mi oil changes and otherwise been pretty reliable. I still think they are still trying to track down the current drain and seem to have several fixes they can try depending on the variables associated with a particular vehicle.. Among other things the letter suggests that you don't leave a bunch of accessories plugged into the car's 12V and USB outlets. We have several SEs at work and one of them just went dead the other day. The SEs seem to have more of an issue for whatever reason. The vehicles at work don't ever have stuff plugged in, but they do sometimes sit around for a while.

The P7s on page 2 ended up being a fairly good tire, they were decent in the winter time for this area (we only get a few inches of snow at a time here, unlike further North). They slip a tiny bit when you get going but once they bite into the road they are pretty good. The computer routinely shows 39/40MPG on the display. They are supposed to be LRR but I still think they are more "sticky" than the OEM tires and would probably replace with OEM again once these wear out. Proper LRR tires are critical for hybrid performance.

I love my SEL with panoramic roof, technology package..the SELs do not seem to have the same 12V battery issue as the SE. I average (according to computer) 39-40MPGs. We have a few SE's at work and one of them had dead battery and needed a jump. Ford seems to have several proposed fixes for the 12V issue on the SEs..I'm not sure how they diagnose which issue fits with the symptoms of particular car. A customer satisfaction program was recently issued by Ford that allows customer to take the vehicle in to dealership to have it inspected for any 12V battery issues and the dealership will get reimbused by Ford for the work. My SEL has never had battery problem and I still received an invitation to participate in the program. The letter mentions not leaving a bunch of USB and 12V stuff plugged in to charge while the "engine" isn't running - e.g. the high voltage battery isn't charging the 12V battery. Maybe the original software was a little TOO convienient and generous with sharing 12V DC power when the engine is off. So far the only build quality issue I experienced is the glue on the carpet in the hatch area - right at the hinge where the seats fold down has given way and so those little carpet squares are loose. I could get a can of 3M 777 as others suggested but I think I will take it into the dealer and ask them to glue it back down. Thing is, I don't go in for service very much because otherwise nothing is wrong with the car and oil change interval is 10K mi. Just make sure to have all of the recalls/reprogramming done for the TSBs. The recent PCM update fixed a weird issue I was having where every once in a while I would press the engine start button in a "hurry" at just the right time when hitting the brake where the engine would fail to even try to start. Hitting it a second time always fired right up. The built in Microsoft "infotainment" software on the touch screen of the SEL sometimes leaves a lot to be desired (typical MS software) with respect to a few glitches every once in a while, responsiveness updating displays while driving, etc. but it is still nicer than some of the other touch screen systems I have seen.

If you desire, you can press the physical A/C button on the drivers side of the center stack console to disable the compressor - it will show "A/C OFF" in the VFD/LED display of the climate controls...however this may not have the desired effect if what you really want is cooling. I forgot about this one time and had a laugh as my friend on the passanger side had turned the temp dial all the way down to "LO" - I figured he must've been frozen off his chair but had forgot that I turned the "A/C OFF" earlier in the day when it was much cooler to save battery. At any time if you press AUTO once or twice it switches the compressor back on in order to comply. I wanted to amend my post to say I only actually turn the compressor off on cool days, from my prius days I remember that it's a good idea to try to preserve the life of the battery pack by making it as comfortable as the rest of your passengers..

As far as I can tell they've NEVER really advertised the C-MAX in my area - only the Focus, Fusion and Escape..I've only heard the C-MAX ads from a few radio spots on the local NPR station. Unfortunately "hybrid" has a bad reputation in this area of the country, even though I love my car, it has better trim and it actually more reliable (in the SEL version without the battery issue). People around here used to look at me like I was smoking crack when I told then I actually got 49-50MPG with the Prius sedan..they just didn't believe that number. I got tired of having two cars and traded both my Prius and HHR for a C-MAX and although there is a hit on MPG compared to the Prius the C-MAX has more power, and more features..it's a great car and I think they would sell more if they pushed the advertising more. The only actual build quality problem I had with the C-MAX was the loose carpet squares over the part of the folding rear seats. I knew what I was getting into MPG-wise because we have a few C-MAX at work, but 40MPG is still pretty good for a cross-over car. I'm not necessarily opposed to an SUV or truck if you have a need for it, like a big family, rough terrain, construction, hauling big items..but the crossover meets most of my needs and rides like a sedan.

I never bother with trying to control whether the ICE is charging the HV battery or not..the battery NEEDS to be charged and eventually it will be regardless of how "ginger" you try to be with the throttle. Trying to monitor the SoC all the time using just the factory gauges seems like it takes too much time away from concentrating on actually driving the car. Even if the car is in warm up I still get to use that energy later on in the trip driving around the 25MPH area at work on pure EV. Sure, it's exciting to try to max out the MPG but you still can't change the laws of physics..or the patterns of other drivers..I have noticed my coach score go way down as I react appropriately to sudden changes in traffic - it's not worth an extra 1 or 2 MPG to me to not treat this thing like a car.. The beauty is with both this car and the prius sedan, you can get very good fuel economy with only a few modest changes in driving style.

Don't just tap the brakes - learn to look at the traffic flow ahead of your car - see if there are any red lights coming up, and what the other drivers in front of you are doing..if someone is making a turn back off the throttle slightly or if you will have to stop apply a slow steady pressure to the brakes in order to brake the car so that it slows down gently behind the car in front of you. The longer you can brake (within reason), the more regen is going into the battery. This is of course subject to safety. I also look in the rear view to see just how much hypermiling is going to frustrate the other drivers and try to adjust my driving style accordingly. If I know that they are ALSO going to have to stop with me I take that into account and sometimes will gently slow down several MPH to try to meet the other cars' acceleration curve as they are pulling away at a stop light. I usually get a very good brake score, unless I am caught off guard by a traffic light or a "merging" motorist. It's the acceleration score I have a hard time with, I just love the extra torque and I hate the idea of a bunch of people sitting behind my car while I slowly throttle up to speed seems tedious. I prefer briskly accelerating to crusing speed and then trying to "cruise" as much as possible around town.

There must be more to the algorithm than a simple radius/position sensor. If I approach home from a direction that has a lot of hills and traffic, where I drive more aggressively EV+ does not activate. However, if I come from the other direction, on a relatively flat road with very predictable traffic, where I can coast and use EV more, EV+ engages within a mile from home or less. If I deviate from that route by block or two EV+ does not engage. The way it behaves, I think it might have at least partial route learning within a certain radius, but I am not a Ford engineer so I really don't know.

Yes, the Cinturato P7 All Season Plus got good ratings on Tire Rack, and the traction in light snow/slush is nice - I am glad I have them this winter, they are a nice tire. Having said all of that, even though they are listed as a low rolling resistance tire they still put more load on the drivetrain than the OEM tires. I can't "glide" around town as easily as I used to. For that reason the next set I get will probably be OEM again. As for trying non-LRR tires - don't do it, you will be disappointed. Hybrids need LRR tires in order to gain maximum efficiency. I installed a set of regular BF Goodrich traction T/A tires on my prius once, took them back to the tire shop within 15 minutes of test driving afterward; thankfully they were willing to swap the tires since LRRs were higher priced.

When Ford first promoted the car they claimed much higher MPG than it actually does..if people bought into that and were disappointed, that would explain why there are many used vehicles at much lower prices. Also the early SE's seem to have a 12V battery discharge issue..I'm still not sure if that's sorted out 100%. The other thing is, if I hadn't driven a few of them as fleet vehicles for work, I would've never even known this model existed up until a few months ago when they started to run more advertising - and I still see way more ads for Escapes and Focuses than C-MAX.. People around here don't like the word "hybrid" for some reason, but I love them .. I think they are just more fun to drive. Since I had an oppertunity to use some of them as part of the fleet I knew what MPGs to expect, it doesn't get as good mileage as my Prius sedan used to (routinely in the 50MPG range), but it's a nice cross-over, with plenty of power, handles well in the snow and the MPG is still good for a car in this class. I was able to find a Prius V for $19K but when I test drove it the car had no acceleration power. The C-MAX has plenty of power and think uses the battery pack more aggressively than the Toyota implementation. Ford decided to try Lithium Ion packs in this generation vs. Toyota was still using NiMH packs..that and the Prius V is basically the same drivetrain as the sedan, with extra weight.. I bought the SEL for basically $11K off and I love the extra features ..you don't get a panoramic roof in too many cars for $20K .. Traded in the Prius Sedan and HHR because I was tired of having to take care of two cars, and got something that sort of melded the two together.. My friend bought a $65K Mercedes crossover and he can't believe that my car has almost all of the features in his, plus gets 42MPG .. and actually his doesn't have dual climate control.

In the dark even "reduced intensity" still seems bright, I was glad to be able to switch them off while I was parked with the engine idling.. The houses here are fairly close together so it's nice not to annoy the neighbors when I warm the car up early in the morning before leaving for work. With DRLs "enabled", at least on the US model it seems you can't switch headlights off...might as well not even have a headlamp switch on the dash. Of course that is pretty much my only complaint about the car, and they were able to fix it by reprogramming with IDS. I should say that the reprogramming also reset some of the driver controlled settings, I had to re-do "MyView" and a few of the other menu settings but overall I am very happy with the response. It was worth $35 for the dealer's time. I guess it could be a safety issue but I just got in the habit of turning the lights on if there is a lot of glare on the road, which is what I think DRLs are supposed to help with. I'm not sure about the legality, I assume that if it was a problem then they wouldn't sell stock C-MAX without the DRLs enabled in the US Market. I still do see some cars that have no DRLs on here. This shouldn't be that hard of a programming fix to make it work "right" - where it would honor something like "parking lights only" at night depending on the position of the switch on the dash and the input from the daylight sensor.. It seems like the rental car company basically said, "For insurance purposes we would like these to be on all the time when the car is running." and Ford said, "Okay".

Sorry, I think above link was wrong, I did install the 225/50R17 .. Here is an updated link .. http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Pirelli&tireModel=Cinturato+P7+All+Season+Plus&partnum=25VR7CP7ASP&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Ford&autoYear=2013&autoModel=C-MAX%20Hybrid&autoModClar=SEL I was able to find a local shop that gave a little bit of a discount. I updated the link in the original post as well.

When I bought my car used, I realized that the previous owner did not rotate the tires, I wanted to be sure I had good tires for the winter so I ended up trying these.. Cinturato P7 All Season Plus: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Pirelli&tireModel=Cinturato+P7+All+Season+Plus&partnum=25VR7CP7ASP&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Ford&autoYear=2013&autoModel=C-MAX%20Hybrid&autoModClar=SEL ..although I bought them from a local shop. They are supposedly low rolling resistance tires but I've noticed that the hybrid powertrain has to work harder because the tires seem "stickier" than the OEMs. Even though I figure the engine is working harder, curiously enough my MPG gauge shows in the 40MPG range all the time. They are beautiful tires, the cornering is great, and other than a tiny bit of slip when you first get started they seem to work great in light snow. I am glad I have them for the winter but even so, I will probably buy OEMs next time because I miss being able to coast around town easily. Low Rolling Resistance are absolutely critical for hybrids..learned that lesson the hard way.

I don't want to take credit away from any site sponsors but I was able to get a four bin ROLA MOVE cargo carrier off of Amazon that works perfectly in the back of the C-MAX (http://amzn.com/B000E81VN8). I used to try to carry bags in the flip up portion of the load floor but sometimes I had too many. The divders are semi-rigid and secured with velcro tabs, so you can make the bins any size you want and if you need the full cargo room the whole thing can either lift out or fold relatively flat in a few seconds.

My 2013 CMAX was a fleet vehicle, which means that when I bought it the windows were un-tinted and the headlights are forced on to comply with DRL. It worked like a motorcycle, if the car was on, the headlights were on (might as well not even have a headlamp switch on the dash). Based on some posts I read here I got the dealer service department to use IDS to reprogram one of the modules to turn the DRL feature "off". Since I had just bought the car they were willing to do this service for $35. Far as I can tell there are no actual independent DRL lights so I am much happier with the DRLs "off". You can manually control the headlights/parking lights with the switch instead of the headlights being forced on all the time while I am idling. If I see that there is a lot of glare on the road or whatever, I just reach down and turn the switch so the lights are on. Ford does have daylight sensors in the car, so I'm not exactly sure why they couldn't program the DRL routine to switch the headlight control to manual when it is dark outside. I guess they must've figured that if it is dark outside you'l lwant to use the headlights anyway but I hated it when I come home at 11PM and my headlights were shining directly on the neighbor's bedroom window with no way to override. I have the SEL model, so no battery problems to date,DRLwas the only issue I had with the car and they were able to fix that so I am pretty happy. I used to drive a prius sedan, which could routinely get 45-50MPG and I had an HHR, but I got tired of having two cars and the C-MAX is sort of the best of both. I love the light from the panoramic roof in the winter time. I tried the Prius V and it was like they took the regular prius drivetrain and added on another 2,000lbs - terribly slow unlike the C-MAX. I was able to get a four bin ROLA MOVE cargo carrier off of Amazon that works perfectly in the back of the C-MAX (http://amzn.com/B000E81VN8) so the groceries don't roll around. I used to try to carry them in the flip up portion of the load floor but sometimes I had too many bags.