Podivin

I suspect that they just APPEAR closer in the rear view mirror because they are closer to the back glass. I think that people who tailgate don't care what kind of a car is in front of them, they're going too ride to close no matter what.

Back when I lived in Iowa we regularly saw temps of below zero in the morning, and -10 to -20 wasn't uncommon at all. I would put a magnetic heater on the engine oil pan, it made a HUGE difference in the way the engine would turn over and start in the morning (or in the afternoon for that matter - when it's STILL below zero), and a small difference in how quickly the heater would actually start to blow warm air. This wasn't on a C-Max, but it should still make starting easier and have the ICE warm up just a bit quicker.

Is he a big fella with a heavy foot? :)

And if he's a smart man, he never will. :)

How many times have you been driving behind someone who has their turn signal on for miles (and miles, and miles) and you wonder 'why don't they turn that thing off'. Maybe Ford is trying to help those folks. :)

Yep, the leather seats is one of the main things that kept me in an SE rather than an SEL.

LS, I'm not knocking your work, and thanks for the review of the product, but personally I've never understood the appeal of shiny tires (obviously there IS one, I just don't get it). To me, rubber shouldn't shine. I like a clean tire as much as the next guy, also prefer to see white walls and white letters on tires be WHITE, but the shiny rubber look is just lost on me. That must be one of those 'to each his own' things. :)

Personally I'm not concerned about the battery. We had a Prius for 7 years and put just under 200k on it. During the last year or so we could tell that the engine was running a bit more, and the average mpg was down from 50 to 47, we blamed this on the battery getting a bit weaker, but never actually had it tested to be SURE. Given that the C-Max has essentially the same technology in it I'm going to assume that the battery will last at least that long. By that point somebody will have come up with something that gets 60mpg plus, and I'll have switched to that. :)

I agree with CassidyB, take a good look at the battery powered mowers. They are VERY light, much lighter than the ones from 3 or so years ago. In fact they sort of feel like a toy,but they do a good job with the grass. Mine is 21" with two blades. I bought it from Lowes (or Home Depot, I don't recall exactly), it's so light it feels like a toy. I also have a 1/3 acre lot (with a swimming pool and 12x16 outbuilding, so I don't mow the entire lot), it mows it just fine. The 50-something lady next door borrowed it and like it enough that she bought one for herself.

In my opinion, 'drafting' is just another way of saying 'tailgating', and that is NEVER safe to do. If a someone cuts off the the car you're tailgating, or an animal jumps out in front of it, or any of a dozen other things happen, that person his going to hit his breaks, and you're going to hit him before you have to time to think 'oh crap'. Not to mention that most folks don't like being tailgated, and it's good way to spark a nice bit of road rage. How many times have you been driving along the freeway and saw a dead animal along side the road that was hit by a car? It's probably safe to say that the person who hit that animal slammed on the breaks trying to avoid it. Think about that the next time your 'drafting' someone trying get an extra mpg on your 'score'.

If you haven't already done so, you might try it with them driving the car rather than riding with you. Sometimes rattles and squeaks are easier to hear from one particular seat in the car (nearly always the driver's seat :) ).

Prius' do the same thing (we've had three over the years, still have one of them). We just refer to it as 'the car sitting in the driveway talking to itself'. It must be a hybrid thing to do.

Gotcha, it's not surprising this is a different noise (we seem to have plenty to choose from). This isn't the usual buffeting noise, this is a big bass note coming from the speakers, at certain speeds and accelerations. For me it's not worth taking it to Ford for any sort of update, it happens rarely, and if I don't want to hear it I can simply put up the windows. :)

On my car it's 'seasonal' only insofar as it only happens when I've got windows down. Apparently the extra noise from having the windows down somehow confuses the noise-cancelling system and it activates when it doesn't need to be (or it SHOULD be working, but having the windows down changes the acoustics in the car enough that we can hear the sound the noise-cancelling system makes). In any case, in my car I only hear it with the windows down. It would have been nice if Ford had given us the option to turn that feature off without having to remove a fuse, which disables other things also.

It may not make a difference, but try 'read text messages' as your command. That works in mine (2014 regular C-Max, not an Energi)

My 2014 with cloth seats has the pouch on the side, which I also had never really noticed. I think I probably just thought it was a seam. My cell phone rides nicely between the emergency break handle and the console.

I just got back from a 1000 mile round trip from Jacksonville to Key West. Temps around 90, A.C. going strong the entire time. The first 380 miles is interstate, ran about 75 mph and the average was 37.5 mpg. The last 120 miles is 2 and 4 lane road that is mostly 45 mph, sometimes can make it up to 60, but not for long. By the time we got to Key West the average was 41.4. On the trip home the first 120 miles brought the average up to 41.9, then the interstate miles brought it back down again. Got home with an overall average of 39.4 mpg for that trip.

I only have a bit of advice about Sirius. My '14 SE did not have Sirius radio, so I had the dealer install an aftermarket unit (which I THINK was made by Ford, but I wouldn't swear to it - it's the only one he had available to him). It worked OK, but it plugs in to the only USB port in the car - which I wasn't aware of when I ordered it. I had them pull it out because I have lots of music on a USB stick that I wanted to have in that port. And the aftermarket Sirius didn't really integrate all THAT well into the radio controls. So now for Sirius I use their app on my phone and play it via bluetooth. For ME, that was a better option than the aftermarket. If I were to do it again I'd make sure to get a car with Sirius built in at the factory.

You're right, that 40 is combined and not highway - so it did even better than I thought. :) Yes, AC on all the way, no drafting or anything like that.

I recently got back from a 1650 mile round trip between Florida and Kentucky. I didn't pay ANY attention to mpg while driving, I was just trying to cover ground. Minimum speed on the interstate was 70, spent most of the time around 75, sometimes up to 85 depending on the traffic flow where I was (I always just try to 'blend' with the traffic. I'm not the fastest thing on the road, neither am I the slowest). When I got back home I checked the mileage for that trip and it showed 39.6. I was pleasantly surprised, that's actually a bit higher than I was expecting (I would have thought it would come in closer to 37 or so). I know Ford says 40mpg on the highway, but since I wasn't exactly driving in the most efficient manner I didn't expect it to come in that high.

Having had both, I can tell you that your driving style should RADICALLY change, assuming you drive both cars like you 'should'. I presume when you're driving the Miata you drive it like a sports car. It's a high revving engine that you shift at a fairly high RPM (I'm assuming it's a manual transmission). So you accelerate 'fast' (I know the Miata is not exactly quick off the line) and take corners a fun-speed. (For those who haven't driven one, a Miata is a fairly slow car to accelerate for all that they look like they should be much quicker, but will take a corner at darn near any speed you'd like. The best example I've read is to imagine a race between a Miata and a Mustang. If it's a straight track the Mustang will win without a problem. If it's very curvy track, bet on the Miata). So the Miata 'tells' you to drive it like a sports car. Even when you're going easy on it you're still driving it 'sporty'. Which is not very economical fuel-wise. I'd guess you average somewhere around 25mpg with it. The C-Max on the other hand will likely out accelerate the Miata, but you'd better slow down in turns until you learn it's handling or you're going to end up sideways on the street at some point. It's quieter, and it's going to feel bulkier until you get used to it. The left side of the dash on the C-Max has a screen that you can change to display different things. Set it on the 'empower' screen and let the car teach you how to drive it by keeping an eye on what it's telling you there. You'll likely find that you accelerate somewhere around '2 bars' to get a balance of decent acceleration and fuel economy. Others will give you lots of advice about how to get the BEST mileage out of it, but I don't drive that way. I drive for GOOD mileage, but I also like to get where I'm going. :) It's a different kind of fun to drive, but it's still fun.

I agree that the comparison should have been limited to the Prius V - or it should have at least have been specifically mentioned more often, especially when he's talking about carrying capacity. He points out the the C-Max has more storage than the standard Prius, but doesn't point out that the Prius V has more storage than the C-Max - not a very unbiased comparison. Comparing to the Prius V would also have made a smaller difference in the MPG comparison, since the V doesn't get the same mileage as the regular Prius does. (I drove a Prius V for three years and now have a C-Max. In MY driving the V averages about 2 mpg better than the C-Max - 47mpg as compared to 45mpg for the C-Max). To state definitively that the C-Max is a better looking car, without a 'to me' caveat is not the greatest strategy in a review since 'looks better' is subjective to whomever is viewing it at the time (I don't anything about know art, but I know what I like). To ME, the Prius V is actually the better looking car, I think it has sleeker lines and overall a more 'slippery' look - from the side. From the front I like the look of the C-Max better, and their both pretty plain from the rear. While I obviously prefer the C-Max to the Prius V for my daily driver, the overall not-quite-objective tone of this review gives it a 'Sponsored by Ford' feel to it.

Just for fun, take out the floor mat (which I assume it has) and see if the problem persists.

For ME it came down to carrying capacity. For looks and driving I would prefer a Fusion, but my wife and I haul our bikes inside the car, and the Fusion just isn't designed for that.

Same here, the past several new cars I've had(I'm an every 2 or 3 years guy) regardless of make, has turned on the AC compressor when the defrosters were on. They may or may not turn on the AC light, but the compressor was running - I could feel the change in the engine, and would also notice that the air from the vents got cooler even though I hadn't changed the temperature setting.