Taz

I have a slightly different take but my situation is bit different. I am dealing with terrible traffic every day in LA. By running in EV mode for pretty much my entire commute, I am saving up to a gallon of gas a day. Current gas prices are between $4 - $4.20 a gallon. If I drive WAY out of my way, I might be able to get it in the high $3/gal range. As a result I am saving about $1200/a year by using pure EV when I can. An example of my commute the other day was about 17 miles covered in 1 hour 20 minutes. I have also found places were I can charge for free which can extend my EV range to about 60 miles or more a day. Since the ICE doesn't run as often oil changes are reduced saving a bit more money. I am consistently getting about 30 miles on EV alone when commuting. The key is keeping it under 40 mph when in EV mode. Another consideration is my ECO footprint is a bit lighter. When I factor in that I bought my NRG used, and it was about the same price as the non-NRG model, it was a no-brainer for me. I gave up some trunk space and I have a lot more flexibility. I had to do my commute a few times in hybrid mode and found that not going anywhere for long enough, the ICE has to kick on and ultimately my FE starts to dive. If I can at least roll a bit more than stopping, the hybrid isn't too bad. One particularly bad stretch, I calculated I was getting about 20mpg in hybrid mode. OTOH had if I have to pay to recharge at some of the more expensive charging stations, I just use the ICE as it can be cheaper to run than using electrons from the high priced EVSEs. At the more expensive stations it can work out to I am paying about $6/gal for the equivalent range on electrons. Now that I know exactly what I can do with ICE or EV, I use what is best at the time.

The hardest thing about buying my C-max Energi was not being able to "tweak" it as much as I might in the normal sense of more horsepower type mods. So now I am becoming more of an "eco" modder. As much as I would love to go +1 on the tires and do other mods, they won't do any favors for fuel economy and that is the main reason we bought the car. OTOH for a very efficient car, it is reasonably quick. Sure it isn't Tesla quick but it is definitely not bad. I had a little impromptu run against a BMW i3 today. I SERIOUSLY considered buying one of them but ultimately ended up with Jazzy (our C-max). It was LA where you really can't go too fast so it was just a quick dig from a light. Let's call it 0-40 or so. Light went green and we both nailed it. I got a better launch than the i3 so to about 30 I was ahead, at 35 we were even and by about 40 he had me by maybe a wheel. The guy was totally surprised, and frankly, so was I that it was that close. What surprised me from outside the car was how loud the electric motor is when you get on the i3 hard. I couldn't really tell it when I took a test drive. My wife and I REALLY liked the i3 but at the end of the day, the base range of 80 miles or so wasn't enough to make it worth it for us. With the range extender we still couldn't get to where we needed to be. We just end up taking too many long trips on weekends. At some point I'll convince my wife to go for some lightweight wheels. Definitely wouldn't mind some suspension upgrades. I'll likely have the car aligned and dial it in for a little bit better handling. Lighting upgrades are must. My wife is pretty tolerant but I can't push too much too fast with "her" car. Our Flex she said pretty much nothing about as long as I kept it drivable. So it is lowered, lightweight wheels and tires, a few other tweaks and now it is pretty darn quick for a family grocery-getter. It will run 12.8 in the 1/4 and 0-60 is always in the low 4's. Not bad for a big brick. So in a way I'll live a bit vicariously through MadMaxx's mods as I can squeeze a few in while my wife doesn't notice. ;) OTOH it is sort of fun doing things to improve the economy as well.

Have you thought about a 12v DC power filter? Can you describe the feedback you are getting? Does it seem to vary depending on the RPMs of the motor? I do have a question about the HID projectors. Do you have any issues with them? I can't say I would for for 10,000k as I want more usable light but I am definitely considering some sort of lighting upgrades for the main lights and the fogs. I do think your car looks pretty nice. I'd be interested in knowing more about the intelligent ride height that you put in as well. I wouldn't mind have the car a bit higher when in the city and dropping it when on the highway.

Pretty incredible to get that many miles out of a set of tires. At the same time once the tread is pretty worn down I'd be very worried about rain and snow. Thankfully I am not having to deal with either of these at the moment. Tires for me are such a critical thing that I am probably ultra conservative when it comes to replacing them. Slicks work great on a racetrack but not so well on the road. Anyway quite impressive how long they lasted. Apparently the C-max isn't too hard on tires.

This could be quite useful when enough people add to it.

Many roads have inadequate drainage. Maybe at one time they did but I have been on many highways, all over the US, where the trucks have created "ruts" where there is a significant amount of standing water when it rains. I have been in some states where it appears the people who designed the roads put absolutely no thought into drainage. A few extra PSI can make a difference. As for tread depth, it is in a state of continually decreasing. I prefer to err on the safe side. I subscribe to the adage "There are old pilots and bold pilots, and no old, bold pilots." I have thousands of hours in aircraft from sub-sonic to Mach 2+. I never wait for my tires to get down to the treadwear indicators. Considering I am often driving in relatively extreme climates it isn't worth the risk to me or my family. Like most things, tires are a compromise. Unfortunately you don't always know what the compromises were until it is too late. Even with almost full tread depth (3k miles on the stock tires and pressures) I encountered significant hydroplaning at about 60 mph outside of ABQ on a recent trip. There was standing water on I-40 and thankfully I had slowed down from about 80 when I first noticed the wet roads. The truck in front of me didn't. He must have rolled 3 or 4 times after losing control while spewing parts all over the highway. I don't know if he and his passengers survived or not. If I had maintained my previous speed I am not sure how it would have turned out for my wife and I. As it was, I lost total control for about a second or so. So while the maxims I learned regarding fly may be conservative, they likely saved our lives. At a minimum it will at least have people here thinking about this topic whereas it was never mentioned before. At least with an aircraft landing at high speeds on runways, I was not dependent on the tires generally for directional control until I lost authority with the control surfaces. I don't have the option of adding a little rudder to compensate for a skid.

@KashmirSwimsuit - You can ask the dealer to look it or I think you can find it by going to www.etis.ford.com. I think I saw it there. Or maybe it was the in service date. It has been a while and honestly I don't remember and I am too slow of an internet connection to browse much to double check. I remeber for sure that at ETIS you can see what updates or recalls were done (if any). We bought a 2014 C-max Energi and really love the car so far. A few minor niggles but no reliability issues. For example the leather should be vented. As it is, the seats are very sweaty in the heat. So we bought sheepskin to cover them. Problem solved. Take some time to learn how to drive it to get good fuel economy (FE). A few minor changes in driving style can have a huge impact on mileage. My worst tank was 33 and best about 47 mpg. Current tank though is in the mid-50's! While we have an Energi model, so far it is pretty much just operating in hybrid mode. I am working out of town and we have no real options to plug it in. To use the commercial chargers it is more than gas when I factor in the cost per mile. Since the cost was almost the same to buy the Energi as the normal hybrid version, we went with the Energi. It is really impressive how well it runs on just electric.So far the best we've done on purely electric is 29 miles. The real benefit though for us is being able to choose when to run purely electric or use the gas motor. There are times where we were stuck in terrible traffic in LA average about 3-5 mph. By running in purely EV (electric mode) we were using the EV mode where it was most efficient and not kicking on the gas motor at all for about 45 min. In the hybrid mode it would have had to start maybe 10 times or so dropping the fuel economy.

Just for a reference point on highway FE. Right after I bought my C-max Energi I started on a long cross country drive. I started with a battery pack having a SOC of about 22%. My absolute worst tank was in heavy rain, climbing up through the mountains, high winds, high speeds when no rain, hot temps with AC on and generally not favorable conditions for fuel economy. The C-max was totally loaded with my wife and a bunch of gear. I was still learning to drive for better FE and my wife drove and has no clue about how to maximize FE with a hybrid. The absolute worst tank on that trip was 33.6 mpg. We drove often in excess of 80 and were generally running 75mph or higher up the mountains of New Mexico. You would have to work very hard to do worse than we did on that tank. Most of the trip was running the same way as we had to cover a lot of ground in a few days as I had to be back at work on the West Coast. The extra weight of the Energi model didn't help us either. Since we couldn't charge at night, we got no real benefit out of the extra battery capacity. Contrast this with a trip we took from LA to Vegas where we averaged 70mph (75 mph cruise) the entire trip and we still got 40mpg. That was pretty much uphill, strong crosswinds and very high temps (100-114F).

Hopefully there will be enough interest for more. At the moment I am using the pipe insulation stuffed in there. Better than nothing and the car does warm up quicker. At the moment I am just commuting in LA so no issues with getting too hot.

If you ever make another set of covers, count me in. I would definitely be interested. I picked up a NRG not long ago and this could help when I am not driving in the desert.

One other thing to consider as well besides mileage, is resistance to hydroplaning. There is a direct relationship between psi and speed at which a tire hydroplanes. From my flying days I was taught to take the square root of the PSI, multiply it time 9 and the will equal knots at which the tire can begin to hydroplane. Since most of you don’t deal with knots for speed, a quicker, but not perfect version, is to take the square root of the PSI and multiply it times 10 to get MPH. 30psi = ~55mph 35psi = ~59mph 40psi = ~63 mph 45psi = ~67 mph 50psi = ~71 mph 55psi = ~74 mph As you can see, even just being mildly underinflated can put you at risk of easily encountering hydroplaning in wet weather. At the high end, you are crazy to drive much over 65 mph in the rain with stock tire pressures.

Just to add something regarding tires. I have a C-max NRG but I'll add my experience with both the Michelins and Contis on my Avalon Hybrid. I put on the Contis because I thought the stock LRR Michelins sucked in every area but mpg. So I bought the LRR version of the Contis for the Avalon and couldn't be happier. When the stock Michelins are dead on my NRG, I'll go with the Contis. I got equal or better mpg on my Avalon. Handling was VASTLY improved, road noise was better, less shock transmitted from the road, clearly better rain, snow and ice capability. The car was driven in cold Minnesota winters with a fair amount of snow. I had to climb a fairly steep hill to my house. Unplowed with about 2-4" of snow I could never make it up on the Michelins. On the Contis I could actually make it up. Going down the hill on the Michelins was a terror inducing ride in the winter. Contis were much more controllable. The Avalon became pretty close to "sporty" in its road manners after the change. It made such a difference in the car I am almost tempted to swap on the tires on my C-max but there are only about 5k on the Michelins so I see no rush to replace them quite yet.