Laurel

Congratulations! I am sure you both with be very happy with it.

Thanks for your replies Tdefny and Jus. When we walked into the service department, it was cluttered and sort of grubby looking. So that isn't a good sign. Where I bought Tip, it is spotless and that does count for something. I do wish I had spoken up while I was there and just politely said that we deserved some respect. I think he needs a shake up, but that dealership is very busy so they aren't fighting for customers obviously. I remember meeting the Service Manager where we bought Tip and he was very courteous so I think going there is going to be a positive experience.

I am embarrassed to say lately I have been listening to Sirius Willie's Roadhouse. All those croaky voiced older country singers make me tear up and think of the good old days and I sing along with them even though I can't carry a tune.

I decided to book our first servicing of Tip at a dealership a few blocks from our house versus booking where we bought the car. We are down to a one car family and felt it would be better if we could walk home when we leave the car. Also, our selling dealership seemed a little too laid back and didn't seem to have answers when we popped in there over the last few months, and we seem to be the first and only C-Max they have sold. And the closer dealership has sold several in the last few months. So off we go to chat them up at the dealership close to home. What a horrid experience! The customer service rep. in the service department was abrupt and close to being rude. Said no he wouldn't book the TSB 13-5-1 as we had no problems, no the tires wouldn't be rotated as our mileage was too low, and he just looked at me blankly when I asked about whether he had any info on the MFT 3.5.1 update. He mentioned our C-Max would be the first serviced there. I felt like I was some useless annoying fool in his eyes. But yes I booked anyway and walked away feeling totally demoralized. Got home and was fuming to the point my husband was getting annoyed with me. Yes he was there during the exchange and didn't like it, but he felt I was being too sensitive. I phoned and cancelled the servicing. (I should have said why, but hubby felt maybe the rep there was just having a bad day). Then phoned our selling dealership. Got a cheerful young woman who was ever so polite and helpful. Said that she had run our VIN when I gave our phone number and there were no TSB's for our car. I mentioned the TSB mentioned on the forum and she said unless we were having a problem they didn't routinely do every TSB as they don't get reimbursed unless there is an issue. I asked about the MFT and she said nothing was in yet, and in all likelihood we would be the first to know when we receive a letter from Ford saying it is out. It was like night and day, the customer service. She didn't have every answer to my questions but was charming and friendly. I am now calm and don't feel like a stupid ninny as I was made to feel at the first dealership. This is my rant for the day LOL.

Thanks everyone for the AC tips. Things have improved drastically by using your advice. We went on a wee road trip to Barnston Island (a farming community in the middle of the Fraser River). You travel there on an old rusty ferry--sort of a tug boat pushing a barge with a ramp where you have to back off the ferry on the island and back onto the ferry from the island. Pretty cool little spot to visit on a hot afternoon. We used the tip to roll down the windows with our fob before getting into the car, not using AC until the car was cool and on the road, and then not setting it to our usual 18-20 C. We kept it at 22C which was pretty comfortable actually. Like asb, I have my menopausal moments and had to lower it a couple of times. But we had a steady 5.2 L trip versus the awful over 10 L trips that we had the other day. I keep learning so much on this forum. It's great to learn things so that one doesn't get discouraged and decide to drive your C-Max off the ferry into the drink LOL. Although hubby said he had a few butterflies backing off and onto the ferry--didn't trust the camera and craned his neck. Years ago a friend of ours did back her car into the Fraser River on that ferry and she has never lived it down.

Yesterday we did several short trips as you describe--AC likely was working 100% each time as the trips were short and the car never got cooled down. Very interesting info Thanks.

Wow Ryan even though I kind of thought my AC was really affecting my mileage, it is shocking to see the difference in a somewhat scientific test that you did (my routes were not calculated like yours). Thanks for taking your time to do that. I really appreciate it. I just read your post to my husband and is quite surprised with the results. I guess we all we have to become very ecology minded in our cars. We do that at home with turning lights out, setting the thermostat lower and wearing a sweater, and recycling our garbage. Now we have to do that while driving too. What do you think is this going to yield some stinky mileage from the folks living in places like Phoenix ? I am surprised we are not hearing this from owners in the very hot climates.

I figured out the answer. So ignore topic please.

Asb I guess I missed your post. Sorry about that. I will relax a little now. I got used to cold weather affecting mileage and I could juggle things a bit to get better mileage. Now it looks like I will have to juggle things with the AC. That's okay as I still love my car. I was panicking as I thought something was going haywire. Thanks for your post.

I think we do get used to cooler temperatures as heat waves are few and far between. We were cooler today than Ryan who is inland and we are closer to the ocean, but it was about 26 C and that felt really hot to us--thus the 18-20 C air conditioning. We long for the hot weather and first thing we crank on the AC. People are funny eh? At least Art Linkletter thought so.

Ryan I am thinking it is the AC. Today I took 3 trips out and about--most about 10-15K. First two without AC, and one was back to the old 4.2L and the second had a bit of uphill and was 5.6. Then I did a longer trip of about 20 K with AC on and it was 6.8L. My temperature was set at 20C so I didn't have the AC really pumping cold air. That 6.8L trip is on par with some of my cold weather trips. No hellish results like yesterday. I think my husband had the temperature set at 18C yesterday with AC on when I got those awful mileage trips. My fuel is from Safeway in Langley. Yes my foot is off the pedal going downhill when I coast. I did see improvement, but tomorrow we will head out onto to the freeway and go 60 or 70 kilometers with AC on and see what happens. Thanks for your offer to test things. I may take you up on that if things stay wonky. The difference between the 5.6 L and 6.8 L run is translated to an 8 mile per gallon loss which seems too much to me.

So maybe I didn't really bugger up my life time average since it is still coming up 6.6 L. I will be out on a few small trips today --plant shopping. So I will report back later. The only thing that I determined that was different yesterday that yielded the awful mileage was hubby had sneaked on the air conditioning which I had not noticed. But that seems an huge spike as my mileage more than doubled on every trip ie. from 4.2 -5.4 normal runs to nearly 10 and 11 L runs. I will try it with air conditioning and without and record the numbers today.

I can see the pictures.

Thanks Zhack. "Being stupid" --gotta love it!

Congratulations on your new car! Your little faux pas will likely be one in a series of many. We all are learning here. I tried to back up once while the car was in accessory mode so I had no power steering and in essence no power and was just rolling backwards down a small grade. I got all panicky and figured the car had lost all power, but nope it was me starting off in accessory mode as hubby had been waiting in the car listening to the radio and I looked at the lit gauges and figured it was ready to drive. Make sure you always look for the ready to drive message and the little green car.

I am such a techno idiot. I just went out to look at that life time reset. So when I start the car it still shows 6.6 L at the bottom of the empower screen, but when I turn the car off now it says life time 4.1 L. What have I done? I am mixed up now as I never have seen that life time showing up when I turn off the car--I usually see mileage for the trip and my mpg for the trip. I could slap myself for pushing buttons madly trying to find the rpms. Now I am totally confused.

I don't have too much to report other than I was in too much of a friggin' hurry heading out. I don't really want to talk about it as I accidently reset the life time average and the dog got sick in the car. I will re do my experiment tomorrow. I cannot believe I did that reset!

Ryan with my downhill numbers I am often coasting and not in EV a lot. I have thought that my battery seems not to charge as fully as usual. I will check for a soft tire. I think I will take it for a spin now and not wait until after dinner. I'll let you know what happens. I will do a route that has a fair bit of uphill going and downhill coming home.

I recently filled up, but my mileage was good the two days after the fill up. Same gas station. When I was driving today it was all in town driving, and most of the time I was in EV. All the gauges seemed to look the same to me i.e. EV mode after getting up to speed and dropping back a little on the gas, no big white ICE consumption line (I'm not good at describing the technical stuff). Hubby checked the tire pressure a couple of days ago. I will make sure the downhill brake assist isn't on or the parking brake on a little. Basically everything seemed as per usual on the gauges so I was shocked with the mileage when I turned the car off---four different trips with dreadful mileage. No smell of gas. Maybe bad gas is the answer and it took a couple of days to foul things up. We will go for a drive after dinner and check the rpms. Tip is due for the servicing but our mileage is just about 3200 kilometers which is very low over the past six months. Oh dear, oh dear woe is me. If the after dinner trip shows the rpms to be normal range and the mileage is still stinky, I will buy some Techron stuff and put it in. Thanks everyone.

We have the SEL and life time mileage is 6.6 L per 100 kilometers. But we have been getting great mileage of late with the weather warming up i.e. lots of 4.0 L and 4.4 L trips. A bad trip is 5.8 L. Today weather is 20 C so it is nice and warm and my mileage is just awful. My same routes that would be 3.0 L downhill to home are now 9.8 L and going out uphill where I would have been 5.2 or so was 11 L per 100 kilometers. Nothing different happening, driving the same way. I am due for the first servicing this month--haven't booked it yet as I am waiting for the MFT upgrade to come out. Hubby thinks the car seems to be reving higher than usual --that is to his ear. Any ideas of what might be going on? It is oh so discouraging.

Anyone know how to do this: We used voice commands to go to an address and it worked like a charm. Then we wanted to add it to the favorite list, and got stuck when we tried to add the destination name i.e. the address was there and we wanted to give it a name Harvey's Pet Foods. We pushed the edit and got the keyboard but the keyboard would only display a few letters of the alphabet so we couldn't enter the name. We tried a few times as it has always worked before. No luck. Any ideas? So our favorite list has it under number 20 with just an address and no name. Thanks.

Jus since you had the GPS replaced, does that mean when the new SD card comes out you won't have to have anything done--just put in the new card?

We have the 303 A built in October 2012. Sony radio sounds great. Navigation has worked super well since we got it--no problems as we are one of the lucky ones. I do everything with voice commands and it works like a charm.

Love your photos Riddley. You all have me laughing away here as I read.

That is hilarious!