MaxHeadroom

I agree, the "Goliath" one I almost got on Amazon.com was the $13 item, and I immediately cancelled my order when I got a funny feeling it might be a Chinese clone. .... There were other ones as cheap as $6, tempting to try, but probably not worth the hassle & frustration when they don't work right. There are a lot of cheap pirate clones around, from checking out the Amazon.com site and googling. Caveat Emptor, right??!! So, I am actually getting the BAFX Products one, for $21, out of Minnesota, seems quality enough, which user 'Plus 3 Golfer' (above) said works OK with ForScan, which I'll get, and maybe the popular Torque app too later. Then I'll look for a Samsung (Android) Galaxy S7 mount for the car to see the gauges while driving. Better than the old ScanGauge. Your feature of "Security so you can leave the adapter plugged in and not worry about someone taking control of your car." may not be a problem if it's just Bluetooth, with incredibly limited range, not like longer-range WiFi.

Cool! I did find the "supported adapters" listed on Forscan's website: Supported adapters : ELM327J2534 Pass-ThruCANtieCAR (in "FORScan" mode)OBDLink SX/MX (STN11xx)ELS27 (STN1170)I've heard to just avoid Chinese pirated cloned cheap ELM327 adapters for something that works right. You can always tell they are using pirated internal machine code when the pirates claim to have 'version 1.5', and ELM Electronics never released a 1.5 version! What brand of ELM327 device are you using? There are a lot of cheap ones out there. I see BAFX Products claims to be a quality one for a little more $$. I'll try the Goliath Industry OBDII Bluetooth adapter, $13 on Amazon. Seems the other cheaper ones might not work at all. Goliath works with the popular Torque app, so they claim. Should work with ForScan I'd guess, we'll see.

TPMS sensors last 7-12 years in service, usually a battery life issue with them. The old sensor just attaches to the end of the brass part on the new valve stem. which is an example from O'Reilly Autoparts, $7 each, ( VDO brand Part # SE59500) made with the brass extension which goes into the Sensor part. You only need to replace the sensor itself every 7 years or so (or at least replace the battery inside it, if it's not sealed up, and if the battery lasts that long, and it should....! ). Here's a picture of the complete Motorcraft (Ford) unit DE8T-1A180-AA 9L3T-1A180-AE: And TireRack.com only says we might replace the stems, and of course re-use the sensor part. It would be nice to throw in a new button battery at each tire change, but I think these units are welded shut and won't let us.

Makes sense. My previous car, an '11 Camaro, would display on the dash each tire's PSI reading, position dependent of course, and you had to tell the computer which sensor was where. I will have to check out the OBDII app. I have experience with a ScanGauge basic stand-alone OBDII reader, but didn't know tire pressure could be read by anything. Which OBDII app do you like? Do you ELM327-bluetooth it, or use a cord? Seems bluetooth is better here. Which model of ELM327 or other kind did you use? (Side note: I almost bought a BMW-specific app that hooked up to the OBDII port to register the battery, no kidding, you have to go through an on-board computer to describe your new battery to the car and tell it you're putting in a new one. No other car I know of makes you jump through that hoop. BMW got lazy with their own battery detection algorithms.)

Wait, I found http://fordcmaxhybridforum.com/topic/3251-training-the-tpms-system-tire-pressure-monitoring-system/ which basically sums it up. Since my lowly SE model doesn't care about WHICH tire is low, it can automagically get the sensor signals.

Makes sense our Fed gov is buying fuel-efficient vehicles. Smart move on their part to save on gas bills, like we do. I had a conversation a few years back with the chief of fleets for Denver City/County government, and he said it was controversial in 2002 to buy a bunch of then-new Prius's. He argued it and won a "test" bunch, bought 20 which was 10% of the fleet at the time. It paid dividends, as we can guess it did. Then, it was controversial. Now, its nothing but good sense. Last decade or so has seen a lot more hybrids in the fleet.

In other words, I did NONE of the crazy lengthy steps, and it works anyway. Whats going on? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uo8KcY_Q-0

What has been your experience putting new wheels with new tire sensors on your CMax? I got TireRack.com wheels with tires already mounted on them through UPS. Then I put'em on the car. The TPMS sensors automatically worked! I expected some kind of semi-convoluted jumping through hoops to get the new wheels with new TPMS sensors "registered" with the car's computers. Instead, everything just worked. I got no "sensor missing" warning, surprisingly. So I went to the gas station and let the air out of a tire to test to see if the tire warning came on, and it did, properly sensing the low pressure tire. Test passed. Other experiences I've had with an '07 BMW required telling the computer about the event of getting new TPMS sensors. Other things I've heard of on the web describe a multi-step process, many times using special tools (that TireRack.com tried to sell me when I bought the tire-wheel set BTW!!!).

Frank, frankly, you're way off. First of all, ALL cars, BMW i3, or any vehicle, can run out of gas or electricity and just stop, no exceptions, just a limit of pure physics so nobody ever gets sued for it. The BMW i3 has nothing to do with running out of gas, it has everything to do with weird, dangerous situations it foists upon people AS THEY DRIVE. Big huge difference. Secondly, your example of Unintended Accel being frivolous irks guys like me who are mechanical and software engineers, since some car companies put in brake overrides to kill the throttle signal when braking, a simple thing Toyota and some others were too STUPID to implement.

^^^ mlsstl, I see your points about people using bad judgement. However, here we have BMW placing a glimmer of hope that a driver just continue on for the full 80 miles of gasoline travel after the battery is dead. For example, one person wrote into a BMW i3 forum recently asking if he should buy an i3 Rex model to use on L.A.'s infamous 405 freeway, and many people said, sure, go for it, the Rex will "keep you moving". Fact is people will treat the Rex gas-only mode as being a routine thing, since finding a charging station is rough and takes forever to recharge. Its worth noting that several years ago at GM, when they were deciding what size engine the original Chevy Volt should have, they had a similar debate. Chevy (GM) decided that it just wouldn't be safe enough to put in a lawn-mower-sized engine in the car, and instead they opted for a powerful engine to allow people to drive safely and NOT play the Energy Optimization Game, which many would lose. At BMW, the debate went more along the lines of "Let Grandma or somebody's 17 year old daughter figure it out in real-time, at night, in winter, in a headwind, and be danged with them." --(or really it was "Lassen Sie Oma oder 17 Jahre alte Tochter Figur es ist jemand aus in Echtzeit , in der Nacht, im Winter, in einem Gegenwind , und sein danged mit ihnen."

See http://fordcmaxhybridforum.com/topic/6009-fun-diff-wheels-mounted-left-to-right-who-will-notice/ for details. For snows, you can go with 215/55-17 on 17x7.5, 47 or 48 offset, chosen for perfect fender clearance. For comparison, OEM size is 225/50-17 on 17x7, 55 offset. You might want snow tires in the slightly narrower 215/55-17 size, and these fit great. Just make sure your offset is 47 or 48, NOT the original 55, to ensure they don't rub the outside fenders as smaller offset wheels may do. It actually raises the car up by about 1/4", and the tires look like they fit in there even better than the OEM tires/wheels.

I feel like the above comments don't really capture completely what's going on with the lawsuit. Scenario: The driver depletes the battery down to 6% battery juice left, effectively out, but really not quite yet. Then, the Rex engine starts up back there under the hatchback and sticks some charge back into the the battery, BUT ONLY to maintain about 6% and no more. The car performs very well when the battery charge is about 4%-6%, no problem there, which it will have in most city driving environments. Here is where the trouble happens: A hill, headwind, heavy passengers/cargo, higher speeds, etc., burden the power demands too much, and the tiny 34 hp (yep, it's that weak!) engine can't keep up with keeping the battery charged to it's narrow range of a mere 4%-6%. So what happens? The car loses acceleration power for emergency passing, & is a moving roadblock in traffic since it's now in "Snail Mode", and startles drivers with that behavior. Other cars & 18-wheelers on the road may hit the BMW i3 "Roadblock" at that point. Key Information: During the entire 80-mile operation of the Rex range extender engine (battery dead, running on gas), the car will go in and out of that "Snail Mode" as battery charge fluctuates, meaning you are tortured for the entire 80 miles, off and on, as power demands might fluctuate. People have likened this to running out of gas in a pure-gasoline car, or running out of electrons in a Tesla, yet this is different in that you can go in and out of this Snail Mode pathetic performance at any high-power-demanding moment when running for a while on the Rex gas engine. It can happen over and over again, not really stopping, but CHANGING its performance drastically as you drive in Rex gas engine mode. Clarifying: When you're out of gasoline in a normal pure-gasoline (ICE or C-Max) car, or out of battery charge in a pure-battery (BEV) car, your car quits cold, and nobody gets sued because that's all physics will allow. On the other hand, BMW has placed this weird In-n-Out slow performance mode mixed in to up to 80 miles of driving in BMW i3 Rex mode.

RetAFEng, you made a good decision. I got a '15 cmax se, also red, 7 months ago and love it mostly. The Wayne MI factory that makes it is horrible on fit & finish of the body panels and doors, but otherwise things are right.

You don't quite understand what's going on with the BMW i3 Rex problem. Basically, anytime when driving in Rex-mode (when the battery is toast), the car can suddenly go into a dangerous slow-speed, near-zero peformance situation. This is often "caused" by hills, headwinds, passengers on-board, etc., all normal things, as the battery gets depleted completely and ALL YOU HAVE is a weak 34-hp lawnmower engine to get you going in traffic. You can say "Its a city car" all you want, but we know people will still take their BMW i3 on the highway and get into the pathetically powered slow modes.

BMW was being idiotic putting in a small motorcycle engine to power a 3,000 lb vehicle when the battery dies. Its a back-up generator for when the battery is depleted, but also allows a driver to continue on down the road at pathetic unsafe performance levels. Not like our powerful 2.0L hybrid gas engines in our CMaxes at all. Different set-up. BMW i3's are also sold as pure-electric (no backup generator 'Rex'), so the NHTSA may be banning the manufacture of weak propulsion modes like that in the future, leaving just the electric car variant of the BMW i3, sans tiny engine.

Rotating tires is not a good solution to cure rear camber issues. Definitely worth it to fix that with new suspension parts right away. I think that's why many car makers simply recommend getting your suspension right and NOT rotating tires. For those grumpy ones above, you don't have to do this. And you can try to jail those you see who do. Get a new law passed for it. ---- You also won't take advantage of half-off sales at TireRack. $300 off is nice, and you're missing it. I've liked the look of custom wheels on various cars. For those reading here who have never heard of this appreciation, you should see what people spend on their BMWs and other cars, even lowly PT Cruisers, for example. Sure our C-Max may be a mommy-mobile jelly bean, but it does look great with custom wheels too. The moral of the story is: You don't have to buy the low cost ugly steel wheels if you want winter mounts, that is if you can catch TireRack when they're having a closeout sale on remaining sparse stock. And again, if you do this, watch those offset specs, widths, and weights to match. Wish I would have thought of this years ago to have some fun, sale or not! The growing trend now is to get colored wheels, either plastidipped, powder coated, or painted, different colors, so you could go with gold on one side, and another look on the other side. Then just see who might notice. Even drop hints like "Do you like the custom wheels?" or "What's different about my car?" to drop hints. Plus 3 Golfer, I mentioned the snow tire motive in the original post, buried in the middle where you missed it.

The psychology of it: "I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a mans shoes?"--The Shawshank Redemption I'm wondering if the "Fast and Furious" punks do this(???). I guess they might if they steal wheels at night! I've seen junkyard divers run diff wheels, front-to-back of course, either being people on a budget or they stole the wrong style..... $300 is more than "a few" to me, I guess pocket change to others. I wouldn't like it if diff wheels were front and back, but side to side nobody knows (except people with exceptional powers-of-observation.....). These are snow tires, bought on sale in the off-season. I like to keep tires intact and change all at home, avoiding mounting/balancing/cost of that. Cheap steel wheels would have cost me about the same as getting these custom Al alloys on sale. Just buying more OEM wheels won't work for me, since OEM wheels are too heavy, cost way more ($180 each!), are too common (boring), and are not the right offset for slightly narrower 215 mm snow tires. That's right, especially on front-heavy cars like ours, it is OK to rotate front to back, same side, to even out the wear. Like BMW's philosophy though, if your tires are wearing too much on one side of the tread, or cupping, then get your suspension adjusted properly and tires balanced. Its the cars I've had with near 50/50 weight distribution that allow no rotations, and by comparison, our C-Max's 58/42 is hard on front tires. Cupping is more often caused by bad balance or shocks, creating bouncing & skip, definitely fixable.

Rotate front to back only, not cross. Also, and maybe its because I've owned BMWs & they don't recommend rotating tires, but I've not rotated tires on my '07 530xi, and also not for 4 years owning an '11 Camaro. I got even wear with good alignments. Its nice skipping that and just leaving them be! Also, directional tires limit you to same-side only anyway.

TireRack had a half-price alloy wheel sale, as they do off and on, random styles, random times for stock they want to close-out. The 'catch' was that they didn't have a full set of 4 since it was model-closeout. Could only buy 2 or 3 of each. I hadn't ever thought of this before: Take advantage of a sale like that by buying 2 wheels of each style. Then, put one style wheel on the passenger side of the C-Max, and the other different looking wheels on the driver side. Saved $300 on a set of 4. And who will notice? You can't see them at the same time, since they're on opposite sides of the car. This is for if you can't decide which cool wheels you want. Buy 2 kinds and hide them on opposite sides of the car. Only observant people will even sense it. Do not try this unless both styles of wheels are made of the same material (usually aluminium alloy) and have similar weights (mine were only <2% diff in tire+wheel weight. TireRack listed one as 21 lbs, and the other as 22 lbs, so thats not much. I weighed them at home and there was only 0.6 lbs diff in reality. They were both straight-spoke styles, so rotational inertia should be similar too. Widths and offsets should be the same too, and my offsets were only 1 mm diff, negligible there. Also, these alternative sizes work: 215/55-17 on 17x7.5, 47 or 48 offset. For comparison, OEM size is 225/50-17 on 17x7, 55 offset. You might want snow tires in the slightly narrower 215/55-17 size, and these fit great. Just make sure your offset is 47 or 48, NOT the original 55, to ensure they don't rub the outside fenders as smaller offset wheels may do. It actually raises the car up by about 1/4", and the tires look like they fit in there even better than the OEM tires/wheels. Pics: Rial Zamora on one side of C-Max, and Monte Titano MT2 Pari on other side:

That's good advice above: Always put newer tires on the rear (hydroplaning yaw torque is stable). Most of the running stress is on the tire belts on the road contact side (hoop stress), so your side patch is OK, and looks small too.

Not true. Your warranty is fine as long as you use a 0w-20 "SN" oil with the API symbol on the bottle/jug. The owner's manual (2015) says : "Motor oils of the recommended viscosity grade that meetAPI SN requirements and display the APICertification Mark for gasoline engines arealso acceptable. Do not use oil labeledwith API SN service category unless thelabel also displays the API certificationmark." Insider Tip: Ford's WSS-M2C947-A spec is a weak spec, not very strong at all. Forget about it. We can do better. Better to use a "dexos1" spec 0w-20 instead, and just about ANY 0w-20 you find on the shelves at Walmart is dexos1-qualified. The dexos1 spec is a tougher spec to meet, requiring the oil to leave less piston deposits, among many other superior test results like low-wear, anti-foaming, etc., all performance we want in an oil. (All dexos1 oils also exceed the lesser SN GF-5 performance levels BTW.) So dexos1 is really all you need to know, as it includes all the lesser, lower specs like SN, GF-5, & WSS-M2C947 already. Simply look for dexos1 and "0w-20". If you're an engineer like me and kind of enjoy reading what a dexos1 oil has to do to perform, read https://www.aftonchemical.com/Lists/Brochure/Attachments/40/Specification_Handbook.pdf . Another insider tip: Oil filter to use is Fram Ultra XG3614 (walmart, amazon, other places), as it traps the smallest particles of any filter I've seen, uses synthetic media with wire backing for durability, & uses silicon rubber for the ADBV. Be a geek and google ISO 4548-12 with Fram Ultra oil filter if you want to kill some time.