jackalopetx

When I first got my C-Max I used Eco Mode but I don't anymore because I can't stand the throttle lag and inconsistent throttle response! Often I need to pull out into a main road, but in Eco Mode I mash the gas and the car sluggishly starts to move. In normal mode, the response is immediate and you get a really nice push of torque from the electric motor. And it doesn't mean you can't drive efficiently. You just have to control the throttle yourself instead of relying on the car to slow you down. I guess in a way it trains you to feather the throttle rather than just mashing the pedal all the time.

If you're driving in Eco Mode I recommend trying standard mode!

Does the non-nav C-Max really have GPS? 

Why isn't the hitch made to accomodate the 'tab"? 

When you look at the trip counter and it says "miles: 2000 ev miles: 800", is it counting only miles where the engine is turned off as "ev miles"? Or does that include when the motor is helping the engine? 

Perhaps so Steve, but I'm not sure of their interior vertical clearance - big stuff ?.  Anyway, the 'V' is so far off the ugly (& perhaps handling) scale as not to matter (JMHO). :giggle:  :giggle:  :giggle:     (((And it definitely is not in the 59 mpg's range of the article posted.)))

 

Eschewing sedans forever,

Nick

I think the Prius V looks better than the C-Max. It's sleek and has that ducktail spoiler that gives it some sportiness, plus the back window is vertical so it has more usable space. 

But it also has very little if any sound insulation, so it's a noisy car and you hear all the traffic and road noise. The C-Max is similar to the Volvo wagon I had, built more like a luxury vehicle

I'm not sure that is totally correct with respect to justifying more frequent OCI on the C-Max.  ICE is spun up when the car is moving.  The traction motor is virtually always run to get the car moving. The shift of load from the traction motor to ICE is not instantaneous or abrupt.  These "many" starts are not on a cold engine.  The traction motor assists ICE frequently especially when torque demand increases significantly.  

 

I know on my 4.3 mile trips to the Y with ambient temp in the 20s, ICE may shut down a few times and ECT reaches around 120F-140 F within a mile. I doubt there is much if any additional wear on ICE at this operating temperature.  I've never seen a study that says running at 120 F to 140F wears an engine faster than operating at 180F.  FE and emissions generally suffer at low operating temperatures.  ICE shut down generally happens after 120 F when going down hill or coming to a stop provided HVB is above about 55-60% SOC (not the battery symbol on the dash).  The maximum SOC is about 70%.  The 1.4 kWh HVB never is charged to 100% SOC.

 

Change your oil as often as you want to but I doubt this rationale -  "engine being constantly stopped and started"  is a justifiable reason as to needing to change oil more frequently on the C-Max.

I've never seen any study ever on engine or oil wear at various temperatures. Automakers won't even admit that an engine needs to be warmed up.   Where can we read these studies?

I'm not sure if any one has pointed out the obvious, but 10,000 miles is not 10,000 miles of engine wear.  The engine only runs about 60% of the time (my C-Max has 36K miles of which 14,500 miles was electric).

Yes someone did bring that up, and I pointed out that it's not easy on an engine being constantly stopped and started. Plus mine often doesn't warm up on my commute

I think we have some confusion here, I believe you are referring to wheel well cover which may not be perfectly parallel with the ground, but close enough. BTW I did bevel the edges to improve aero.  Yesterday I went 140 mi. on I-85, I-285 and GA400 to Alpharetta and back. I averaged about 53 mpg for the trip and 54.1mpg/750mi. on tank. My first tank with no mods I got 47mpg so it would look like I've gained 7mpg with all my mods. :)  Concerning GPS distance I checked a pretty straight section of I-40 for 400 mi. odometer and GPS gave 408.8 miles or 1.022%.  When tread is worn down I have seen as low as 1.014% off, always more miles than odometer. :)   Given your example the GPS value should be smaller than odometer I would think. :headscratch:  

 

Paul

The GPS number is usually higher than the actual distance traveled because the calculated position "wanders". For example if you stand in one spot and let the GPS collect points, they will drift around you, and you'll end up with a distance logged even though you were standing still

At one job I had we were mapping roads with GPS tracklogs, and what we had to do was manually draw a centerline between the points, because the points were never in a straight line

I usually get up to speed and hit the cruise, I turn the heat/air con off when I can and get great mpg's around town. I spend less than twenty dollars a month for gas and that's hard to beat.

You must live in a rural area with no traffic-- In Austin you're either on the highway in traffic, or on city streets with a lot of traffic lights and stop signs

1/8" Covers don't stick out as far as tires and I have 1/8" foam insulation tape under LEXAN to seal the wheel.  Easy to take off and on. Also have 1/4" plastic screw going through Cover and sticking out 1 1/4" on inside to make sure Cover doesn't spin and unscrew. :)

 

Paul 

I mean it looks like the front is higher. The back should be higher so that the skirt doesn't catch the wind (think Marilyn Monroe)

BTW I noticed your signature has GPS distance. I wouldn't go with GPS distance due to the lack of precision with GPS tracklogs. Without WAAS you're getting maybe 10 feet precision, so you could drive in a perfectly straight line but have deviations in the track points, creating a crooked tracklog. The distance of a crooked line is greater than the straight line, so end up with an innacurate distance and MPG calculation. 

Like I said, I wasn't comfortable going 10,000 miles or about it year without taking it in. I hope that you like your car, it's very good at what it is but performance is just OK. Maybe a Focus SVT might have been a better choice for you.

A Focus SVT would get 20mpg on my commute, possibly worse. With the C-Max I get 45mpg

The low end torque gives the C-Max pretty good performance in city driving. For example if you're in the left lane and the car in front of you stops to make a left turn, you don't have to wait and wait and wait until there's no traffic in the right lane. If there's an opening you CAN mash the gas and get up to speed quickly.  Same if you need to accelerate quickly to get across traffic lanes to make a turn. Or merge onto the highway.  

I had a turbo Volvo V70 wagon with 215hp and about the same weight as the C-Max, and it was worse in city driving, because the turbo would take time to spool up. 

Some manufacturers actually put special oil in at their factory. I recall my 2003 Honda CR-V had instructions specifically to leave the factory oil in for 7500 miles. Apparently it helped the engine break in.

 

I adhere to the owner manual recommendations on my vehicles. I changed my Energi at 20K, just before the oil monitor would be coming on. If I were driving the hybrid I might push it to 7500K, but not before that, especially with synthetic.

I've read on at least one forum that Ford doesn't use special break in oil

That's not what Ford says and they built the car.

I already posted this but somehow my post disappeared:

No manufacturer says to change the oil after break in because if they did, buyers would complain to no end about having to go back for service in a couple weeks. Doesn't mean you don't benefit from getting those metal particles out of there

 

 

Here is my solution for now. DIYS LEXAN Wheel Covers. :)

 

Paul

 

Are they slanted? It looks like they would catch the wind

I wish someone made Solid Dish Wheels to make the car more aerodynamic. :headscratch: Curious, I had a 73 Pinto Wagon. LOL :)

 

Paul

You can buy steel wheels and put aerodynamic hubcaps on them. But the steelies are 25lb http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/WheelCloseUpServlet?target=runSteel&initialPartNumber=X66271&wheelMake=New&wheelModel=Steel%20Wheel&wheelFinish=Black%20Painted&showRear=no&autoMake=Ford&autoModel=C-MAX+Hybrid&autoYear=2016&autoModClar=SE

Why would you get the oil changed so soon? I jumped the gun and changed mine at 5,000 but 1,300 miles is too soon.

Because the first few hundred miles or 1000 miles put extra metal particles into the oil. Some will get blocked by the filter and some won't. Why would you want to drive 5000 or 10000 miles with gritty metal chunks floating around? There's no reason not to get an oil change after break in aside from the $40 cost

I got my oil changed at 1356 miles today, will send the sample to Blackstone for analysis.

Now that break in is most likely done I finally gave it full throttle getting onto the highway... It's pretty fast

My understanding is, if you use Sync Services and call an operator for directions, they can download the turn by turn instructions into your head unit (even the basic one).

Wow, and I can't even figure out how to get my phone to connect to SYNC through Bluetooth

I'd agree that the C-Max is likely going to be running colder in city conditions(though I suppose it unlikely but possible these taxi's see more highway use).

 

However, this car must REALLY be super stupidly designed to be kept colder than it should be if the fans are kept on and so strong that running them with AC is dropping the water temp even more than normal.  AC usage should only be raising temps outside the cabin...

 

The more I hear it seems like the car was designed to generally never reach operating temps...

 

 

IIRC, the numbers are something like...

-165F the thermostat starts opening(and this is where it starts taking a long time for the ICE to warm up further)

-202F the thermostat is fully open Which is supposedly the bottom number for normal operating temp...

 

But the shutters don't even open until like 215F or something?

 

 

Just seems like there's a disconnect in the thinking somewhere on Ford's part or I'm missing something...

Could be because parts of the engine get hotter so the coolant has to flow before the engine warms up fully

VIP TAXI in Phoenix has a fleet  of 2013 CMAX Hybrids with upto 250k miles with no ICE problems. :)

 

Paul

Taxi use is easy on an engine because for most of those miles it's warmed up

 What are you guys talking about? How can you have navigation without having navigation? Are you talking about just using your phone? If so, what does that have to do with Sync?

Keep in mind that driving 3000 miles in the C-max will only be about 1300 miles on the ICE---another reason why changing synthetic oil every 3,000 miles is simply a waste of money with no benefit.  And environmentally irresponsible.

Starting and stopping engine 50 times a day on a 5 mile commute during which it never reaches normal operating temperature is probably worse for an engine than normal driving

So Ford is only going to make the Fusion in hybrid form? 

Somehow it makes sense to them to only sell a hybrid that impractical people who like sedans would buy?

The problem with this kind of analysis is that they always use highway MPG or mixed MPG. 

The vast majority of people commuting are NOT cruising at 65mpg, they are in traffic. Just because you're "on a highway" doesn't mean you're doing "highway miles". The average consumer is too ignorant to understand that. On my commute my C-Max gets 45mpg and up to 57mpg on a good day. The Volvo V70 I had before under these conditions would probably be getting about 15mpg. 

But the typical car buyer looks at the Volvo and says "Oh I sit in gridlock on the highway every day so I will get 30mpg!"

I'm surprised no one has posted this... K&N filters let more dirt through. They are less good at filtering. That's how they're designed. K&N have much less surface area, so to compensate the pores are bigger. 

As if common sense weren't enough, this has been proven by empirical testing.

http://www.nicoclub.com/archives/kn-vs-oem-filter.html