hybridbear

Hope you get your car back soon and that your recovery continues smoothly!

I believe there is a typo in your VIN. It should be 17 characters with no hyphens, etc.

A quick Google search indicated that the weight of the FFH is basically the same as the C-Max. The difference was less than 100 lbs.

Whereabouts in MN did you come? Should be better weather for traveling Sunday too as it's supposed to be close to 40. That's really impressive to get over 40 MPG at those speeds.

So sorry to hear about your accident. Hopefully the hospital has cameras and the police can track down who did this.

Paul - first, glad you're ok. Also, we're enjoying at the FFH Forum hearing your learning from driving your rental FFH with grille covers. However, the 2014 FFH powertrain is unchanged. Only the 2014 C-Max has the changes Ford talked about when lowering the official C-Max MPG ratings. The 2014 FFHs were already in production when that happened. 2014 FFHs started rolling off the assembly line in early July. The 2014 FFH has the same exact powertrain as the 2013 FFH and the 2013 C-Max.

If you want another hybrid you could look at the new Honda Accord Hybrid or the FFH. There were a handful of FFH owners who reported battery issues but I don't recall any who ended up with their car inoperable like you did.

Interesting to see that after the TSB you had months of error-free operation. Thanks for sharing the detailed timeline. Being pleasant and patient almost always pays off with customer service. You get a much better response when you are pleasant to work with even when unhappy. It's sad to hear that your bad experience has ruined the C-Max for you. Have you thought about what to get instead? You shouldn't have these issues if you get another as it seems the recent builds haven't had these battery issues.

We much prefer the silent driving of the FFH to the Prius with its noisy pedestrian alert system. Our neighbors at our apartment commonly comment on our silent cars cruising through the underground garage. Check out this very interesting link of someone who calculated the MPG of a human being.

Have you plotted a regression equation for this data? What's the r2? I'm currently working on something similar for our FFH, but since I walk to work I don't have a repeatable commute. I'm currently gathering data on all trips and then plan to segment the data to create some graphs and find patterns. Great data! Very insightful!

Somewhere near the front there must be a spot for air to flow over the AC components to cool the Freon. Is that what you neighbor says was damaged? If you just bumped his car at a low speed then there should be no damage other than potential scratches.

There is no known XGauge for inverter coolant. The inverter coolant has its own radiator. You want to be very careful to keep the electric components cool as they will be destroyed by heat.

I would still be very concerned at those temps about the temperature of the electric motors and other hybrid components. Those components should be kept as cool as possible. If you're blocking the grille to limit airflow to the ICE radiator you're also blocking airflow to the electronics radiator. When the ICE coolant is that warm you'll be getting a lot of heat in the engine compartment.

I am planning to do that. I actually first took the car to the dealership who is closest to our home. They were even worse. They claimed that Ford would not cover any of the trim repairs under warranty. That's why I brought the car back to the dealer where we purchased. I'm waiting for them to finish all the open items we have, once they do that I will try a different dealer the next time we have any issues.

Fascinating article!! I'm looking forward to hearing more of their tests. While no MPG number will ever make everyone happy, hopefully having more data will help please more consumers.

With my ScanGauge I have gathered lots of data about the battery SOC. See this post at the FFH Forum and subsequent ones I've made in that thread. In that thread I also explain what ptjones observed. As the car sits and the HVB temp changes the SOC also changes. Click the link for more explanation. In this post I talk about the relationship between the battery icon on the dash and the useable SOC. The battery icon on the dash does not follow a linear scale.

I wouldn't reasonably expect a buy back because I know it isn't a strong case. But I'm rather frustrated with the poor service from the dealer and with the poor build quality. If I contact Ford Corp about this it would be more to make a point than to really ask for buy back. The dealer always pays for the rental car. I have complained to the dealer about the fuel costs but they aren't willing to do anything to help with that. We have tried to wait for parts to come in. The problem is that the dealer has broken some trim pieces trying to replace ones that were installed poorly at the factory which has then resulted in delays. The dealer has also made mistakes on their end where they keep the car waiting for parts to arrive that they never bothered to order. They also have failed to install the parts they do have in stock when we've brought the car in. At least once we dropped the car off with them for 3.5 days for them to replace some trim pieces that they had in stock. I also gave them a list of others that need replacing. During the 3.5 days they had the car they did nothing. They didn't replace the pieces that they had in stock and they failed to order the other trim pieces until I called them to follow-up when they'd already had our car for 3 days. When I found out that they hadn't yet ordered the other pieces and that those pieces would take at least a week to arrive I was fed up and just picked the car up again from them.

Thanks for sharing! We haven't had any major issues with our 2013 FFH but we're getting close to the 30 cumulative days in the shop which is referenced in the Minnesota Lemon Law. Most of the days in the shop were spent waiting for Ford to send parts. Almost all of our issues have been cosmetic issues (i.e. poor fit & finish) but we're now coming up on 30 days soon. If we pass the 30 day threshold within the next few months I might take some time to look into this because even though none of our issues were major mechanical problems, we still lost a lot of days in our car, spent a lot of money on gas driving to and from the dealer and driving around in 20 MPG rental cars and I've wasted more than 20 hours so far for extra trips to and from the dealer and in sitting around waiting for them to help me when I'm there.

They can advertise that because they just stretch out the term of your loan. It's basically deceptive advertising. That being said, it might be worth having the discussion if you're really interested in the Energi. Colorado has some of the best state rebates on top of the Federal tax credit. Just be sure to review your personal financial situation to understand how much of the federal credit you would get. If your tax burden for the year is less than the credit after all other deductions then you only can lower your tax burden to $0. You can't have negative taxes for that year.

What I don't understand in all of this is why the behavior is different between the Fusion & the C-Max... So here's a question: is the behavior the same on both rain sensing wiper equipped C-Maxes as one without rain sensing wipers? The FFH without rain sensing wipers will turn the headlights on when the switch is set to "auto" anytime the wipers are on at any speed including the slowest intermittent setting. The headlights don't come on the instant you turn on the wipers, but rather there is a slight delay to make sure that you really are going to turn the wipers on and leave them on. I'm curious if the C-Max behaves differently when equipped with rain sensing wipers versus those without. If all C-Maxes behave differently from the FFH then this kind of sounds like a programming error in the code, kind of like the missing door chime on the C-Max. That error amounts to an error in the code, it's possible the wipers are the same.

THat's just insane! Not to mention all the illegal things they did.

A few FFH owners have gone through this. For one the process was seamless as Ford offered to buy his car back before he asked. He barely took delivery and then encountered some serious problems so Ford repurchased his car for full sticker price so that he could get a different one. There is a FFH owner going through this right now who has been posting updates on Blue Oval Forums in the Fusion section. The owners manual explains the proper procedure for this. Check out the Customer Assistance section. Ford partners with the BBB Autoline Program for unhappy owners to use for buyback. The manual indicates that failure to follow the steps outlined in it can cause delays in your buyback process.

Another potential source of bias in the CR reporting is that they only gather data from their subscribers. I doubt that CR subscribers are a truly representative group.

I'm glad you've found my ScanGauge observations on the FFH Forum of value! Thanks! We have observed the same as you in our Fusion. I just added a bunch more information to that ScanGauge thread about the HVB and when charging the HVB. Once the HVB reaches 60% of the useable SOC it stops using the ICE to charge the battery as you observed in your pictures above. When this happens the LOD value drops into the 60s since the car usually uses MG1 as a generator charging the battery to artificially load up the engine to be more efficient. Having this turned on has no impact on flat ground. Its function is to prevent the car from gaining speed when you aren't pressing the accelerator pedal. That is the only thing it looks for. It will thus increase regen as needed to prevent the car from gaining speed when you aren't pressing the accelerator. If the gravitational energy acting on the car is more than what the electric motor can convert to electrical energy stored in the battery then engine braking will begin even if the HVB isn't full.

Awesome information about the pods. Thanks for the impartial review.