Gourockian

Hi Ken, I have the same car and wondered if you could share how you secure the doughnut, etc? I'm thinking of getting a doughnut as we are planning a 1200 mile trip. I already have a scissor jack and breaker bar with socket stored at the rear but have concerns about them flying around in the event of an accident. Regards, Al

I very much doubt if a smart charger would work on a battery which is at 2.1V. When first connected, it analyses the battery's condition and if below a certain voltage (around 9V), they won't charge. I have to use a regular charger if my battery is really low, then switch to the smart charger.

Thanks for your reply, Homestead. Yes, it turns out the battery was bad after all. I still did not manage to access the front fuse panel so I ended up taking the battery out, charging it directly then used my HF battery tester. It showed Weak at first then Bad so I've now replaced it. I thought getting the 12V battery out of my Prius was bad but it's a walk in the park compared to this setup. One of the hardest things was removing one of the pop-out studs that holds part of the plastic ductwork in place. It is dificult to get access to release and remove it. It would have been a lot simpler if Ford had used a regular stud and nut or bolt into the steel frame. Sorry about the rant but I'm hopeful the new battery will work out okay.

Hi, I've just bought a 2014 C-Max Energi and noticed it seems to be suffering from the dreaded battery drain issue. As the car was bought without warranty, I don't think I want to go back to the dealer about it, although I know him reasonably well. Before getting to my question, here is a summary of what I've done so far. I hooked up my multimeter between the negative cable (which I removed from it's grounding bolt) and an adjacent ground, to measure current draw. I've removed all the fuses, one by one, on the rear fuse panel and also at the passenger side - boy, that was fun. Whoever came up with that location must be a left handed part-time contortionist. I say left handed because it is difficult to work using your right hand. I ended up unclipping the panel and dropping it down to get better access to the fuses. Getting it back up was a trial and I eventually had to remove the glove box and that's when I saw that there are two stout plastic pegs which need to be correctly located in the steel back plate, before the panel can be clipped into position. Now to my problem .... I have tried for over an hour to remove the cover from the front fuse box (In the engine compartment) and watched a video which made it seem fairly easy. I don't why the securing latch has been placed at the back where there is limited space to work. So my question is .... has anyone else struggled to remove this cover and how did you finally manage to succeed? If and when I do get it off, my plan is to remove the latch arrangement and just leave the cover sitting in place for easy removal in future. The vehicle which this one replaced was a 14-year old Town & Country minivan and it's fuse cover was like that for 13 of those years, without causing any issues. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Al

Thanks for the welcome. I'm not completely new to the Hybrid scene and have had approximately 6 years driving my 2008 Prius, along with some experience of working on its HV battery. I still have it but have also just bought a 2014 C-Max Energi, with 83,500 miles. I'll post elsewhere about an issue I've noticed and as it came As-Is, I can't really go back to the dealer about it. Regards, Al