SnowStorm

I can't help with the attach points but I got stuck yesterday and dropping the front tire pressures to about 20 psi made a huge difference. Not sure how low you could go. (Of course, don't forget to pump them back up!)

Oh dear - never been in a Prius (let alone driven one) so have no right to express an opinion on the Pandemic Prius Polemic! SnowStorm feels left out in the cold! Back to topic - No, no regrets at all! The Enterprise takes me where no hybrid has gone before.

Yes, do nothing and don't worry. (Well if you really want to do something, keep it garaged - but that helps the whole car - and, for that matter, any car!) I certainly don't plan on getting rid of mine because a warranty is running out. It seems an "urban legend" has grown up that says EV and hybrid batteries will go "belly up" at 100,000 miles and the car will be worthless. Utter nonsense. Consider: The above graph shows 80% capacity beyond 250,000 miles. In a hybrid, I believe that small capacity drop will go unnoticed. The entire hybrid system is still working just fine. I can't recall hearing of any HV battery failures in the C-Max. Tesla now has unlimited mileage warranty over, I think, 8 years. At the rate we drive that's 250,000+ miles under warranty! Try and get that warranty on an ICE - even on another "luxury priced" car. Point is, its essentially the same battery technology as the C-Max. As time goes by there will (sadly) be spare parts available from wrecked cars. The HV battery is well protected and should survive most any accident just fine. At the worst, a new battery from Ford is $3243.17 and there could be a core credit to reduce that. (The Prius battery is a similar price but gets reduced by over 1/3 with old one "recycled".) And don't forget about all those "other" cars out there that require 1/3 that price or more about every 100k miles for timing belts and such that aren't needed on the C-Max. Payments you can't afford to skip.I really wouldn't worry about it.

"Global" warming? "Regional" perhaps. (All this warming stuff leaves SnowStorm worried!) We're headed for -6F this week! Maybe its just the poles shifting. Back to the car - what causes it to start the ICE when its cold and the heat is OFF and SOC half way up or more? The Enterprise is normally garaged but this weekend it was outside at about 30F and 20F and both times ICE started as soon as I turned the car on. SOC was noted on the colder morning at about 80%. Why is the ICE starting right off? Is there something else that requires heating?

Interesting! Things to note: Glass roof. Love it but there had better be some sun shading available. Clear wheel inserts. Neat way to keep the look while reducing drag. Price. "Approximately" $30,000 (after Federal tax incentives). Will there be any when the car comes out? Range & Charging. Quite good of course at "over 200 miles" and 80% charge in 45 minutes. Body. Glad its not another sedan! Styling. Overall quite good but the back is better than the front. Seems like stylists are still "EV challenged"! Moldings. Go easy on the lower body plastic - could get nicknamed the "Boltaru". Headrests. Sure hope the rear ones fold down some how. Interior. It is supposed to "feel like a sanctuary". Maybe if I sit in that "sanctuary" long enough - perhaps, possibly, with effort - forgiveness for the EV-1 may come - maybe, perhaps ....... they say time heals ..... takes more than 15 years .....Anyway,signed up for emails - couldn't resist. Now we just need to hear from Ford and Tesla and ???? Really want my next car to be pure electric.

The Grand is a different and bigger model. They say the B-piller is built into the doors and uses high strength steel, etc. I just think its the coolest thing ever. Make the seats individually removable and there would be all sorts of cargo hauling options.

OK, so I tried all this grill blocking stuff a bit last weekend but it was a rather mixed bag. Some clear plastic and packing tape and pipe insulation - got it all closed pretty well except the bottom slot of lower grill - not very pretty. Then I pushed the tires to 50 psi. MPG on downhill leg was 52+ with 43 -> 33F temps. That's about as good as I've gotten in summer. Return was much warmer and a different route - good mileage but no way to make a valid comparison. Pulled the tape off without too much trouble but Paul's suggestion about waxing first should be given due consideration! Would like to have a better arrangement next time. At one point I cranked up the heat and was able to drive the temp gauge below the normal center position. And that was with all the grill blocking. An efficient car only has a certain number of BTUs to waste! Really need to get at that OBD-II data!

I'm staying with the OE Michelins. Tires are about the only thing we have a choice over (and oil) for our cars and I feel the extra money should be worth it. They're the only thing between us and the road! We put new Michelins on our Fit about 3 years ago and soon after hit a monster tire eating pot hole on the N Main St bridge heading into Ft Worth. There was a huge "bang" but not from the tire - its still going. Just waiting now for the next $70 "sale". (And this time we're going to spend the money before time runs out! :gaah: )

Primarily using floor vents so can't close passenger side. Again, I don't have an NRG so there is no resistance heater element, right?

I expect you are right. This post seems to indicate that splitting the temperature settings might cause the recirc door to bring in outside air to get the colder temp. I know this question is a small detail but I would still like to see a flow diagram if anybody finds one - or other specifics of how it all works under various modes.

Oh if Ford would only build a competing version of the B-Max! :drool: Under-floor battery - nice flat floor - 200+ mile range ... :drool: :drool: :drool:

The non-NRG cars, as I understand(?), only use heat from the ICE - no electric heater element. I just want to make sure I'm not bringing in cold air if I try to dump all the heat on the driver.

Have a 2013 SE 200A with dual temp controls. Heated seats are are great but, specifically, I'm trying to figure out how to get the most recirc heat to the driver - floor vents primarilly - so no control of individual vents. How does the car make "cold" air on passenger side and "hot" air on driver side? I don't want to bring in a bunch of outside air when trying to conserve heat.

Out of phase speakers (the "big" ones that is) tends to cancel low frequency sounds so you might experience poor bass response. Good thought but the noise cancellation works with the 'radio' OFF so it should be unaffected by audio settings. Oh well, try it anyway!

Thanks for the update! Your Watt-Hours/Mile of 254 (297,000/1170) seems quite good, especially with the pre-conditioning. But I don't think 70 MPGe is right. Shouldn't it be (1170 miles / 297 kWh) * (33.7 kWh/gal) or 133? Very good indeed. Just makes me want a pure electric even more!

Exactly how does the dual zone heat system work? I want to figure out the most efficient setting when no one else is in the car and I'm using recirculate. Should the passenger side be turned down low or does that mix outside air to get the lower temperature? Have driven the car a lot more this winter and when in town, there is precious little engine heat available. One post showed that there are stepper motors controlling doors - one for each side. Anybody know what air flows they switch between? Outside cold, outside through heater core, inside recirculate, inside through heater core or what? And is any of the temperature control done by changing the water flow though the core? (I suppose you could ask the same type questions for A/C but not this time of year!)

I tend to agree about the "sweet spot" - but of course you must define it first: Most "optimum" compromise between MPG and MPH - totally personal - define any value you like. A "magical" speed where either speeding up or slowing down results in lower mileage. This is the one we don't buy. A "discontinuity" in the MPG versus MPH graph where an increase in speed causes a larger than expected decrease in MPG due to the hybrid system switching modes (see below). If this happens, one might define the "sweet spot" as being just below that speed.For #3 above, I'm thinking of the speed where the car stops going in and out of EV and the ICE stays on. I drive a lot of Interstate with "rolling hills" and at 65 MPH the car uses EV quite often. But at 70 MPH the ICE is on almost all the time. My impression is that the drop in mileage from 65 to 70 is larger than you would expect - but I have no real data. On a flat road my car will just barely keep ICE on constantly at 55 MPH (using cruise control). At 50 MPH I expect it would constantly go in/out of EV. Does anyone have any good data or other impressions? As SPL says, you can get far better mileage below 55 MPH. I have a "test course" I've run a couple of times at about 35 to 40 MPH where I get over 70 MPG returning to the same point and the same SOC on HVB. BTW, hills can be your friend - see this post.

Sounds like you need a battery charger that takes 12 VDC (nominal) in and steps it up high enough to charge the second battery. Something like this item: http://www.powerstream.com/pst-pb1108.htm I have no association with the company and haven't used the charger but something like this is what I would try before ever attempting any direct connection (too many potential problems). This unit has galvanic isolation which is a plus. At 8 amps you can charge a 500 watt-hour battery in about 5 hours. They say you can use two in parallel for twice the charge rate. And there are probably others out there with higher output current capability. Hope you find something that works. I went "out west" for a month using ice and it was indeed a hassle. Tried dry ice once and it made the fruit taste funny!

Sorry - but to me it looks like a boom box that went through the wringer washer - speaker ports and all!

Years ago I was filling up when there was a very loud "pow". I looked around towards the air pump just in time to see the hose hit the ground - thrown down disgustedly by the poor angry chap who had just "blown up" his tire. I guess the cornering wasn't good enough.... :lol: or, most likely, there wasn't any gauge on the pump. Gone are the "easy days" where you would turn the little crank until the correct value appears in the "digital display", pump up the tire, ding - ding - ding - - - ding - - - - - ding - - - - - was that the last one? Shucks, pumping up your tires was kinda fun! :play:

Be careful buying replacements as there are two versions of Energy Saver A/S tires. The 93V is OEM with the 51 psi rating but there is also a 94V with only a 44 psi rating. No idea why. Today it seems almost all abnormal wear is from misalignment or failure to rotate (cupping).

Agree that it should stay off - then you turn it on if desired. Its crazy - windshield is fogged so we blow some cold air on it to make the glass cold so it fogs up even quicker. Have also heard that its done so the compressor gets run occasionally in the cooler seasons to keep things lubed up. I've switched to using MaxDef button. It might run the compressor (?) but it cranks up the heat and works in seconds - hit it again and go back where you were.

Door handles should be the same! I just came back from the big AHR Expo in Chicago. Some Ford vans/trucks were on display all decked out for HVAC service guys. I commented to a guy in the booth about how much the dash looked like my C-Max (did it ever!) and he proceeded to tell a story. Years back he was at some Ford shindig where an executive asked how many different door handles Toyota used on all their models - just one! Then he asked how many different ones Ford was using. At the time there were more different door handles than models! He then explained how that had to stop! I think the designers may have listened - perhaps a bit too well. No more variety! Gone is "the spice of life". Our cars should come with uniforms for us to wear! And all the same color - White Platinum! Too bad that guy couldn't influence the whole industry. Why on earth do we need a hundred oil filters, a thousand tire sizes - good grief! Four filter sizes should cover all consumer vehicles. Anyway, there should be some common parts!

Are you referring to 'L' position or using the button on left side of shifter knob? I tried 'L' once coming off a mountain after HVB was full. It worked alright but at the bottom the ICE wouldn't shut off - not even after coming to a complete stop! Crazy - it just kept running. I think it kept running in Park! I've used the button but there was sometimes a jerk when the ICE would cut back off. Is that normal? I'm a bit uneasy about the whole thing - high RPMs and jerking. It does really work though.

Cold and rain are killers for sure, and A/C too if you don't manage it. Use recirculation, close unused vents, turn up the fan and set temperature as high as you can (I use about 76F). Set MyView to show Accessory power and you'll be amazed. With above settings I can get it down around 300 watts (about a 1 mpg loss). Crank it wide open and it goes to 10X that. Weight is a factor but not that big a deal when cruising. Say you add 200 pounds (about 5% of car's weight). At 65, rolling resistance is maybe 1/3 of total drag at the most. So the net effect is about 0.05 * 0.333 * 45mpg = 0.75mpg. Less than 1 mpg! When the fully autonomous C-Max comes out we'll be able to run it about with no passengers and get even better mileage! It can go real slow with no A/C or heat needed! :lol: