Riddley

This state's response is too simplistic. Here are a few simple questions: What is the increase in health care costs related to treating the side effects of pollution? What costs did society have to pay to help clean up the oil spills in Alaska and the Gulf Coast? What costs will society have to pay to clean up from tidal surges in the North East that many scientists attribute to climate change?It has been widely reported that the extremely violent storms like the Oklahoma tornado last week are likely to happen more frequently as we go through climate change. What about those costs?The last thing I want to see is a debate about climate change, but if you isolate and legislate for just one cost: maintaining roads, and ignore all the other costs that are in part mitigated by driving electric or hybrid cars, you are being woefully shortsighted. There are reasons why the society and governments want to encourage drivers to purchase and use vehicles that have a smaller carbon footprint.

DUDE!!!!! If you join Recompence, then that would be TWO. Two is a club!!! (in my book anyway). I didn't figure on anyone getting to 700 this early in the year!! Now I think you will be the second soon enough. It wouldn't surprise me if Orphoto joined you both in the 700 club buy the end of summer.

Jus is your friend!!! If you still want to go solo, what I did was: Open the image in the Windows Paint program. To do this, tight-click the file in explorer and choose Open With.On the toolbar at the top there is a Resize command.At the bottom of the window, in the status bar, you should see the size of the image in KB.I kept resizing the image until it was under the limit.

What we are fairly confident in is that if the tank average showing on the trip gauge is at or above 46.5 MPG, then 600 for the tank is doable, assuming the tank was full and the trip gauge is reporting data for the full tank. If your trip gauge is 75 miles short of reporting your full tank, then the FE in that first 75 miles is a mystery, and could affect your results.

SnitGTS, do me a small favor and run out to your car to check on something. See if there isn't a circular port high up on the left front fender (see picture below). ... NICE WORK!

SnitGTS, you are getting the highest FE I've ever heard of in the first tank!! If you keep that up, you will not only be in the 600 club, but should be gunning for the 700 club not too far down the road.

mtb9153, That best tank is very close to what you would need. Your best tank: 569.0/311.6 EV, 44.6 MPG, 12.73 Gal used My best tank: 600.6/311.1 EV 46.6 MPG, 12.88 Gal used As you can see, there was very small difference between your best and my best. (2 mpg). Considering that you have been putting all the techniques to use, the difference must have to do with something about the drive, or something about the car. Regarding the drive - if it is all high way, with very little driving below 60MPH, that might be a contributing factor. If you have a lot of hilly terrain where you live, that might also be a factor. Regarding your car, a few different things to explore: Record a trip under good conditions in your C-MAX. Then either rent or borrow someone else's C-MAX and do the exact same trip, under the same conditions and compare results. If your car performs noticeably worse than the other car, it might be sufficient to continue experimentation. If not, then there is one small, isolated data point to suggest it might not be the car.

IMHO, It is never a good idea to shift the car from drive into neutral while traveling - for exactly the reason you mention. Consider the modest possible gain (I'm still trying to identify any possible advantage) against the possible damage you could do with one very small overshift (into reverse). Now - perhaps Ford has some override function in the transmission that would prevent damage (someone will let us know I'm sure), but all things considered, why would you even risk it? Regarding coasting bdillahu, the C-MAX has a wonderful feature you'll come to appreciate: it is called ECO Cruise. It is not enabled by default, but easy enough to enable. Give it a try. The car travels at a relatively constant rate of speed (similar to coasting), and to disengage it, you simply tap the brake or accelerator. Did I miss something?

I would be interested in seeing a survey of owners who had a battery problem to learn when these vehicles were manufactured. It might turn out that the fail rate is relatively high for vehicles manufactured before a certain date, and relatively low for vehicles manufactured after that date. To illustrate why this might be a reasonable approach, consider the problems people reported with Sync/MFT. After a flood of forum posts, some analysis showed that the problem was resolved in later production runs. My vehicle was manufactured in March 2013 and I've had no problems with the battery, NAV, or SYNC/MFT. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the problems with the battery have been largely resolved in later production runs. If this is true, I would highly recommend you get the C-MAX, considering all the other positives of the car. Recommendation: If you like everything else about the car from reading these forums and doing a test drive, then do some additional homework to see if the battery concern might have been mitigated.

Wow - that's a load of features! Looks nice too.

I know there are lots of people who use Fuelly and some similar sites. Just wondering if anyone has a favorite App they'd like to share. Here are some fuel tracking apps for the WP8. I use Total Fuel. Its free and it does a decent job. <Fuelly: yes - I just joined>

Very good point Recompence! Having the same daily commute has me sometimes feeling like a mouse that's been running in the same maze for a long time. One silver lining is knowing when I will get a recharge of the battery, and when it's OK to run it down under EV anticipating the next hill.

For those wanting to get 5 MPG better fuel performance, here is a technique that made this much difference in my driving. I started to pay attention to the battery icon. Prior to this discovery, my total focus was on the EV mode. How to get into EV mode as often as possible, and for as long as possible. While important, the total focus on EV mode alone proved to have limited results. About the battery icon: I set the display for this to show when the battery is charging and discharging. This display mode simply puts an up arrow (or chevron) above the battery when it is charging, and a down arrow (or chevron) below the battery when it is discharging. This should not be new information for most people, but it might help some... :) <see the chevron above the battery in the image below - borrowed from JUS - thanks JUS!!> :rockon: Why this is important: Driving in EV mode as much as you need to for optimal fuel economy requires a well charged battery. If you don't pay attention to that battery icon, you will not have it sufficiently charged to provide optimal EV driving. But the battery icon tells you something else that is just as important, if not more important: it tells you if your foot is too heavy on the gas pedal. The implication being that a heavy foot will result in more fuel used per mile. This is subtle, but very important to improving fuel economy. Often times I am driving on a flat road, not in EV mode, and I look down at the battery gauge and see the down arrow (chevron) under the battery icon. It is discharging. I lift just a touch off the gas, almost imperceptibly, and the chevron goes to the top of the battery - it is now charging. That small change in pressure on the gas pedal was so slight that there was almost no change in my vehicle speed. It might be like a 1 MPH change, very slight. One time the light foot lift off the gas didn't result in the up chevron (charging) and I looked around and noticed that my AC was set too high. I clicked the AC fan down one or two clicks and the battery started charging again. Subtle change. But important. I've come to the conclusion that the battery display, whether it is charging or discharging, is fundamental to improved fuel economy. If you don't monitor it at all, you will struggle with getting optimal economy. The up chevron above the battery is your FE friend, the down chevron below the battery eats your fuel economy. It is not always possible or desirable to have the battery in charging mode. Sometimes the battery will be discharging under normal operation, like when you need to accelerate, or if you are in EV mode. But giving just a little bit if your attention to the whether battery is charging or discharging, and working to get the battery into the top third (of being fully charged), will make a difference in your vehicle range and FE. In the spirit of JUS and his naming conventions for FE techniques (ICE High, P&G, etc.) I suggest this strategy might be labeled "Feed the Battery". Whenever possible - Feed the Battery.

Some time in the future, there will be some regional C-MAX rallies. Owners can swap stories and driving tips. One of the possible benefits of such an event would be that two C-MAX owners can take a drive in the same car at the same time. For those interested in improving FE: If one of the drivers is not getting great FE and the other is, then they might swap cars and see if it has more or less to do with the car or driver. If it turns out to be mostly due to the car, that will become apparent. If it is the driver, then when both are in the same car, the one can make some suggestions to the other. Just some thoughts...

Congratulations MadManMoon!! You'll love the panoramic moon roof! Good tips about using Costco and X-Plan. I had both options when I ordered, but like salesguy, didn't know they could be combined. Either option is a great deal. I hope all prospective C-MAX shoppers take note: using one of these (COSTCO/AAA/X-PLAN) memberships is the way to go. There is no reason to pay sticker price, when you can get your new car for near invoice (+/-).

The real key here is the Ruby Red... You wouldn't have made it that far in any other color. But seriously! 52.9 MPG average is really something!! Way to go rmcmast!!! With 11.44 gallons used up, by my calculations, you had about 1.5 gallons left in the tank. At 52.9 MPG, that would have taken you all the way to 684!!! You might have just been able to eek out a 700 mile tank.

Hey Matt, I'm in. But here's the deal: since my car is just a puppy (in the middle of tank #5), it has to learn to walk before it can run. I am shooting for 650 miles/tank this summer. My mileage will probably still be under 10K at the end of the year. I don't expect to have 15K on this thing until next summer. So, realistically, it will probably be this time next year before my car is old enough (in terms of miles) to be able to go to the 700 club dance. But that said - heck yeah. I'm totally in!

Riddley: 1. SEL with moonroof 2. 44-46 psi cold pressure 3. Regular 87 Octane unleaded fuel from 7-eleven 4. No grill covers or mods, completely stock. 5. Most important: Ruby Red!!

WAY TO GO MATT!!! 700 IS AWESOME!!!! It is nice to have that as a high bar, and nice to see that the 55 mpg average is what it will take. I haven't managed to do that for even one single trip yet!! Question: was that unmodified (completely stock)??

Amen! I drove a 12 year old truck to nearly 200K miles before I had enough saved to put down on the C-MAX (I was able to put only $5K down, and have payments). My wife is driving a car with 170K miles, and three kids are driving around older cars with very high mileage. And we are borrowing money to have these kids in school. So, I hope you didn't read too much into my original post. It shouldn't be any wonder why I am relieved to be driving the Hybrid.

Thanks Laurel! I'm just a hack... but every once in a long while I can come up with something not terribly shabby.

If you visit the Gas Buddy webpage (just a site I stumbled upon - no affiliation), you can get a graph like the one above for most large cities in the US, and many in Canada. You can even plot the gas prices for multiple states, or show price trends comparing the US and Canada.

Because most reasonable people can see the decline in availability of this non-renewable resource, politicians have finally started to develop the nucleus of a backbone. It has been too long in coming, but CAFE Standards are the start of efforts to doing something about it. There is a great (slightly technical) overview here: Wikipedia - CAFE Standards. I honestly believe CAFE standards are the main reason why Ford and other manufacturers are developing hybrids, and that Hybrids wouldn't be emerging now if not for CAFE standards.