MikeB

Hiya Brent. I've got the Energi, which is the plug-in version of the C-Max. I assume that's what you mean by the Electric/Hybrid combo. Technically, the Hybrid is already a combination of gas and electric, but it doesn't let you fill the battery from the electric grid. I love the Energi, and up front cost is really the strongest reason not to get it. Performance is excellent, surprisingly good for a vehicle focused on fuel economy. The gas engine isn't awesomely powerful, nor is the electric motor, but the combination of the two is very strong. The Energi's battery is 7.6kWh, but you never really use all of that. A full charge costs me less than $0.75, and with that I can easily get 22-25 miles of all-electric driving. So your electricity bill does go up, but your gasoline bill goes down by a significantly more. While driving electric, and with current prices, it's like you're suddenly getting 100mpg instead of 40. You'll have to figure out how much electricity you'd use per month in order to figure out the final cost, but anyone who can charge daily and can do a significant number of electric miles will end up saving money. And when the battery is drained, the car still drives like a hybrid, so you'll see mpg numbers in the low 40s when doing long road trips. As for maintenance, the electric side of the drivetrain has almost no maintenance. The gas side gets much less wear and tear, so it also needs less maintenance. For example, our oil change interval can be as high as 20,000 miles, since so many of those miles happen without the gas engine even starting. The batteries are expected to last the life of the car, and have a 100,000 mile warranty. And both the Hybrid and Energi put very little wear on the disk brakes, so brake dust on the wheels is almost non-existent. The Energi is about 300lbs heavier than the Hybrid, but that type of weight is hard to notice with normal driving, even when passing. You'll quickly spot the space taken up by the larger battery in the cargo area, my cargo floor is raised about 9" compared to the Hybrid. There's still plenty of space overall, but not quite as much of it is below the privacy screen in the cargo area.

If the battery is toast, you pretty much can't open the lift gate. However, you can open the hood, and there's jump connections in the engine bay. Also, the 12v accessory power plug in the cargo area doesn't shut off, so if you fold the seats down, you can reach back and plug in a jumper battery. Once you have any external juice at all, the computer can boot and the high voltage relays can be closed, and you will have full power off the big battery as needed.

This is a scam. They take electricity out of your battery, use that to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then push the hydrogen back into your fuel system to burn with the gasoline. As long as the laws of thermodynamics are not repealed, there's no way this can work.

Because the Energi was never incorrectly rated at 47/47. Actually, to be more specific, the C-Max Hybrid was given the same numbers as the Fusion Hybrid because the Fusion was considered the larger volume product, so that's the one they tested. On the Energi side, the C-Max Energi is considered the higher volume product, so the Fusion Energi was given the numbers from the C-Max Energi tests. Ford used an EPA rule that allowd different vehicles with the same drivetrain to get the same rating, using test numbers from whatever was the larger volume product, rather than testing each model separately. Unfortunately, Ford abused this rule by allowing it to apply to vehicles with significantly different aerodynamics.

Well, it's very much an all-or-nothing thing for me. Either I'm 100% EV in town, or I'm on a highway trip going fast and running mostly on gas. You're getting your great numbers by sticking to slower speeds and avoiding the high speed stuff entirely, which means you alternate between gas and EV on a minute by minute basis. But I think what that really means is that we both chose a good vehicle for our driving needs.

So, if you just ignore that little 174kWh bit, I'm well over 1,000 miles on this last tank.

I won't argue with the premise of keeping the wife happy (though I don't have one). However, I'm also in Atlanta, and grew up in Illinois, so you'd expect me to prefer cooler temps. But comfort is mostly what you get used to, and I'm very comfortable in the car with the AC set around 76. Once the humidity is gone, anything in the mid-70s is pretty easy to adjust to.

I keep a really good coat of wax on my car's paint, and that has the occasional advantage of making it easy to remove paint from dings like this. Start with a very mild polish and work your way up to the more aggressive stuff, and you'll probably be ok. Having a newer clearcoat is going to save you on that. After that, bypass the body shop and look for a paintless dent remover. (Actually, the body shop and local dealership will both know a guy who does this.) They can pull out dings using a bit of heat and a nice suction cup mechanism, and it'll be almost invisible. I got a sizable dent removed for about $150, and it would have been over $500 if a body shop had done it. The difference is that the dent remover will be almost invisible, the body shop will be completely invisible. So there is some difference in quality of repair, but I think it's probably not worth the cost.

Youch Valk, sorry to hear that. I too am very surprised that the drivetrain continues to be the least troublesome part of the car. On the other hand, my previous VW diesel had a potential problem with the high pressure fuel pump failing, causing about a $12k repair (usually out of warranty). So it seems that most automakers have issues of some sort or another, and dealers are universally poor places to get repairs. Tesla might be a good choice for you, I'm hoping their 3rd major project will fit my needs as well. And the new BMW i3 looks very interesting, I really like the use of a 600cc motorcycle engine as a range extender.

Glad you managed it, Carpe. I think it took me a few weeks before I wggled my out, so I'd forgotten about this thread by then. One little helpful bit: there's two painted 10mm bolts that hold the side body panel in place, near the hood hinge. If you remove those bolts, you can flex the body panel just a little bit outward, and the back part of the light assembly will come out and up.

Something I think I saw from other posts here: in the Hybrid, when you drive over 62mph, the engine keeps spinning. You can't run EV mode since the battery isn't set up for that amount of power output, but even on a downhill your ICE keeps spinning. Is that right? Because in my Energi I see a pure EV mode, without the ICE spinning, at speeds up to 80-something. I suspect that's one of the software changes they are making for the Hybrid, allowing the ICE to cut off entirely at high speed, just like it does at lower speeds, as long as you don't put too much demand on the batteries. They aren't changing the max output of your electric motor or battery pack in terms of power, but they will allow it to be used at higher speeds. But most of the other software changes seem like they would apply to the Energi, like better management of the grill slats, and climate control changes. I do hope we get those changes, even if the first one isn't applicable for us.

My one piece of advice is to reset the Lifetime trip data before you drive off the dealer lot. Probably want to reset Trip 1 and 2 as well, and pick one of those to be reset with every fillup.

Not strictly true. I do local drives (pure EV) all week, and then 200+ mile trips on the weekend (regular hybrid driving). Even with the Energi's reduced MPG compared to the Hybrid, my lifetime average is still much higher than the Hybrid would ever reach. My fuelly signature is showing just under 60 right now, probably go over 60 on my next fill. You really have to have lots of non-EV driving before the Hybrid starts to pull ahead. Yes, you should evaluate your personal diving patterns and see which one is better, but the Energi does quite well in mixed (EV/hybrid) driving, not just short range only.

There's a setting for automatic vehicle health report reminders, I seem to recall 3 different mileage options, and 5,000 was one of them.