MikeB

Special characters in the phone book, like hearts, are likely to mess up the caller ID display. First, change your hubbie's name in your phone so it has just normal letters. But you also need to delete the list of contacts in the car and then get it to re-upload from the phone.

Finally got a good shot of my Blu in the sunlight.

Yea, two tanks at ~40mpg, then one almost exactly double that after a longer delay. Seems like a missed entry is the most likely explanation. It's remotely possible that she drove 600 miles almost entirely on low-traffic roads averaging 25mph, that would also be a legitimate way to get that type of number.

My Ford Touch (MFT) software controls everything on the 8" display, and that means MFT contains the navigation software. Our cars came with MFT 3.1.3, but 3.5.1 has been release for some vehicles, which means an update for the navigation software is available. That update might fix the accuracy bug in the navigation system. Does that clear it up for you?

I think the 'System has Crashed, Rebooting NOW' message is misspelled, for some reason it always looks like "Scheduled Update Maintenance" instead.

I had a Subaru Impreza WRX sportwagon some years ago, and it had a really nice spoiler at the back that directed airflow down the rear window. That window generally stayed clean most of the time, I don't recall ever needing the rear wiper. But I guess the aerodynamic engineers decided that type of spoiler wasn't as good for vehicle mpg, even if it kept the rear clean, so it doesn't see more usage.

If you turn on the climate system with the power button, it seems to come on in Auto mode, which generally kicks it into high fan immediately. But you can also turn it on by touching the fan up or fan down buttons, which skips the Auto mode and allows a gentle startup.

This type of heating wire puts out a constant amount of heat per length. So by making the wire squiggly, you squeeze extra wire length in the same space, and thus it's a little warmer.

Welcome Nick. You are lucky, the MyFordMobile site just went live for the Energi a week ago, and the iOS app came out friday. So, go log in to phev.myfordmobile.com, create an account, and link up your vehicle by putting in your VIN. You'll have to get into the car twice to confirm the connection, the 2nd time may be up to 24 hours later. After that, the website has a spot for value charge settings. You might want to join us in the other C-Max owners site, forcmaxenergiforum.com, we've been discussing Energi specific stuff over there. (Yea, you'll probably have to monitor both forums to see everything you need)

I think I got all the tabs back in the plastic cover, I had to push a few in place with a small screwdriver, but it seems to be fitted snugly now. I'd say the pattern is to start at the back with the two large tabs, move to the bottom next, then finish on the top. And yea, I think there's no question that the knurled knob was for adjusting height. It was just finger tight, so it wasn't securing anything, and it was vertical, so it wasn't holding the lights against the car body.

Yea, it's an indicator that all doors are locked. A bit of an odd location, since it seems like it ought to be part of the sound system, but it's just a door lock indicator.

You can turn the voice prompts to Advanced mode, and it won't give you that long spiel every time you get something wrong. It also just beeps at you when you pull the paddle, rather than asking for a command.

I have a regular drive on a gravel/dirt road, and always have a nice layer of dust on the rear window when I stop. It's the nature of the aerodynamics of the hatchback, the air spins in a large cylinder behind the vehicle, depositing road stuff on the back of the vehicle. The Subaru wagon I owned a few years ago had a nice spoiler at the top that directed air downwards, kept the window much cleaner, but my later VW wagon and this car don't handle the air the same way. I'd love to see an aftermarket spoiler that could clean up the airflow without reducing mileage (and still look good), but that's a really difficult thing to craft. I do put a good coating of rain-x on both the front and rear windows, it helps keep the glass a bit cleaner.

Reviving this: I finally got my fogs adjusted. The bad news is that you can't do it from the front of the vehicle. Taking off the plastic covering exposes the light front, but the adjustment is at the back of the light. There's no screws holding in the plastic covering, you really do just pull and prod until the plastic tabs release. What I did was to remove the headlight assemblies entirely (putting new bulbs in). While they were out, I could look down inside the car and see the back of the fog lights. Feeling around, there is a little knurled knob on a lower corner. Turning that knob adjusts the height of the beam. I used the garage wall to measure my aim, but I really was way too close to do a good job. Ideally, you'd adjust them in a large flat parking lot or something, but then you'd have to remove the headlights in the field (and in the dark). This is also probably the best way to replace the fog bulbs. It might be possible to get access from below the car too, but you have to remove the bottom panel, so I didn't try that yet.

Guys, switch to the Engage(?) mode on your display, the one that shows both ICE and EV bars at the same time. I think what you'll notice is that you are getting an EV assist most of the time, even if the ICE hasn't cut off entirely. This is probably better than EV mode, since the computer has more options to blend electric and gas power to find an optimum balance point.

Chinese manufacturing is an interesting problem. Yea, they make lots of junk, but they also are capable of making things well. It all depends on the specific factory, and the level of quality control imposed by management. A big company like Ford can't afford to have wheels failing all the time, so they are going to impose strict quality control guidelines, and will probably only buy from good suppliers. But if you walk into Wallmart, you're probably seeing stuff produced by lesser quality manufacturers (or even stuff produced by the good ones that failed to meet quality checks).

Sync services seemed a waste to me, I've mostly ignored it. I have no interest in finding things like sports scores when driving, and I've got a smartphone that can tell me a thousand times more stuff when I stop. Sirius has some interesting features, I'm vaguely thinking of keeping it (assuming I can get a reduced price). Obviously the music is nice on trips, and even in town if you have crappy local radio stations. I've got a big USB stick with music in the console, but Sirius has a much bigger collection than I do so there's better variety. But Sirius is also providing traffic data to the Nav system, there's a little colored halo around the big roads, red or yellow or green, to indicate current traffic levels. There's also incident icons on the map, and the nav system has some ability to alter your current route if there's an accident along the way (haven't tried that yet). And the weather map is also nice, it uses the Nav map, zoomed way out, with an overlay of current radar. Good to see if you're about to drive into a big thunderstorm or miss it. Of course, a smartphone will give you both of these things, but not on the 8" screen, and not in places where cell coverage is weak or cell-based internet is absent (which happens pretty often between cities). For someone who does a good bit of traveling, and can afford an extra few bucks a month, the Sirius package might be worthwhile.

mtb, you have to remember that the high voltage battery powers a DC/DC converter to produce 12v power. This 12 power charges the 12v battery, and also provides juice for the computer, lights, and other 12v systems. So as long as the high voltage battery has juice, the car can run without a 12v battery. And of course the high voltage battery is charged off the engine or from regen. The only real need for the 12v battery is to start the computer when the vehicle is off, because there are relays that disconnect the high voltage battery. You just need to start the computer to close the relays, and then the 12v battery has done it's job and can go away. Of course, there's a little more than this, since the 12v battery needs to handle several things when the car is off, like listening to signals from the remotes and opening the doors.

Sorry about your troubles. Yea, there's a good number of bugs in the MFT system, and we're hoping for a new release of the code this quarter. And yea, dealers often seem clueless about some types of fixes. With a 10,000 mile oil change interval, free oil changes for a year comes out to about 1 oil change, and that's worth about $40. Not all that much goodwill there. On the other hand, once the bugs are worked out, it's a nice car and you'll probably enjoy it. Mine is mostly bug-free, and it's a pleasure to drive. So don't give up quite yet.

This is why I think a Nitrogen fill is pure marketing snake-oil. Nitrogen is a smaller and lighter molecule than Oxygen. What possible physical mechanism could you come up with where a smaller molecule get trapped more than a bigger one? Ever notice how helium balloons go flat far faster than air balloons do? That's because smaller molecules can escape where bigger ones can't. Unless someone can offer a plausible explanation why a tire works exactly opposite of how a balloon does, I'm calling this an anti-science myth. Pure marketing nonsense for the science-illiterate masses.

Lithium batteries have a very flat voltage curve. In other words, the voltage shows high when the battery is at 100%, and low when it's near empty, but between 90% and 10% there's almost no measurable change in voltage. You get voltage sag from high current draw, but again, that doesn't correlate much with state of charge. So while it may be mildly interesting to know the voltage, it's probably not useful for measuring state of charge.

Heya wamba, I'm a big fan of putting in good bulbs, and have a set sitting on the table waiting for me. The owners manual says you should remove the whole headlight assembly to get access to the bulbs, but apparently the owners manual also lies about how to remove them. I've been trying to get a clarification from Ford before proceeding, but it looks like you took the other path and just squeezed your hand into the narrow space behind the light. I should warn you that the bulbs you chose are, to use the technical term, 'crap'. They look brighter to your brain because they are bluer, but that's actually an illusion. Think about it for a second: if the bulb puts out white light, and you put blue paint on the bulb to filter out some of the light, you clearly have less light hitting the road, right? So really any bulb that painted blue should be avoided. There's a good article by a lighting expert here: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/blue/bad/bad.html Osram Night Breakers are the bulbs I chose, Philips Xtreme Vision are another good choice. But avoid anything with a blue tint on the glass.

Yea, Rachel, that's how the Energi works. We start with a much bigger battery, and can charge the bigger battery with a plug. It's also capable of putting out much more power from the electric motor. So we can drive pretty normally using just the battery, and 21 miles is the estimated range for that. After that, we're in hybrid mode exactly like you will be, where the engine runs to provide power but regen and coasting will recharge the battery. We also have an EV button on the dash for a little extra control, so I can hit 'EV Later' and go immediately into hybrid mode, saving the big battery until later. I tend to run in EV mode for the first few miles until I get to the interstate, switch to EV Later mode and run the engine, and then go back to just the battery when I get close to my destination.

Especially for those of us relying on the battery to provide heat, rain makes a difference. The moist air means that I have to run the climate system on defog, which means turning on heat and everything. On a dry day, many Energi drivers have no problem leaving the climate system off and just turning on a seat warmer.