MikeB

I just got a set of WeatherTech All-Weather mats (not the DigitalFit liners), front and rear. I didn't have any problem with the grommets on my driver side mat. The mats fit well and look good. The left foot rest for the driver isn't completely covered to the top, but it does cover the area my foot usually rests on when in a comfortable seating position.

I don't know what type of A/C we have, other than the fact that it's electrically driven. But in general, an A/C is a special case of a heat pump that runs in only one direction.

Mostly, it's the same vehicle with a bigger battery and a charging point, but that makes for lots of subtle differences. I do want to get together sometime soon, depending on schedules.

This is actually a rather interesting question. In a car, it used to be that heat was essentially free, since the gas engine produced so much waste heat. But that's no longer the case with a hybrid, so making heat now requires energy. The efficiency of making heat is generally pretty close to 100%, meaning that you can convert an energy source directly to heat without any waste (since the wasted energy is in the form of heat, which is what you use). But A/C isn't about making heat, it's about moving it. And A/C can actually be more than 100% thermodynamically efficient, meaning that you can move heat from one location to another using less energy that you are moving. When measuring the efficiency of a heat-pump, the important number is usually the Coefficient of Performance (CoP), which measures how much energy gets moved for a given input energy, and the number is usually higher than 1. So, this is a long-winded way of getting to an interesting conclusion: it may take less energy to remove 10 degrees of heat from the cabin than to add 10 degrees of heat into it, if you're using electricity. A heat-pump is just more efficient in principle than resistance heating. Edit: sorry, this is probably more relevant to those of us with the Energi model, since we have electric heat drawing off the battery. I can't remember which forum I'm in sometimes....

Yea, the side mirrors are heated when the rear defrost is on. Tried it for the first time this week, side mirrors warmed up very fast, maybe a min or two at most.

Yea, a picture would help, and you might find a logo or something while poking around. If it's aftermarket, there's a good chance it's a ScanGauge, that seems to be a popular model. http://www.scangauge.com/ Cars after 1997 have a standard diagnostic port, OBD II, and it's not hard to build a small computer to show values coming out of that port.

KCmax, please get more details on which relay they found was sticking. I'm sure everyone with a dead battery issue would like to get that relay inspected. If that's really the problem that everyone is having, a conclusive identification of the cause will be greatly appreciated all around.

I also think that accelerating too slowly isn't a good plan. You don't want a drag racing start, but you really want to be in about the middle of your engine's output. Check out this article on Brake Specific Fuel Consumption: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_specific_fuel_consumption Notice the graph in the middle of the page, and especially notice where the best efficiency is: it's a pretty high load with moderate rpm. That graph isn't accurate for our 2.0L Atkinson engine, but the general pattern will be the same. So I think you really want to push the engine a little bit, but not enough to get above 2.5k or 3k rpm.

Very interesting observation, Bob. Either your 12v battery won't hold a charge for any amount of time, or there's something between you and it that's holding the measured voltage down. I've got a guess, wonder if I'm right. We know there's a DC/DC converter on board, taking power from the 300v big battery and turning it into something near 12v. I bet you're seeing the output voltage of a DC/DC converter, rather than the 12v battery. But the DC/DC converter really should be putting out about 13.9v, not 12v, in order to charge the 12v battery and provide full power to the headlights. If it's not putting out enough voltage, that might explain why the 12v battery isn't getting charged enough. I'd really like to see a basic wiring diagram for this car, at least for the main power flows. It's got to be more interesting that we are used to, by an order of magnitude.

I'm apparently a master at driving 70mph through the woods along the side of a highway. Not sure how my car survives it. Actually, that brings up an observation: I think the error gets worse at higher speeds, I've noticed it while driving 35 but it wasn't nearly as large.

The VIN may be fine, but you won't be able to view your window sticker until about a week before the car is scheduled to be built.

I'm certain that we have a sophisticated BMS that monitors every single charge event, and tracks the voltage on every single cell. But I suspect the periodic battery maintenance mode is actually the next level of sophistication: it's a full discharge/charge cycle on the battery in order to accurately measure remaining capacity as the pack ages. Both the top and bottom charge points are measured via per-cell voltage detection, and the difference is the capacity of the pack. Doing a full discharge/charge cycle also allows the cells to be balanced at the bottom of their charge curve, rather than the top, but I don't know if that's the goal in this case.

Yes, the 12v battery is in the rear of the vehicle, just behind the high voltage battery. But there's connection points in front for jumping, so you don't need to start pulling out the floor of the cargo area. The 12v power port in the cargo area and in the center console are also live even when the vehicle is off, so those can be used to jump as well. Picture here, also some good info in the emergency response guide: http://rescuetechs.com/ford-cmax-hybrid/

True, but apparently the dyno is programmed with resistance information based on a glide-down test of the car, which means both rolling resistance and aero resistance are factored into the test. Of course, then you have to look at how the shutters would function when the car is gliding to a stop, as opposed to actively using the engine. So you are right, this is another area where the EPA test needs improvement.

Honestly, I think the aerodynamic gains from a grill cover should be really minimal. Given the shape of our vehicle, there's probably more to be gained by tapering the tail of the vehicle than there is by smoothing the nose slightly. Which implies that the biggest gain from the grill cover is thermal, keeping the engine warm. But the active shutters are there for exactly that purpose, aren't they? Which leads me to speculate that the active shutters aren't really doing their job. And if the active shutters aren't working properly, that might also explain why most people have so much trouble reaching the EPA numbers, assuming the EPA test was on a vehicle with functioning shutters. ptjones, I'd really like to see the results of your camera experiment. And since I'm near by, I'll even volunteer to give you a hand with that experiment. The camera sounds like the simplest path. But as a more advanced experiment, I bet there's a message on the can-bus about opening and closing the shutters, if we had software that knew how to look for that.

I liked my previous Garmin better as well, but don't knock Ford for not giving you an ETA. Touch the box on the screen that lists distance and time remaining, and it displays a popup with your ETA on it. No math needed. Now, if I could just get the darn nav system to think I'm on the highway, rather than 200 feet into the woods to the side, and to not show a 'next turn' indication when I'm supposed to stay on the current road, I'd have fewer complaints. And if they rendered more detail on the map, showing more roads and towns when you zoom out to the 5+ mile level, I'd be much happier. After that, all I might ask for is a digital speed and altitude display.

One set of data that should be excluded, even though it's legitimate, is numbers from Energi drivers. Until there's a good way to count the power from plugging in, those vehicles will just skew your curve. But looking at the bell curve seems like the best path, just look at the peak of the bell and use that value.

In MyView, I can get a tach on the left, or engine output in kW on the left, but can't put either one on the right. So they are, in effect, mutually exclusive.

Turn the Temp selector below 60, and it goes to Lo. Make sure the AC is off, recirc is off, and you're getting unheated outside air. That's the 'vent' mode you are looking for.

I was trying to figure out why P&G works from a theoretical view, and think I have begun to understand it. The answer is that you want neither hard acceleration nor ultra-soft. The engine has an efficiency map, and you're trying to place yourself in the most efficient range of that map. Why do I call it a map and not a curve? Because there are two input variables to play with: RPM and load. The output variable is, of course, efficiency, measured in fuel per kilowatt of output. The formal term for this map is Brake Specific Fuel Consumption, or BSFC. Here's a sample of that map, though this isn't quite accurate for our Atkinson cycle engines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brake_specific_fuel_consumption.svg The fancy eCVT we have is going to manage RPM, keeping our engine spinning at the optimal rate. But our use of the accelerator pedal is what drives the load. So, our real goal here is to commit to using the ICE some times, but commit to using it in the most efficient way possible, and to use electricity the rest of the time. Looking at the map, the numbers in the graph show fuel used per energy output, and we want the lowest fuel use. And the most efficient point on the map is on the upper middle, inside the circle labeled 206. So what does that mean? Well, the RPM at that point is about 2200, medium low, but the load is rather high. If you punch it, asking the engine for all it can give, the computer will raise the RPM to meet the demand. So it looks like our goal is to put as much load on the engine as we can without pushing the RPM over about 2300. What does that translate to for your foot? Medium acceleration, neither soft nor heavy. Ideally, our fancy dashboard would have a display of RPM and load on the same screen, or even better a BSFC gauge. But in the mean time, just accelerate moderately and then lift your foot.

I doubt it's an arbitrary change. A number of reviewers have examined the C-Max, including Consumer Reports, and there's always the publicly visible Fuelly.com data to read.

Hehe Laurel. It does become a bit of a game, watching mileage. I'm also experimenting with using just the heated seats rather than start the engine.Of course, I have electric heat, but that cuts my battery range by a third so it's the same overall effect.

Hybrid dude, the alignment of the bumper cover, hood and fenders seems good, and the headlight aim also seems correct. But the fogs are just too low, most of the light is within about 6' of the car. I played again with getting the foglight cover off today, had most of the top side detached. I see how it connects now, but still can't get the bottom and rear to detach. I don't want to apply excessive force, but it does seem firmly engaged.

I'm the type who likes to tinker with my car just a little bit, and upgrading my headlights is usually on my list. The simplest upgrade is to replace the budget headlamp bulb with something with a little bit higher performance. The DOT mandates that bulbs perform in a certain range, but you can always get bulbs that are at the top of that range rather than the bottom. Any bulb with a blue coating on the glass is trash, but there are a couple good brands that are worth the money. Either Osram Night Breaker or Philips X-treme vision are considered top choices, and I picked up a set of the Orsams for xmas. Btw, our low-beam bulbs are H11, and the high-beam is H1. Any bulb that meets those specs will fit. So, looking in the owners manual, it appears that I have to remove the whole headlight assembly before I can access the bulbs inside. Two screws and some maneuvering, and I should be good, right? The screws are easy, I already have a torx bit that fits, but the maneuvering doesn't work. The actual instructions are on page 298, and the important bit is this: 1. Make sure the lighting control is in the off position and open the hood. 2. Remove the two screws from the headlamp assembly. 3. Carefully pull the headlamp assembly as far as possible towards the center of the vehicle to disengage it from the lower fixing point. 4. Carefully lift the outer side of the headlamp and remove it. 5. Disconnect the electrical connector. Except step 3 doesn't seem to work, there's no room at all to pull the assembly to the center. I can get it to go forward a tiny bit, which does release a pin or something towards the back. But then the back of the lamp won't lift up, it's still trapped. Anyone else taken a look at this yet?

Laurel, when you turn the car off after driving, the radio will stay on until you open the door. So by pushing the start button twice, you've just turned the car on and then off, and it's waiting for you to open the door. But that does give you your radio, which is what you want. :)