fotomoto

If you can find a conventional oil that meets those stated certification specifications, you can use it. AFAIK, only syn blends or full syn meet the specs.

I had this happen with the passenger side also. Tried changing temps, settings, turning car on/off, etc but nothing fixed it except leaving it on and rolling down the windows while continuing to drive for several more minutes. I'd guess it was about 5 minutes (seems like an eternity when it's pumping out really hot air) before it settled down and operated correctly. Never done it since. On a somewhat related note, my wife had the same thing happen to her a few years ago while driving my then new volt and I've seen several reports from others on that forum to this day. I think it's a software bug and not hardware related but that's just a guess.

You also have to take into account that the ICE will not have 10k miles on it once you subtract EV miles. The Energi model has the exact same ICE and oil but has a two year 20k mile interval. As has all ready been said, the original oil is a semi-synthetic not conventional. Also, it's 5-20w but Ford has now approved 0w-20 use too.

Had a volt 1.0 and, yup, it is more fun to drive than a Cmax (and no contest compared to a Prius) but the form factor definitely has many limitations; hence why I jumped ship. I'm not so sure the 2016 volt 2.0 will be much larger though. If it is, I will certainly consider it since they are touting it will be even more fun to drive in the real world category (think 0-40mph where you can really use it all the time).

Yes, fuel prices go up=book values go up. Now is definitely the time to buy a hybrid.

20's F and 80mph and winter grade fuel. Yup that would do it. Edit: on second thought, maybe 30-32mpg so yes 25-27 sounds too low.

First thing I'd check my tire pressures.

I recently built a used Ridley Noah carbon roadbike frame with full ultegra sets. It's so beautiful like a work of art. I find myself just staring at it!

Welcome to Club Electric! :thumbsup: You're gonna' love it and you may not realize it yet but you're life is going to be forever changed. :shift: You MUST give us a quick review after you get it. :detective:

Do you have a cat? :)

My guess: Your tire was borderline low and the overnight cold front here in Texas lowered the air pressure in your tire enough to trigger the warning light this morning. Check and adjust your tire pressures regularly.

I regularly follow the prius forum and they are just now seeing an increase in failures of the HV battery at 10 years in. In many cases, it's only one cell that is bad which can be replaced by skilled DIY types at home for less than $100 and the pack continues on. Another popular solution is to either buy a used pack with less miles or a rebuilt pack sold by third party shops with a warranty. Finally, the most expensive solution is a new pack from Toyota for about $3500 (nickel metal hydride). I assume the higher tech lithium ion packs used by Ford will cost more than that though. This will be of more concern around the years 2022-2024. ;)

So, I needed to rent a large vehicle for work and ended up with a Chrysler Town and Country van. First a bit of background: we've owned two "mini" vans in the past when the kids were young; a Mazda MPV and later a larger Nissan Quest. Both were well appointed with most of the bells and whistles of the time and they served their purposes well. I really liked the incredible utility of the design which has led to me to look for hatchbacks in nearly all our other purposes since. The T&C had about 18k miles on it so it was broken in. The transmission wasn't smooth in the first two gears with glitchy changes. The gas pedal mapping with difficult to modulate and seemed to jump from idle to 20% power making for lunging starts. The power brakes seemed weak requiring a much harder push than the CMax with its sweet regen setup. The large (HD?) rear passenger video screen flopped down into the open position which blocked my rear mirror view. Someone had tried taping it shut but it wasn't strong enough giving it a real classy look. <sarcasm> It didn't have smart key entry so fishing for the FOB every time we needed entry got old real quick. Funny how quickly we adapt to new technology. We were carrying a lot of equipment and I really, really missed the kick activated liftgate. Trying to balance long 12ft poles so as not to let them touch the muddy ground while digging into your pocket for the FOB was a lot of fun. Speaking of mud, that's because there was a lot of rain :sing_rain: and the lack of auto-wipers was dearly, dearly missed especially when the controls aren't on the same stalk as the CMax. No push button start either. And the kicker at the end of the day was filling up the beast. Even with the current cheap fuel prices, I haven't spent $50+ dollars on a fill up in about 6 years! :doh: Summation: This near top of the line van only bested my CMax in room (duh) and slightly better seats. The CMax comes out on top in driveability, performance, convenience, features, price, and, of course, fuel economy. I was so glad to get back in my car at the end of the day. :wub2:

Somewhat similar: http://www.hagerty.com/price-guide/1955-Mercedes~Benz-190SL This had to be the coolest thing I've driven. A friend of my dad had married a German woman while station in Europe. Many years later, he brought this car back to the USA to sell for one of her family members. He wanted about $9,000 back then (1985) and let me drive it by myself! It was unrestored, in GREAT condition, and had very low kilometers. I begged my dad to buy it while I figured out someway to get the $$$ to pay him back (about to graduate college) but not being a "car guy" he declined. I still think about that car..... :wub2: and from time to time remind my dad of the current values ($100,000). :gaah: My "hottest" ride was not a car but a motorcycle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducati_Desmosedici_RR At $72,000, pound per pound about as pricey as the McLaren! :spend: I don't know what scared me the most, the power of this bike (150mph in the 1/4 mile) or the fear that I would drop my friends crazy expensive brand new bike. I managed to bring it back in piece:

Mine is more "bare bones" and probably barely makes the man cave definition but it works for me. With a south facing door, it stays warm in the winter and with the addition of a small window a/c in the adjoining washroom along with a couple of fans I can keep it bearable in the peak of summer when need be. A separate tool room and heavy duty chain hoist that's never in the way when out of use makes for a quick service bay for my motorcycle(s). An old sound system with either SAT or steaming music helps me lose track of time.

There's a recent thread about recording breaking mileage on one tank which got me to thinking about what I've been able to do with my NRG on one tank of gas: oh.... about 5,000 miles. ;) I don't know what my second tank would have been because I quit buying gas by the tank as I don't really need to carry around all that extra weight. I usually pop for ten bucks at a time which typically last me weeks. Matt, my lifetime in my NRG is around 90MPGe which accounts for electricity from the battery but that doesn't account for losses/charging overhead from the wall (approx.10% loss on 240v). I was in the lower 40's with my hybrid before giving it to the wife for highway commuting. It really depends on your driving needs. Some folks drive them nearly all highway (many to get HOV access) and get about the same mileage as the hybrid or slightly higher (50's-60's). The NRG can do better in hybrid mode than the hybrid Cmax because the larger battery will allow it to store more kinetic energy (regen braking, downhills, etc) once you learn how to "trick it".

I was also going to suggest pulling the fuse if nothing else is on the circuit; however, I like having the rear camera on while using my cargo rack. If fact, I even turn on the delay option to keep the camera on longer so I can get a longer view to monitor things I have on it.

Nitrogen is NOT snake oil; the benefits are real but..... the high costs from most places easily outweigh the advantages. Your costco deal is certainly way better than most stealership offers. Speaking of stealerships, you'll need to make very certain that when you go there for the other services that they don't top off your tires with free air because, I assuming, costco won't purge/refill your tires for free to get them back to 100% nitro.

That would be the absolute first thing I'd check. Next would be the fuse. If both good, I'd then take it in.

Your indictor may show full but the battery isn't and never will be. The computer programming doesn't allow it to completely fill as that is bad for battery longevity in the long run. Once the indicator is full yet more charge is coming in (say coasting on a very long downhill road), the programming will kick in the ICE to burn off that excess charge instead of sending it to the battery. In my Energi with its much larger battery, I can recoup that excess charge and accumulate 20+ miles of EV charge assuming the descent is long enough but it too has its limits and will eventually do the same thing.

I, too, looked at the Focus hatch when they first came out and liked it a lot (3 test drives) but ultimately it was a little too small for our needs. CMax was juuuuuust right. :shift:

By saying "owed", many including myself think of the bottom line of our taxes where we either owe or get a refund but this is not the best way of wording things. Rather it's the total taxable amount on our income after the standard deductions. This is the tax figure on line 46 of the 1040 form not line 74 (amount of refund) or line 76 (amount owed). Most folks, especially joint households, who can comfortably afford an Energi easily have $4007+ in tax liability.

As another former owner of several hybrids, I concur! Welcome and congrats. :happy feet:

Being that I'm aware of your driving ability :worship: , I'd say you'd get 50+ miles EV in good weather in the Volt. If you can get additional opportunity charges during the day (especially faster 240v Level 2 ), your EV/Gas ratio gets even better. With your driving style, I'd questimate 40-42mpg when on the gas generator. The Volt runs the ICE much like a conventional generator at set speeds depending on battery charge/demand so traditional hypermiling techniques are more difficult to implement. The newer 2013+ models have an "EV later" type button so you can save your EV miles for lower speeds while traveling at high speeds on gas boosting your overall efficiency. The car will automatically run on gas (for cabin heat) in colder weather to meet minimum federal requirements for windshield visibility. That acronym is called ERDTT (engine running due to temperature) and you might want to do some searches on that phenomenon and what some northern owners think about it. It never affected me here in the south. Battery range in cold weather can drop to 20-30 miles. The 2015 has a slightly larger battery that isn't promoted by GM. For me, the car's strongest suit is its driving dynamics. It's just a FUN car to drive. If it wasn't for the cramped rear seats (primary reason) and low driving position which is also more difficult ingress/egress than the CMax, I'd still have mine. The former shouldn't be an issue for you as a work vehicle. My best hypermiling EV range was 61 miles on the smaller 10.3kWhr 2012 battery. Be wary of MPG claims by owners as the car computer doesn't factor in electricity use which is a HUGE omission. Ford is now doing the same thing in the current Energi's <grrrrr> but my early edition at least computes MPGe.

Yeah, I along with a few others here, have owned or currently own one. The comparison question is usually asked on the Energi forum: http://fordcmaxenergiforum.com/topic/3068-compared-to-volt/ If you have a specific question, ask away.