jmckinley

Hypermiling Prius' is exactly why I removed the "Hybrid" from the rear of my CMax. I was really tired of being tailgated no matter what speed I drove. And I am not a Hypermiler! Apparently there are a lot of Hybrid Haters out there, no doubt due to the legions of dorky Prius drivers giving the rest of us a bad rap. As soon as I removed the "Hybrid", the tailgating was reduced by about 90%. It's easy to do. Just gently apply heat with hair dryer or heat gun and pull the letters off. They're just stuck on with two sided tape.

Ford has changed the procedure from what was originally in the Owner's Manual. The original procedure was cut and pasted from another car and was just wrong. There is no need to go to Reverse since our cars really don't have a reverse gear, they just run the electric motor backwards to reverse the car. Here's what the new Owner's Manual Says: Tow only in the forward direction. • Release the parking brake. • Place the transmission in position N. • Place the ignition in the off position.See Starting and Stopping theEngine (page 124). • Do not exceed 70 mph (113 km/h). • Place the transmission in position P,start the vehicle and allow it to run forone minute at the beginning of eachday (you may need to press theaccelerator pedal in order to start thevehicle). After allowing the vehicle torun, place the transmission back intoposition N and the ignition in theaccessory position By the Way, if you want to force the engine to run, just turn up the heater to a high temp.

My dash display MPG is consistently 7% higher than the fill up to fill up mileage. This is not an accident, in my opinion. The consistency indicates that the display is repeatable, just offset a bit to make us owners feel better. If it were just variations in top off, etc. the discrepancy would sometimes go the other way. The dash display has always shown better MPGs in every one of my 88 fill ups.

The error in early production cars was smaller. After everyone complained so much about poor mileage, one of the software "Upgrades" increased the error so your displayed mpgs would look better. As long as you never calculated fill up to fill up mileage you were happier.

I learned it on this forum. Not really covered in the Owner's Manual. Mine ran down the first time while towing it. I knew about the key, but not the slot in the fob. Luckily lots of tools in the motorhome so I had pliers handy.

The key fob has a slot that you put the key head into to give you a handle to turn the key.

Mine came on at exactly 10,000 miles. So it sounds like it is 10K or one year, whichever comes first. No other factors involved.

The oil change warning thing was discussed a while ago. While the Owner's Manual and some of the brochures sort of insinuate that the oil monitor keeps track of multiple factors to decide when the oil needs changing, I'm pretty sure it just lights up at 10,000 miles. No magic here, just mileage.

Has anyone seen one of these in person? Their website photos appear to be generic therefore not useful. My question is, does it have a lip at the rear edge to keep bowling balls, apples, hand grenades, etc from rolling out on the ground when you open the lift gate?

Regarding some of your posts in response to my inner to outer dismount-remount solution to tire noise: I increased inflation to max recommended of 51PSI and that helped a little bit.I rotated per the owner's manual which didn't help, also reversed sides which also didn't help.Noise was at its worst on smooth roads at 45 mph. Always there, however, at any speed.Dismounting and remounting all four tires inside to outside essentially eliminated the noise. $20 per tire at Tire Discounters. Much cheaper than $900 for four new ones.

I had tire noise which got progressively worse as I approached 30K (30K driven, 12K towed) miles to the point of being nearly unbearable. Rotation didn't help. Dealer checked bearings, believed they were OK, said all four tires were cupped on the inside edges. Suggested replacing 30% worn tires with new ones for only $900. I didn't see cupping, but a directional feathering of the blocks on the inner edges of each tire. On a hunch, I had all four tires dismounted and reversed on the rims so the inners were now the outers. Presto, the noise is almost completely gone. I had the alignment checked at the same time and it was nearly perfect with no adjustments necessary. I'm not sure what is going on here. Generally problems like this are alignment or suspension component wear or balance related. Alignment was OK, suspension shouldn't be worn out already and everything feels tight. There was, however, a significant difference in the amount of balance weights needed to balance the tires compared to the as delivered weights. This could also be somehow related to towing the CMax. Weird stuff can happen back there as the car is forced to track in ways it may not like. At any rate, if your tires are noisy, consider the dismount-remount idea. My dealer, by the way, said it wouldn't work. If you do it, be sure to mark the tires some way so you can be sure they get it right.

Mine has lasted two years. I think it has lithium battery and they last a long time. Also, if it's charged up, it seems to hold the charge for months.

The article referenced in the link is outstanding. It is the simplest, most accurate summary and debunking of the Nitrogen BS I've seen so far. Everyone should read it.

I've towed mine four down for nearly 10,000 miles. No problems, approved by Ford, procedure shown in your Owner's Manual. Charge line absolutely necessary to keep battery from discharging, however. Otherwise nothing special required.

Owners manual says to cross the rears to the front. LR to RF, RF to RR etc.

I've towed mine 6,000 miles in neutral, engine off. No problems. I doubt that your downhill coast daily is the problem. A more interesting question is; How come it was fine before the dealer worked on it and not so fine after they worked on it?

Good question. I can't believe how quickly it gets dirty back there. Just be thankful you have a white one. I would guess that the darker colors bad as soon as you drive it out of the driveway.

Question of the day is: Where did you find an A5 card for $49?

Interestingly, when I just changed my oil at 10,000 miles, I was amazed at how black it was. Not scientific, of course, but I suspect that 10K is too long.

I thought I read in the manual or somewhere that the Oil Life Monitor was more sophisticated than just notifying at 10,000 miles or one year. Maybe not.

The dealer did my first oil change at around 6K but forgot to reset the oil monitor so I got a notice at around 10K. I did the second one myself at around 13K and, unlike the dealer's ace staff, reset the monitor. Today, exactly 10K later at 23K, the change oil message appeared. I thought the monitor was supposed to take into account driving style, miles EV, etc to determine when an oil change was due. Has anyone had a notice at anything other than exactly 10,000 miles?

I agree with some of the above posts re Ford's credibility. There is no question that Ford knew that the car would not deliver the calculated mileage in the real world. I worked in Ford Engineering. Executives and managers drive prototypes and near production cars home almost every night. Product Engineers are constantly driving the vehicles. They all absolutely had to know the real story well before Job 1. For nearly two years we've been fed an neverending string of stupid excuses. It gets worse mileage in the winter because of warm up. It gets worse mileage in the summer because of the AC. It gets worse mileage because you are too stupid to drive it right. It gets worse mileage in the wind. It gets worse mileage in rain. The EPA made us do the calculations wrong. Did I miss anything?

I agree, new procedure has nothing to do with the battery life. They just corrected the stupid cut and paste from the Focus Owner's Manual to eliminate cycling the lever through reverse which didn't do anything. Also recognized the car won't idle for five minutes.

That would be a great idea. Also, finding a way to force full electric as long as the battery lasts. Grocery store is only a mile away, but I can't make it there without the engine coming on. I think the later model Prius' have a full electric switch as does the C Max Energi.

Looking at Fuelly, the 2013 CMax average is 39.6, Looking at the distribution, I'd venture to say that about half the people reporting on Fuelly get my kind of mileage or less. Apparently the you only know people on the other end of the bell curve.