jmckinley

All my good fillup to fillup mileages are followed a tank with poor mileage so I attribute the good ones to inadvertent short fills. The Fusion would push 40 mpg at a steady 70 mph on flat roads. My CMax gets around 36 at 70 mph. I know about the odometer error and that doesn't help improve my averages much. And, I'm running high tire pressures and grill covers. One thing that was interesting about the Fusion is that I could jump in it and run 2 miles to the store and back and get 35+. Do that in a CMax and, as you know, you'll see around 20-25. Dealer is clueless, says everything checks out OK. After the Big Fix (13B07) i thought it was improved, at least that's what the dashboard said. Wrong. It was actually a little worse. In my opinion, the biggest thing the new software did was increase the error in the dash readout to fool the people. My point was, as your research confirms, I could have bought a Fusion for $5K less and gotten the same mileage.

Of course it's due to the bad mileage. I just rented a new Fusion with Eco Boost last week. I got consistently better mileage than I've ever gotten on my C Max. Why would anyone buy a C Max with all the extra weight, complications of the Hybrid system and other aggravations when you can get better mileage for less money on a number of conventional cars.? Now our cars are losing more and more resale value as the word gets out.

Procedure in Owner's Manual is wrong anyway. If you pry off the cover on the passenger side like it says, there is nothing there. Only way to disengage is to take off the bezel holding down the shift boot and reach in there and move a little white lever.

I just looked at the third printing of the Owner's Manual. Lord Motor Company finally changed the towing procedure to make more sense. No more cycling through reverse to lubricate the reverse gearset that isn't there (this car doesn't have reverse gears, it just runs the electric motor backwards to reverse). And finally recognizing that you can't make this thing idle for five minutes. It also doesn't mention running the engine midday to re-lubricate the transmission either but that is probably still a good idea. Here's the new procedure. • Tow only in the forward direction.• Release the parking brake.• Place the transmission in position N.• Place the ignition in the accessory mode. See the Starting and Stopping the Engine chapter.• Do not exceed 70 mph (113 km/h).• Place the transmission in position P, start the engine and allow it to run for one minute at the beginning of each day (you may need topress the accelerator pedal in order to start the engine). After allowing the engine to run, place the transmission back into positionN and the ignition in the accessory position.

Checked the new printing of the Owner's Manual and the procedure was basically the same. Enabling or Disabling Autolock and AutounlockNote: Your authorized dealer can perform this procedure, or you can do the procedure yourself.To enable or disable these features, do the following:Note: You will have 30 seconds to complete the procedure.1. Switch the ignition on.2. Press the power door unlock button three times.3. Switch the ignition off.4. Press the power door unlock button three times.5. Switch the ignition on. The horn will chirp indicating the programmingmode has been entered.Autolock: Press the power door unlock control, then the lock control.The horn will chirp once if autolock was disabled or twice (one short andone long chirp) if autolock was enabled.Autounlock: Press the power door lock control, then the unlock control.The horn will chirp once if autounlock was disabled or twice (one shortand one long chirp) if autounlock was enabled.6. Switch the ignition off. The horn will chirp once to confirm theprocedure is complete.Note: The autounlock feature can be enabled or disabled independentlyof the autolock feature. So I went back to the car and started experimenting. I finally got it disabled. The trick is to not put your foot on the brake. Just hit the start button where it says "Switch the ignition on (or off)". Then it works. Damn.

When you get somewhere, your passenger is annoyed because her door won't unlock and she can't get out.

You've got a couple of yrs on me. First book I ever read "Red Planet" in 1957. I think that was my first one too. It was published in 1949. It is actually kind of the basis for "Stranger in a Strange Land".

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity. (Heinlein) Oddly enough, I am a Heinlein fan and have been for 60 years. I think I've read most of his books, but don't remember this quote. Where did it come from?

Has anybody found a way to turn off the automatic door locks? It drives me crazy and wife is extremely annoyed by it. Like a lot of things in the Owner's Manual, the procedure they describe is wrong and doesn't work. Clearly cut and pasted from a different car's manual. If anyone has a 2014 car or even a late 2013 I'm wondering if the procedure has been corrected in the Owner's Manual

No way of quantifying it, of course and as someone mentioned, there is no shortage of dumb/bad/inconsiderate drivers. That was my first drive incognito, so I'll be watching for a while to see if the improvement is just wishful thinking.

Ever since I bought this car, I've been plagued by Hybrid Haters riding my bumper. This is somewhat perplexing because I don't hypermile and generally stay at or above the speed limit and do not hog the left lane. Just for kicks on several occasions, I have demonstrated the excellent acceleration of the CMax and walked away from them, but usually they come back anyway. I assume this is carry over from other aggravating experiences the Haters have had with other Hybrid drivers hypermiling and holding up traffic. They therefore assume that all Hybrids will be driven in an obnoxious manner and feel the need to help them along by tailgating. Most of the time it is either a pickup or a big SUV. Apparently they want to convince me that they can afford to not worry about fuel consumption and that I am somehow an inferior person because I chose not to drive something that only gets 12 mpg. Anyway, yesterday I removed the H-Y-B-R-I-D letters from the rear hatch. Then, on a 200 mile drive, I did not have a single Hater incident! The letters, by the way, were extremely easy to remove. Just warmed them up slightly with a heat gun (hair dryer would have worked) and slipped a plastic scraper under them. They popped right off. Glue residue wiped off easily with some car wax. Wish I had of done this a year ago.

Your charge line is incorrectly wired. Probably wired to hot side of ignition circuit so car powers up mh ignition

Yesterday I needed the air compressor to fill up a tire on my mother's car. I'm really glad I tried it before I need it on the road someday. Here's an important message to everyone. Get out there and try to remove the kit from under the Passenger's seat before you need it out on the road. The practice will be helpful. I would have hated to do it in the dark, in the rain on the side of a road. Everything is black under there and the straps are velcro which get all hooked up in each other and the carpet and it's hard to reach because your wrist bends the wrong way. It's not that hard, just worth trying for the first time under more friendly conditions before you actually need it.

Yes, if 12v battery is dead, the Stanley Simple Start will provide enough juice to wake up the computer and then the High Voltage battery actually does the starting. Worked fine for me when my battery ran down every time I towed the car with the motor home. I eventually installed a charge line from the motor home to keep the CMax battery charged while towing.

Sounds to me like your dealer is clueless. Any battery run down to nothing is probably trashed and a simple recharge will not make it new again. Clearly everything is not OK, or it wouldn't have run down. Lots of us carry one of these for those nasty dead battery moments: It's about the size of a paperback book and will provide the small boost to get your CMax going after the 12V battery craps out. http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Simple-Start-Battery-Booster/dp/B005GO5E10 Stanley SSLION Simple Start Battery Booster

You don't start it with the key, you just push the button on the dash. Metal key just gets you in the door. Why not just push the start button on the dash?

No. 12 V battery will be dead unless you disconnect it. Too much stuff running all the time on this car. Easy to do under the hood at the location shown in the owner's manual for connection of jumper cables.

Good idea to mask the the tapered holes. If there is paint left in that area, it can gradually deteriorate with a resultant loss in lug nut torque which is a bad thing and you can end up losing a wheel.

Check it out. Lots of other people have reported the same thing on this forum. Don't underestimate their stupidity. They released a car with high mpg estimates, knowing full well that it would not deliver 47 mpg in the customer's hands.

Don't know how long you've had your car, but the "Big Fix" last summer actually made this inaccuracy worse. In fact, it is my theory that that was the main feature of the fix. Indicated MPG got better but actual MPG was the same as always.

Maybe our resale value is low because there are plenty of cars out there that will get 38 mpg highway even when its cold and they cost less than $20K and they're 600 pounds lighter. And then there's the reliability thing. And maybe people might be embarrassed to own something that was so grossly misrepresented by the manufacturer.

I've seen the ad. It's kind of sad that about all they can talk about is better performance than a Prius. If I had of wanted a performance car, I would have bought a Focus ST. Lighter, faster, cheaper.

Figures don't lie: Spend $500 to save 8 cents a day, Payback time = 17 years (not including cost of funds) Don't be surprised if the price is a lot more than $500, by the way.

Don't get your hopes up. Average solar cell is about 10 watts per square foot. Park this thing in the sun all day (10 hours) with about 8 square feet of cells and you will get 10 x 10 x 8 = 800 watt hours of electricity or 0.8 kilowatt hours. That's the equivalent of plugging your Energi into a 120v outlet for about 30 minutes or about eight cents worth of electricity. According to Ford, it takes 8 kilowatt hours to fully charge the battery. At 0.8 kilowatt hours per 10 hour day, you can charge your car up in only 10 sunny days. Like I said, don't get your hopes up. It takes a lot of surface area to generate significant amounts of electricity. The roof of your house has a lot of area. The roof of your car doesn't.

Now that we're talking about this, I am amazed at how thin the paint is on this car. It seems to chip easily and the holes are really shallow, as if the paint is very very thin compared to anything I've ever owned. Paint thickness is a big deal regarding weight. Keep in mind that paint on a bicycle is at least two pounds. On a full body paint motorhome, it is several hundred pounds. My guess is thickness is minimized on this car to help save those last few ounces on an already portly car.