jmckinley

I think we need both options, a way to keep the electric motor off and at other times, a way for keep the ICE from coming on. Right now it's cold outside and I could make it all the way to the grocery store and back on pure EV, but I really have to baby it to keep the engine off. Later model Priui have an EV only switch as do the Energis. Don't see why the CMax couldn't have the same feature. There's a wire in there somewhere that just needs a switch in it, all we have to do is find it.

I'm pretty sure the vacuum pump is always powered. It comes on and off as needed to make vacuum after leakdown or when your system applies the brakes. I think that is the major reason why the battery runs down when towing.

Pull off the ventilator panel in the luggage compartment. Just pry it off. It takes some force but nothing seems to break. Then sort of reach around inside the hole and find the two nuts that hold the tailight asembly in place. After the nuts are unscrewed, you can pop the assembly out from the outside. Sort of pull out and to the rear and it snaps right out. By the way, what did the replacement cost you?

"(I like that Ann Arbor is a pedestrian friendly town - but University students are completely heedless of physics and visibility and driving with a fog impaired windshield is too risky.)" Could the inattentive Ann Arbor pedestrians possibly have anything to do with the fact that in Ann Arbor, marijuana possession is still a misdemeanor with only a $10 fine? I've stood in the Quad on a summer evening and almost got high just standing there breathing in the "atmosphere".

My car is always off about 0.5 gallons compared to the pump reading. Last fillup, however, it was off a full 1 gallon. Pump said 11.5, car said 10.5. The error, by the way, got larger after the reprogramming in June.

Made by Mickey Mouse, or possibly some no name manufacturer. Certainly not state-of-the-art and not up to the performance of almost any Garmin. It's main advantage is it's built in and hard to steal. Conversely, I don't know why anyone would want to steal it.

Not sure if I answered this on another post, but you car shouldn't be recording miles when in the accessory position on an SEL. Mine doesn't and others have reported the same. I think you have actually left it in the "run" position. Check to make sure the little green car is not lit up on the right hand side of the instrument panel before you tow. Also, all the gages should be of and nothing should be lit up but the gear position indicator.

I think you're right, I never knew what the "View" button did. Too many buttons, not enough brain capacity in 69 year old computer with almost memory capacity left and no way to defrag it. Thanks for your input.

My GPS has been working fine for months since the upgrade. Now, a new problem, not previously seen. Started the car up, drove off with Nav screen on, but no destination inputted. Immediately got a split screen, right side in black, with a message "No Freeway Exit or POI information available." Entered a destination, same problem, although it did route me correctly. Since this whole gizmo is somehow involved with Microsoft, I figured the solution was to reboot. I pulled the SD map card, then reinserted it. After it rebooted everything worked fine. It's been several days and the problem hasn't reoccurred.

You can make yourself feel a little better if you get out the polish or rubbing compound and rub off most of the black marks. It will at least look a little better until you can get it fixed. The good news is, white is easy to match and is very forgiving with bodywork.

I don't like pedestrians. They scare me.

Same here. MPG the car reports got better after the upgrade, but the calculated mileage tank to tank didn't change at all. My dark side thinks that Lord Motor Company may have scammed us just a bit to make us think we're getting better mileage.

I've lost track of the latest advice on engine oil. What's the general consensus here? Synthetic? What weight? What change interval? I let the dealer do the first one and have no idea what they put in it. Probably drain oil from the previous customer. And, they did not reset the Oil Monitor which I didn't find out for a few thousand miles. So, I'll do this one myself.

You have to buy a $100 Garmin GPS to get a choice of voices. Our $1,000 OEM GPS doesn't offer such advanced features.

"No hybrids use conventional transmissions, but the eCVT is a transmission non the less" You're wrong there. The Honda CRZ has a manual transmission..

The Cmax has an Oil Change Monitor that keeps track of miles and other stuff and will notify you when you need an oil change. Keep in mind that if you drive 5,000 miles, the engine only ran about 3,000 of those miles. The Monitor needs to be reset when the oil is changed. My dealer didn't do that and the oil change notification came on about 2500 miles after they changed the oil. If you change the oil or the dealer or whoever does it, make sure you reset the monitor. Procedure is in the Owner's Manual.

You were probably in Park. I was trying to spin the transmission in Neutral to stir up the stuff in there. Previously, in neutral, it would shut off fairly quickly. In Park, mine still shuts off the engine after a minute or so.

Just towed my Cmax for the first time after the 13B07 update and something new has shown up. Previously, you could not idle for more than a minute or two in neutral before the engine would shut off. Now, since the reprogramming, it will idle forever. This is good news, since the Owner's Manual says to idle for five minutes before towing each day and after 200 miles. Of course, it also says to move the lever back and forth between Reverse, Drive and Neutral because this is cut and pasted from the six speed automatic transmissions used in non hybrid Fords. Our car, like the Prius which uses the same CVT transmission, does not have a reverse gear. It reverses by running the electric motor backwards. So cycling the shifter through reverse is a waste of time since no reverse gears are exercised.

Picked up my car Thursday. Not many miles yet, but it appears that mileage has improved while drive train seems looser, with engine reving more. Maybe my imagination. Only took two hours at the dealer. +62 mph EV working as promised.

I don't know about earlier models. In fact I argued with a Fusion guy on this forum because I thought mine didn't do it. While running some tests to fine tune my auxiliary braking system I discovered that mine was always live too. Certainly keeping the pump disabled when the key is off would be the logical approach. I think someone dropped the ball here.

Those of us who tow CMax's and Hybrid Fusions behind motorhomes have discovered that the brake system vacuum pump is always live regardless of key position. So with everything off, if the vacuum leaks down, the pump will fire up and pump down the vacuum in the reservoir. This is, I believe, what runs down the 12V battery in 3 hours or less when we tow. Every Time our auxiliary brake systems apply the brakes, it uses vacuum and then the pump has to run. This is a big pump, the fuse is 40 amp! This is also why your 12V battery will run down if you let the car set a few weeks. It even warns you in the owner's manual to put it on a charger if you're going to leave it set for a few weeks. You can hear it fire up when you first open the driver's door to get in. It almost always does this unless you have recently driven it. As these cars get older and the vacuum system gets leakier we can expect the battery to run down more often as the pump has to run more. This could be one of the dumbest design flaws on this car. I cannot imagine why it's designed this way. Pump should be hooked up to the accessory circuit so it only runs when the ignition is on.

It wouldn't start till I ran the AC for several minutes. Now that is really interesting. I hadn't considered that scenario. My guess is the car thought the big battery was too hot and had to cool it down before it would let you start it.

OK, I admit it, I just found out that I was wrong. The CMax vacuum pump does stay live all the time. Yesterday after rerouting my ReadyBrake cable i hooked the car up to my van to readjust the cable. I tripped the Brake Shift Interlock to put the car in neutral without turning on the ignition, then depleted the vacuum and adjusted the cable. After a couple of stops, I realized that the CMax brakes were dragging. Further investigation revealed that the vacuum pump had come on and replenished the vacuum supply, even though the ignition was totally off. I pulled the F9 fuse in the underhood fuse box and that deactivated the pump and let me adjust the cable to work with a non vacuum boosted system. Later, though, when I restarted the car I got a error light which did reset after a couple of startup, stop cycles. That worried me and I'm now thinking a charge line is the only way to go. Problem is, however, that this means the pump is indeed always active so in your garage, as the vacuum slowly leaks down, the system will fire up the pump as necessary. No wonder the owners manual says put it on a charger if you don't plan to drive it for two weeks.

I have a new problem after the 3.5.1 upgrade. Now, almost every day, the guidelines disappear from the reverse camera screen. I keep having to reactivate them from the touchscreen menu. Anyone else having this problem?

Do you have the 3.5.1 update? My accelerator pedal got a lot easier to control after the update. Others have reported similar experiences.