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Improve your Winter MPG's by 4MPG by Taping up your grills. The strategy here is to minimize heat lose, because the ICE needs to get up to operating temperature(202-212*F) to get the best MPG's. All heat comes from burning gas so the less you use to heat up the ICE the better your MPG's. BTW taping up the front of your car has another benefit of protecting your paint job. Supplies you will need, Heavy Duty clear packing tape,Windex cleaner and car wax. Clean and wax areas to be tape to make it easier to get off. You need to setup your Smart Gauge like this. This is accomplished by toggling down Display menu to MyView then toggling right one step and then toggling down till you get Engage display. Then toggle right one step and then down till you get Temp display. Then hit OK button in the middle to save this, you can monitor MyView for water temperature. Then open hood and tape up intake holes as in the pics below. This keeps cold air from going into the intake of ICE, instead uses warmer air from the engine compartment which helps the ICE warmup sooner. Next close hood and tape up the top grill opening to keep cold air from going into ICE compartment as shown in the picture. Next tape up center grill as shown all the way across the two openings. Do the same thing to the lower grill. You can also tape up hood and head light joints to keep cold out. EASY! If you don't like it you can pretty easily take it back off. Good Luck :)Paul

Just tested Shutters operation with update and they (FORD) raised the temp for opening from 190degrees to about 210degrees for slow speed and 215degrees for around 60+mph. Seems to be pretty much open or closed instead of steps. This explains why Grill Covers are running 10degrees hotter than before update. Also this would explain why this wouldn't make a difference with cold operation, because Shutters weren't opening anyway. Also HWY MPG's would improve a little keeping the ICE warmer and more efficient. There might be a slight Aero improvement too. During testing temps were 54degrees and I had great difficulty getting ICE temps up to 216degrees, it took about 12miles on FWY at 70-90MPH for my 14mile loop. With Grill Covers on it took just a few miles. I did some experimenting with my Grill Covers on my trip back from AZ with cutout Grill Cover and Full Grill Cover for ICE temps and MPG's. With outside temps between 38-66degrees the Full Grill Cover ran between 217-231degrees and Cutout Grill Cover 207-220degrees. To my surprise I didn't see any noticeable difference in MPG's, I was changing them back in forth about every 100miles. I'm wondering if FORD has changed the ICE operating temp with the Shutters not opening until 215degrees. The Operating ICE temp was 202-212degrees. I have some more LEXAN to make Grill Covers if anyone is interested. :) Paul

I have Grill Covers ready to ship via USPS Priority Mail (US only). Here is INFO: Paul

Here is an explanation of what it took to get 875.3 actual miles as verified by Garmin GPS. Smart Gauge is off by 1.4% which comes out to about a .5mpg improvement. From what I have heard from other C-Max owners, this appears to be a common problem. BTW I didn't run out of gas and might have made 900mi with the remaining gas in the tank! First: Fortunately a business trip to Deltona, FL gave me the golden opportunity to plan the ultimate fuel economy test trip!Second: My goal was 900 mi. on a tank.Third: I calculated 45mph as the average speed needed to accomplish 900 mi.Fourth: Realistically, you can't drive on Interstates because it's not safe to travel between 40-45mph. In planning my route I used MapQuest and GoogleMaps trip planning to avoid Interstate highways. By using State highways I was able to save 40 mi. each way and typically the speed limit is 55mph. With less traffic I was able to drive 40-55mph.Fifth: P&G (Pulse & Glide) is the strategy for max mpg, no ECO Cruise. You need to watch your Miles To Empty (MTE) to make sure you are going to make it. I started with Pulse to55-60mph and Glide to 45mph. Halfway through the trip I could see it was going to be close so I slowed down to 40mph and easily made it. Here is a list of MODs and explanation: Grill Covers minimize heat loss from ICE and improve aerodynamics to improve MPGs. Top off with Non Ethanol gas improves MPGs 1+ but is not cost effective for regular use, $4/gal vs $3.19/gal. GasPods improve aerodynamics, not sure how much yet. 45psi in tires. Covered Fog Lamps with clear carpet tape. ScanGauge keeps track of Coolant Temps, Instant MPG, Air Intake Temps and RPMs. Garmin GPS keeps track of actual miles traveled, average speed and route. It is advantageous to compare the routes between two GPSs; many times they do not use the same route! I also recommend MapQuest or GoogleMaps to plan the trip, print out directions and compare to GPS routing. Drafting is problematic on back roads because it is hard to find a suitable drafting partner. Truckers tend to drive 65mph in 55mph speed zones and that is just too fast and stressful to achieve optimum MPGs. Weather is important for good MPGs and I was lucky with winds light and variable and 63-84 degree temps so didn't use the AC. I had an EV of 66% and high 90%s for brake scores. Here is my Lifetime Score as of October 2, 2013 and it keeps going up!

Hello, I just covered up the front grill with the covers made by PTJones. He has some excellent data on gas savings and expected coolant temperatures. I was wondering if there is any effect on the inverter cooling system. In other words, assuming that the normal coolant temp is maintained where is should be (about 205), is there any deleterious effect on the inverter and the inverter cooling system. What temperature should that be at and does the scan gauge measure it? Thanks