2013 Ford C-Max Energi Reviews

Thanks for that picture. The review I read said the seat folded flat, but they must have confused it with the hybrid. That does make it less useful for many items.

 

This forum is a bit funny. A few people seem to be big fans of Ford while others are rooting for Toyota. Competition between Ford and Toyota hybrids might be good for consumers but I am not sure about the respective fans here in PC. Oh yeah, there is a third group of people who think that Volt is the best of all (it may well be).

IMHO, the best way to promote a particular brand/manufacturer is to drive its cars.

 

I saw a couple of bugattis in town. I'm sure they will take a turn on SH130 to see how fast they can go When people are questioning whether the c-max can do 21 miles aer? I'm thinking sure if you drive it like a prius it will get more. Now those bugattis, I'm sure they won't get anywhere close to 10 mpg. No one is going to try to be efficient in a veyron.

The fusion and c-max energis and the tesla S are the new kids on the less gasoline block. I feel like we should give each of them a fair look. For those loyalists, maybe they will push toyota in the right direction. The fusion energi and tesla S are on top of my list for cars I may actually buy, but I'm not sure about that first years production, and my prius is only 3 years old.

 

is that larry's brother, gary the car guy?

 

Haha! Defection is good. It will encourage Ford to keep playing the game and Toyota to up the ante to remain competitive.

However, poaching gas only customers is even better. I am hoping that is what Ford offerings would do. Especially since there is an overarching patriotism factor in there too.

 

We test drove the c-max before choosing the Prius Plugin. We liked how the c-max drove a bit more than the Prius, but the c-max SUCKED for gas mileage (our main category as I have a 70 mile each way commute). After further research and test-driving we found that sure you can get the gas mileage stated...if you drive 60mph or under.... For my commute I'd have gotten 37-39mpg on the c-max. The Prius Plugin get's me 55-59mpg. If you have occasional highway driving the c-max might be better for you.

 

Interesting. How fast is your commute?
For the 140 mile road trip, what is your prius phv milage.

 

I wonder how many folks take a test drive and base their purchase decision on an "optimistic" mpg gauge on the Toyota dash.

 

To be fair, I think mpg gauges on most if not all high mpg cars are fairly optimistic. I have also seen the speedometers reading anywhere from 1 - 3 mph higher than actual. May be that is a contributing factor in high dash mpg readings.

 

The speedometer on the GenIII Prius with 15" tires is 1-1.5mph too fast. I've heard the odometer is accurate though. That would jive with my observations where using a slightly larger diameter tire corrects the speedometer error but causes the odometer to read lower.

 

Which says toyota can accurately make a speedometer, but have decided that they want to exaggerate speed. This may reduce speeding or increase mpg as you get higher mileage at lower speeds.

The mpg exaggeration adds to this on its gauge. There is no way this is an accident. Toyota knows exactly what they are doing by giving us inaccurate instrumentation, they are inflating perception of fuel economy. This is "within the letter of the law" unlike Hyundai that lied about test results.

I have no idea if Ford pulls such tricks. We do know that at higher speeds 75+ mpg drops off quickly.

 

Actually, most of them do the speedometer thing, no matter the brand or the car. I am not sure about the mpg's. However, looking at fuelly comments, dash mpg readings are consistently 1-4 mpg higher than actual for all high mpg cars. So, I would say that this is a trick that all of them have adopted.

 

herumph. These are really far off in europe, I wonder how far off they are in the US
Here are your cars speedometer error margin - Click 2 How

The toyotass at 92 (57mph) read 100 kph (62mph) - 5 off
The fords at 94 (58mph) read 100 kph (62mph) - 4 off.

Maybe that is anouther reason I get worse mileage than most here at 70 mph, My bigger aftermarket tires are actually going 70-71 mph according to gps. Are yours only going 65-68 mph? Has anyone checked 70 mph indicated on gps with stock?

 

Could this also explain why the mpg on torque is so much lower than the prius display?

I think torque uses the GPS for distance rather than the speedometer/odometer.

 

I see 68 mph in my Tom Tom gps when the speedo shows 70 in both my current cars (GTI & Prius). It was the same case with the Ford and Hyundai that I owned previously.

 

I'd like to know the accuracy of the fuel gauge for Ford too. We have enough owner input to say with pretty good confidence that the family of 1.8L Prius hybrids exaggerate by about 5%.

 

All the makes have the speedometer read high. Even before the wide spread of in dash mpg gauges. It's just to avoid liability.

If an accurate one was installed, it wouldn't remain so. Tires wear, and same sizes might have a variance between tire brands.

As to the trick the speedometer reading has on mpg gauges, I won't discount laziness in the design for using it. They came about years before hybrids. The first one I remember seeing was on the family Continental(early '90s). The difference between using the speedometer and odometer data probably wouldn't have shown up on the dash with that car.

Carry the design forward, and the percentage difference is more apparent on cars with higher fuel economy.

 

So by over inflating tires, increasing the tire diameter, and somewhat correcting the speedometer calibration, does the indash mpg get closer to actual mpg?