There's a lot of truth to that. Engines today are built with incredibly close tolerances. When I was hanging out at the Dodge truck forums (used to have a badass conversion van!), the conventional wisdom on the 4,7l V8 is that it needed an honest 15k miles to really fully loosen up.
Another update on my C-Max: At almost 1/2 way into this tank I'm at 52.2mpg over 332 miles (images below). The last few days temps have been in the 60's to low 80's. Yesterday I got 62.5mpg on my 33 mile trip home. Tail winds helped on the way home and for the entire day I got 56.3mpg over 63.7 miles. I'm using an alternate route that cuts my trip down to about 1/2 highway. I'm not looking forward to the rest of the week though. Forecast is for temps back down into the 40's and 30's with rain. Tomorrow, with the front going through its headwinds in the morning and headwinds on the way home. Yuk! Yesterday's trip home: Yesterday total: Tank so far:
Hi Rick: You are really pushing that C-MAX and it is great to see numbers like that from a member! Gord, with the odometer and aFCD offset, his tank is really really close to 50 mpg. That is a "tough row to hoe" as we say in the US and proves Rich is "working it ". Wayne
Hi Gord: Your welcome but Rick did all the work He is pulling almost 30% better than its real EPA and doing that in a hybrid is tough! Wayne
My FCD does run about 3-4% high. It varies with my actual fills which is what I post in the fuel logs here. 55.0mpg indicated on the way in today! Headwinds not as strong as predicted. My tank is back up to 52.0 (406 miles). My wife averaged 48.4mpg last night on her 43 mile round trip to band practice (yes, we live in the country, all trips are long). It's a rough road for mpg, 2 lane and hilly highway with a lot of trafffic. She did pull 52.2mpg on the way back home though, so I have to give her credit. She can usually do as good or better then me.
I finished the day today with 54.1mpg indicated over 64 miles. Tank is now up to 52.1mpg. I managed 53.3mpg on the way home into a 25mph headwind. This was taking the optimal route home and with hardly any traffic behind me on the rural 2 lane highway segments. Much better than I thought I'd do given the conditions coming home. Tomorrow, windy, rain and the NWS says 2-4 inches snow overnight Thursday.
I got 44mpg on my last tank in my C-max SEL. Best so far for the Ford. My Prius HB got 52mpg for the same time period on its last tank.
Well I posted my 1st +50mpg tank with the C-Max: I finished at 50.4mpg over 510 miles. The weather was colder over the weekend and I was around 48.5mpg Sunday night. My 56mpg round trip to and back from work pulled my up to 50.0mpg indicated 164 miles into this new tank.
Ford calls their expert witness to the stand. You may be seated Rick. Please tell us how the C-Max was able to exceed the EPA rating? hehe
My first advice would be: "Don't drive it in winter". That's been the biggest difference I've noticed. I think the cold weather mpg dip for the C-Max is a lot worse than others.
Thanks Wayne and Bill, It's not easy. On that tank I used some alternate routes to work that reduced the highway percentage of the trips down to about 1/2 (from 80-85%). I do a lot of gliding in N down hills. On one stretch of rural highway I have one hill that lets me get up enough speed to continue my glide to the crest of the next hill and speed back up going down again (unless I have traffic behind me). I end up coasting over 1 mile. My C-Max does not lose as much charge coasting in N as my 2009 FEH did. I may lose a tenth of a percent or 2 (per Scangauge) but that's about it. What I am trying now is a little less EV and keeping the battery level at 3/4th full or higher. It seems a lot easier now than it used to be (spring temps?). With these levels I can get much better than the 20mpg max when the ICE is on. My averages the last couple of days on ICE have been close to 30mpg. My last 2 round trips to work have been 56.8mpg and 57.0mpg today. I need to see how this works on my normal route.
rmcmast, I'm wondering what you could manage in something like a manual Focus with equal effort under the same conditions. At least upper 40's, I'd guess.
Rick, you're well on your way to writing the user manual for how to hypermile the C-MAX. Looks like we just have to figure out how to improve cold weather performance. Isn't Ford putting grill shutters on these things, or is that on some other Ford? Thanks, Bill
Here is some Canadian news on the Fords giving cleanmpg some ink. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...l-economy-numbers/article11754450/?cmpid=rss1
