While sitting in church on Earth Day 2018 I had an epiphany. Our sermon that day was, logically enough, on the topic of Earth Day. I will admit, my mind often wanders during this part of worship, but on this day I was unusually focused…on cars.
Maggie and I were planning to buy my older brother’s 2011 Toyota Highlander as soon as he took delivery of his new 2018. Our plan was to pick it up on a trip out east to attend my daughter’s graduation from Wooster College. This would allow us to haul her worldly belongings back to Minnesota until she decided her next steps. Having the Highlander would mean we would no longer need to rely on our 2012 Volvo C30 for towing our teardrop camper. It was beginning to nickel and dime us on routine maintenance, so we were thinking hard about getting rid of it. But we were faced with a quandary, our other car was my 2014 VW Beetle with a 5 speed manual. While Maggie could drive the manual, it was not her preferred transmission for city driving and we now lived in downtown St Paul. So the question was, which car to get rid of, the two door 2+2 Volvo with potentially expensive repairs or the 2 door 2+2 VW with the unloved stick?
On that Earth Day I had my epiphany. We would trade both our Volvo and VW on a new Ford C-Max. In late 2017, Ford had announced they would cease production of the C-Max by mid-2018. Nearing the end of 2017, combined sales of the Hybrid and Energi models were less than 1,500 per month and falling fast. Despite having a competitive design, Ford sales never approach those of the Prius. Their best month of sales came in late 2012, just after introduction, topping out at just over 4,800 compared to almost 8,000 Prius sold that month.
My plan was to grab one of the last of these orphans at deep discount. I had attended church that day by myself and couldn’t wait to get home to tell Maggie about my brainstorm. I knew she had no idea what a C-Max was, so I started my pitch from the save-the-planet angle. This would be the lead in to my idea to buy a new C-Max. First though, I went on-line to see if there were actually any of these still available. Turned out there were a few, but not as many as I expected. My target was a Titanium, formerly the SEL trim level. A dealer in Hudson, WI had one on the lot. Once inventory was confirmed, I made my pitch to Maggie and she was all in on the plan, provided we were given a decent trade in allowance for both cars.
While Maggie was at work, I drove over to the dealer to see the car. It was buried behind a dozen F150s so it took awhile before I could actually drive it. Having confirmed that the car was available and would meet Maggie’s expectations, I explained the two for one trade plan. I had driven my Beetle that day, so they worked up the numbers on that car. I knew what I wanted in trade and they exceeded that amount by about $500 so we were off to the races. Maggie and I came back that night to give her a chance to see and drive it. Coming from the C30, this car was certainly down on power, but in Titanium trim it had a much nicer interior. The dealer worked up the trade value on the C30 and again came in over our target so all we needed now was a price on the C-Max. We got to a number we could live with pretty quickly and soon owned a new top of the line Ford C-Max.
Now about that name. I think one of the reasons that the C-Max bombed in the US was the name. The C-Max was originally sold in Europe, where C class denoted a particular size of car, but who in the US understood that? So much easier to flaunt your eco stripes with a Prius than try to explain to your friends what a C-Max was. It also didn’t help that Ford initially overstated the fuel economy numbers for the C-Max by 20%. Supposedly this was a technical error based on a rule that allowed manufacturers to base there EPA mileage numbers on similar cars within their line up. Ford used the Hybrid Fusion estimates for the C-Max. Consumer Reports found actual mileage was not the 47 MPG Ford advertised but closer to 40 MPG in real world driving. MPG accuracy is usually not a big deal among the car buying public, but hybrid owners are another breed and Ford got caught. They eventually settled a class action suit and restated their mileage numbers to more accurately reflect real world performance.
Our Titanium level C-Max was painted an inoffensive shade of beige called White Gold Metallic. Hey, when you’re at the end of a production run, you don’t get a lot of choice in color. The interior was Medium Light Stone leather, actually a nice place to spend a long drive. These seats were a definite improvement over both the VW and the Volvo with 10 way adjustment on the driver’s side. Titanium trim also got you a nice leather wrapped steering wheel and shift knob. Given the tall nature of the greenhouse, the view out the front, back and sides was very good. Complimenting this was Ford’s BLIS blind side alert system which was maybe too alert, sounding a chime anytime someone even looked at the car.
The driver’s instrument cluster let you cycle through various versions of the same data relative to fuel consumption and battery regeneration which Ford calls MyView. There was also Engage and Empower views which were kind of instantaneous views of the same data. And then there was Coach view which would tell you how efficiently you were driving relative to acceleration, braking and cruising. Be warned, cruising faster than 70 put you in the yellow zone. Sorry Coach! Anyway, lots of different displays to choose from. We found one we liked and basically left it alone. There was one cool feature that would switch the car to battery mode when you were within a mile or so of your home or work (or any other destination that was repeated often). I think the idea here was to deplete the battery somewhat before shutting down but I’ve never taken the time to try and understand battery technology.
The SYNC3 infotainment system was Ford’s latest attempt, which was pretty decent in both features and ease of use. The only disappointment was the lame remote start feature. You had to be within about 20′ for the car to turn on. At that distance, might as well climb in and start it up the old fashion way. Ford advertised a longer antenna boost option but it was never programmed for the C-Max. My wife is an Apple fan and podcast listener when she drives and she loved the SYNC3 system.
The back seat was not bad for two with decent head, knee and foot room. Seats folded flat to extend the cargo area, which provided pretty decent space for tallish objects, again an improvement on both of our other cars. The Hybrid battery resided in the floor of the hatch area, raising it about 4″ above the rear sill leaving no room for a spare tire. Instead, you got a can of slime and a cheap air compressor housed in the rear passenger side footwell.
You could open the hatch by waving your foot at it, which worked some of the time or by remote, interior release, or latch. The foot thing failed often enough that we mostly didn’t bother with it. Another feature we never used was Parking Assist. I mean if you live in the city, you better know how to parallel park, right?
This was our first CVT transmission so we weren’t sure what to expect. Under modest acceleration, it was adequate, but to get the C-Max moving at anything approaching on-ramp escape velocity you really had to put your foot into it. Then wait for the long rubber band of a transmission to stretch far enough to get some action going. Once you hit about 40 MPH, things settled down in the acceleration department and cruising at 70 with occasional bursts of speed for passing was no problem.
Very early on in our ownership, the car got into a little bit of a tussle with one of the concrete columns in our parking garage, $6,960 little to be exact. My wife just clipped the rear passenger door and fender as she drove down from our third floor parking spot. One of those “oh, I’m not even sure I’ll file a claim” sort of accidents. Except she hit the column hard enough to bend the side impact beam in the door, necessitating a replacement. And damage to the rear quarter panel was also significant enough to warrant replacement. Parts alone ran $2,735, but in the end we got our almost new C-Max looking almost new. In Maggie’s defense, lots of folks have sideswiped various sections of the garage including two of our kids; one driving a Scion Xd and the other in a Chevy Sonic. There must be something about these smaller cars that inspires a false sense of space.
Other than that one minor mishap, the cars has been flawless through 3-1/2 years of ownership and 20,000 miles. As you can see, this car doesn’t get a lot of long trips, although we did do a 2,500 mile trip out east to visit family and the car proved to be a very capable long distance cruiser. Unless there is a catastrophic failure of the battery or something, I suspect we’ll hold onto this car for quite awhile. Our next urban runabout will likely be an electric but at this time our garage is without charging stations, so that plan is on hold for now.
I think if Ford had worked a little harder in marketing this car, starting with that name, they might have had a contender. As it is, they threw in the towel after 6 short years. They appear to be serious about their EV line up this time, starting with the Mustang Mach E. We’ll see if that name plays any better over the long haul.
The production of the C-MAX was stopped in Europe because everyone only wants to drive one SUV. As a successor there is the Ford Puma, which is based on the Fiesta.
A few years ago, I had a neighbor with a C-Max. She lived right across the street, we left for work at the same time, and the first few miles of our commutes were the same. What I remember is that she drove at least as aggressively as I ever did at 7:15 in the morning, probably because she had much further to go to her teaching job, and that her C-Max ate brake and taillight bulbs like a Volkswagen product. She has since traded it in for a Bolt, and I have moved far enough away that I don’t have to worry about it burning down my house.
I’m not sure about the name theory. In Denmark we do not use the C class descriptor vut rather just calk it the Golf class and have since forever. We don’t use those letters for any other class either.
The C-max was pretty popular here but I think that has to do with efficient packaging more than anything. In the US cars are so cheap that you might as well look a size up. The Prius is sort of its own class isn’t it (or was)? Many a Prius driver would want it because it at amthe time sent a stronger green signal than anything, regardless of the name of the competition.
At least that would be my theory.
We came close to buying the Focus of this generation so I drove a couple of those and they were really nice cars.
Maybe just C for Compact, which corresponds to the C-segment. Magazines/websites certainly use the A-, B-, C- etc. segmentation a lot here, especially for comparison reasons.
Golf-class is just a frequently used synonym for the C-segment, simply because the Golf has been the benchmark in that segment for decades. Funny, the C-class happens to be a Mercedes-Benz model in the D-segment, whereas their A-class is in the C-segment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_Car_Segment
I’ve heard and read “C-segment” in the US, but it’s something likely known only by car enthusiasts. It doesn’t help that C-segment cars mostly aren’t big sellers in the States – the Focus was discontinued and the Golf is now sold only in sporty GTI or R guises. “C-Max” was meant to suggest the most space available in a C-segment vehicle; Ford also has a B-Max and S-Max in Europe. I’m guessing the name baffled most Americans.
The C-Max was originally the name for the tall wagon version of the European Focus, and the cars wore Focus C-Max badges.
True all that, but C-MAX still sound like an acronym for a surgical procedure.
A friend of mine had one of these, from fairly early in the run. He has been a dedicated Ford guy, and I think he picked it because 1) it was a Ford and 2) when looking at Fords, the hybrid seemed like a good thing. Looking back, I think that might have been the trouble with this car – it was a hybrid for people who buy Fords.
I generally liked it, but found the back seat uncomfortable – the cushion felt very narrow as I recall it. Otherwise, it seemed pretty undistinguished. I would have liked it just as well had it been a normally powered car, but then I tend to like tall-ish, wagon-ish hatchbacks.
I think it came out as the Prius phenomenon was starting to ebb. For those who wanted to turn on the green bat-signal for others to see, a Prius was perfect. This car did not project the green image very effectively and it was also not really that compelling on its own terms as a car so as to make it stand out over many similar offerings elsewhere.
I considered buying one of these a few times. I considered this, a Prius, and the Prius V as possible contenders to replace my Crown Victoria. My sister is on her 3rd Prius, having owned the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation of the car, and yet she pooh-poohed the V as not being economical enough. Yet, coming from a car that got 22 mpg I figured 40 instead of 50 was pretty good, and besides, I am a Ford person, too.
Yet, I never could bring myself to ” pull the trigger ” on a C-Max, that CVT always held me back. I bought a Fusion, instead, with the base engine and while it doesn’t average 40+ mpg, the way I drive I am able to get mileage in the high 30s.
We rented one in Colorado in 2015, after we had been Prius Gen 2 owners for almost 8 years. I loved the ride and handling compared to the Prius, especially on tight and steep mountain roads, and overall fit, finish and refinement were nice. Rear seat and luggage space were tight, the video game “hybrid” display was incomprehensible to me, s and I could never get Sync to do what I wanted.
I have a 2015 CMax Energi and overall agree with your comments. Purchased with 22K miles and now at 33K, the only repair I’ve had to make is the replacement of the horn relay for $10. Average MPG per the Engage meter is 45 MPG, and that is without charging the battery very often. Only complaint is the extra space the Energi batteries take up in the hatch area.
Too bad these were never marketed by Ford. I don’t remember ever seeing any print or TV ads for them.
My Energi’s four-year average is 65 MPGs, over 55K miles. I charge every night. I drive out of EV miles about half the days in a week, often 150-200 miles in a day, so it’s not an optimized PHEV use cycle. Maybe I got a good one? Our 2014 C-MAX Hybrid shows 38 mpg in mostly suburban use. This shows me the big economy advantage of the Energi model.
With eight years and 100,000 between the two cars, I’ve had two non-maintainace problems: a faulty seat belt buckle on delivery and a SYNC unit that’s now failing.
Ford was originally going to sell the non-hybrid, gasoline-only Grand C-Max in the U.S. (badged simply as the C-Max though), a slightly longer version of this vehicle with sliding rear side doors and third row seat availability. Think Mazda 5 but with better styling. I think that car may have found a market here, but Ford cancelled it at the last minute and decided to send over the non-Grand C-Max instead, and only in hybrid and plug-in hybrid (Energi) versions. The Energi had a very large trunk floor hump to clear the larger battery. I recall Ford (supposedly) aiming these at the larger Prius V rather than the standard Prius. In any case, I think this is one of those cars many potential buyers weren’t even aware of.
To the OP be aware that the “cvt” you describe is a shares planetary gearset where the gas and electric motors share the load. Its a fixed gearset. No shifting pullys and belt like a a nissan/jatco style cvt. I wish ford (and toyota, they work the same way) didnt use the term cvt at all because it just causes confusion and makes people scared their hybrids tranny is gonna shit the bed like a nissan.
Toyota and Ford call it an eCVT, I don’t know if it is because it is a small e but people seem to forget or drop that little e.
While it is a single constantly engaged planetary gear set the transmission is continuously variable.
Nice to get an owners’ report on one of these. My household ended up with an Escape in 2018, rather than a C-Max, but it could have gone either way (there definitely were some attractive deals then). I have a feeling that our next new car, however–whatever the make–will be a hybrid.
I can’t believe Ford let that parts bin instrument cluster get installed into a dashboard that it clearly wasn’t designed to be installed into. In 2017! In “top of the line” trim! I could never live with seeing that every day.
It’s just the standard Ford dash of the era. I’ve seen the same in a rental Escape. Coming from German and Swedish cars, I thought the dash was ugly at first . It still is, but it’s very functional. I appreciate that the center screen is integrated into the dash, not freestanding.
We have 2 C-Max vehicles, or at least that is what the titles say. A 2013 SE Hybrid that my MIL now drives and a 2013 Energi SEL that my Daughter and future son-in-law drive. Both used to be my wife’s daily drivers and she loves them. They are a great value if you want an economical car that has a good combination of ride, handling and available features.
She didn’t like the boring silver color and missed some of the features that aren’t included on the SE, but really liked the car in general. So after about a year I searched until I found one in the right color with the right features. Her old one then went to her mother to get her to stop daily driving her late husband’s 94 Ranger.
With 100% work from home for my wife now, we were barely puting 500 min on it per month, so when my future son-in-law had to start going back to the office 1-2 days per week and my daughter got a new job with a longer commute we gave it to them to drive. They are putting about 2000 miles per month on it saving them a lot of money and getting him out of his beat up, worn out, old death trap.
EV+ mode is the setting that makes it easier to keep the car in EV mode as you near a destination where the car regularly cold soaks. It isn’t just any location it frequently parks at, just those where it is regularly parked long enough for the engine to fully cool. It is designed to drain the Traction (HV) battery to near it’s target minimum SOC. That is done to allow maximum charging upon a cold start. Once the engine is started they want to bring it up to temp for emissions purposes so it won’t shut off the engine until it and the cat have reached a minimum temp. So while warming up any energy that isn’t used to propel the car is harvested and used to charge the traction battery. If the battery had a higher SOC on a cold start a lot of the excess energy would wasted as the battery topped out before the min operating temp is reached.
Thanks for the explanation!
Looking at C/D’s spec chart and that 35mpg observed fuel efficiency rating got my attention. I started digging around their site and other test results, and that’s apparently not an anomaly. That goes a long way explaining why Ford didn’t hype these up all that much; when the average person thinks Hybrid, that’s a pretty disappointing number. I got curious what something like a Honda Fit looked like comparatively, and saw that their perspective performance specs are pretty much on top of one another, and average economy a draw, with the exception the Honda trounces the C-Max in highway efficiency. I know the Fit is a whole size/price class down, but outside of hip room and seat up cargo capacity, it doesn’t really fall much behind in space, and in fact both overlapping generations have more overall cargo capacity with the seats down. Case of an underachieving Ford or overachieving Honda seems to be up to interpretation here.
Thats why Ive never contemplated a hybrid so far the fuel mileage is worse than I get from my diesel and thats a big car doing 6L/100km around town.
Does your diesel hit 60 mph in less than 8 seconds while not spewing out lung-assaulting particulates? Some people care about such things.
My C-Max Energi gives almost the same MPGs as my TDI Mk IV did, plus extra electric range. Also about the same power. Both cars list eight-second 0-60 times. That’s as fast as a Mk ll non-turbo GTI, and that’s enough for me.
Those car magazine tests are usually lower than real world since they do things like 0-60 tests and letting the car idle when they pull over to swap drivers or for a quick photo op.
Our straight Hybrid version typically did just over 40 in everyday driving, with a fair amount of stop and go, in the summer and around 38 on freeway trips with speeds up in the middle 70’s. In the winter because the engine gets run to provide heat it dropped to about 38 in everyday driving with freeway driving unchanged.
At fuelly the average for the 2015 and up Fit is just a tick over 34mpg while the C-Max number is a bit over 40 mpg about 18% better which is a decent bump.
So while the Fit may be more efficient in exclusive hwy use, for many people’s everyday driving the C-Max will come out on top.
Plus there are other benefits of going hybrid. Depending on your type of driving the engine may only actually be running 1 out of every 2 miles the vehicle travels, meaning longer service intervals. The brakes also last much longer thanks to regenerative braking doing a some to a lot of the work, again depending on how you drive.
That is where the big discrepancy in a Hybrid’s MPG can come into play as how you brake, accelerate and even cruise at moderate speeds can have a significant impact. Ford’s coaching can help if one pays attention and learns to stay out of the friction brakes in most driving and not force the engine to come on unnecessarily.
An old friend of mine is a car-parts dealer in Florida, and he used to post photos of his C-Max’s mileage reports once or twice a week. He was an early adopter of hybrid driving, waiting only for an American vehicle to use that process. I’ve not corresponded with him lately, but I was certainly impressed that he was getting such mileage figures in mostly urban driving. Especially as my Forester has never gotten over 17 mpg under the same conditions!
I still see the occasional C-Max in traffic here in So-Cal; apparently they hold up pretty well … but then the Forester is a 2001 with almost 220K on its clock.
It’s tough to figure out why the C-Max wasn’t the Prius-killer Ford hoped it would be. One thing might have been that it seems more like a competitor for the larger Prius V. It would be interesting to see the break-out on how the C-Max fared against that one.
Then there’s the case of the vehicles that actually ‘did’ dethrone the Prius as the go-to hybrid. The first one was the Chevy Volt, followed by the Fusion Hybrid. Both of those were substantially more traditional in their packaging (particularly the Fusion sedan), so maybe that’s what did the C-Max in.
Finally, there’s the whole fudging the mpg numbers thing. As I understand it, the EPA had some loophole (since fixed) where a manufacturer could use the mileage rating of one vehicle for another if both had the same drivetrain. I can’t remember which one Ford lifted the numbers from for the C-Max, but, at the time, it was all perfectly legal. The only problem was the numbers didn’t match real-world figures.
I’m pretty sure the loophole still exists. Yes it was you could certify a specific power train and use that for other vehicles of a similar size and weight. It has its roots in the days of badge engineering so a mfg could test say a Chevy pickup and use that for the GMC pickup as well. Unfortunately the C-Max isn’t as aerodynamic as the Fusion which hurts its real world numbers.
C-Max on paper seems better than Prius, it is also larger. In response, Toyota introduced Prius V, so it did take Toyota attention then. I was told it also handled better that hybrid in the same price range. During that period, Ford vehicles in general had better handling than its competitors like Toyota, Nissan and GM. If reliability is not an issue, i would not drive a Fusion hybrid over Camry Hybrid. What really puzzling me is Toyota discontinued Prius V right after Ford stopped the C-Max. In my view, Prius V is a prefect vehicle for Taxi and Uber tasks. I don’t understand why it was not selected to NYC Taxi in the competition during the Bloomberg time.
My wife drives a 2014 C-Max. We bought it new well into the 2015 model year. Our local dealer had four on the back row deeply discounted. Fully loaded and 0% got her a lot more car than anticipated. It has been decent but the fuel economy with her driving is not as impressive as I would like. I usually get it up to 40 but have had a 63 and 83 mpg trips. The 63 was over 100 miles home from two counties over. We got a 2015 Fusion hybrid at work and I had a regular route with it for over 8 months and was able to turn several 50 mpg tanks. Both have flawless transition between gas and electric and the regenerative braking to actually using the brake pads. Fusion at work is over 100,000 miles and the front brake pads are barely showing any wear.
I recall that Ford was actually going to bring over the Grand C-Max to the US, which was somewhat larger than the C-Max and had a pair of sliding doors in lieu of the traditionally hinged ones on the regular C-Max. It even showed up as a pre-production vehicle at several local and national auto shows, including the auto show here in Oklahoma City.
However, they decided to pull back at the eleventh hour and instead brought the regular C-Max, likely because they saw how poorly the similar MAZDA5 sold.
As for the US-market C-Max itself, the split-level grille was awkward. I think it would have looked better if it had gotten the facelift that other markets received circa 2017 (pictured), but alas, it was not meant to be.
My C-Max is a delight. Both of them the Hybrid and Energi that make up my family fleet. I love those sleepers, the underdogs who overperform, and that’s surely what the C-Max is. As a longtime VW snob, I traded a Mk. V GTI for this and haven’t regretted it for a mile. It has all the performance I actually used from that car. The C-Max does 0-60 in eight seconds, which matches the pace of my Mk ll GTI. It gives me the fuel economy of my old New Beetle TDI, without the pollution (and the fussy anti-pollution hardware). It’s a Euro-designed and proven chassis, overinflated into a tall station wagon- a fat Focus, and that’s no bad thing.
Neither is the e-CVT transmission a point of complaint. Not really a transmission at all, it has no belts and cones, and no perceptible lag. Mine gives instant power delivery, like a downshifted gas car. That’s IF the engine is already operating. If you’re cruising along or stopped in EV mode, as the Energi likes to do, there’s one-second lag before the engine lights up and delivers torque. So as soon as I approach an on-ramp to a fast highway, I switch to EV Later mode to get the ICE running before I accelerate. The EV battery will propel the car at any legal speed, but you burn through the range very quickly. I save that juice for the slower streets and traffic jams.
As far as “Ford vs Toyota” goes, it wasn’t even a contest. The C-Max has 50+ hp over the Prius, and tires as wide as my GTI, if not as sticky. It stands a full foot higher, and I like big windows and headroom. The Ford has a traditional dashboard and controls, while the Prius imitated a space ship. It’s a Focus platform, so there’s some distant link to a racing heritage. I would suppose that Focus ST suspension upgrades could be added, but I don’t know if anybody’s even tried.
There’s a fundamental difference between the C-Max and the Prius. The Toyota is lightly built, while the Ford lays on enough steel and displacement and soundproofing to crowd a ton of weight. It all makes for a surprisingly quiet, smooth ride. I’ve called my C-Max “my little LTD,” and it’s true.
40 mpg isn’t enough of an improvement for me to take a chance on newer technology from a car company that hasn’t done this before, not when the 2018 Prius gets 53 combined and the car has been made for over a decade at the time.
The C-Max uses Ford’s 3rd Hybrid power train system, each one noticeably better than the last, so not exactly that new of technology.
The C-Max wasn’t really a direct competitor to the Prius, which was significantly lower and more aerodynamic. The C-Max was a tall hybrid wagon.
I traded a Mk V GTI for one and never looked back!
They seem to be holding value well. When I looked for comps recently, all were over 75% of my purchase price.
“wait for the long rubber band of a transmission to stretch far enough”
The C-Max uses a two-motor hybrid system similar to the one in the Prius. There really isn’t a “transmission.” It’s just a planetary gearset “power split device.” Unlike a conventional CVT, there is no clutch, no torque converter, no belt, no chain.
“wait for the long rubber band of a transmission to stretch far enough”
Metaphorically speaking. There seemed to be a lag under hard acceleration as the car decided whether to use electric or ICE.
I’m not specifically interested in a hybrid, though I do appreciate the help they give for fuel economy, particularly driving in-town. I’m more of a hatchback person, and since they seem to be disappearing, I’d consider something like this particularly since it is a “regular” car. However, there’s no free lunch, batteries have to go somewhere, and even though they’ve been pretty clever about that, I put a bit more priority towards spare tires than ditching them to save the (space, weight) that they take. If everything works fine, spare isn’t necessary, and I know we don’t have flat tires daily, but the tradeoff when they do happen isn’t worth the added fuel mileage. Especially if you don’t drive them in the city, remote locations may cause a long wait for service, and the tire goop doesn’t always help (if you have sidewall issue). Since I have but one car, I need a “general purpose” one that will do on long trips, not just city driving.