Tech and Consumer feedback needed on Ford C-max

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My dad called me up today and tells me he’s thinking about buying a 2013 C-max Hybrid. The larger portion of the reviews I initially found for the car were from owners who didn’t even have any significant mileage on their cars when they posted their review. I found some that waited a while and put some turns on the odometer before reporting things like shitty gas mileage for a hybrid, piles of various electronic equipment failures, and bad customer service from Ford dealers. Some did have good luck with their cars, but it looks to be a crap shoot for quality.

The one in particular that my dad’s looking at already has 122K on it. (Here it is in this handy dandy link apparatus.) In my mind, I’ve already condemned the car; but I need some more hate fuel to help convince my dad he’s making a mistake. I’m more interested in hearing from people who can tell me what theirs didn’t do right, but I’m not against hearing from people who like their C-max’s. I’m also really interested in hearing from Ford tech’s that can tell me about the pattern failures they’re seeing so far. My reading suggests there’s plenty to keep you guys busy.

So let me know what you know!

Thanks.

Topic

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Unless you’re going to be putting huge miles on a car, paying extra for a hybrid is never going to pay for itself. Depending on the premium you pay, it could be over 5 years before you see any real benefit.

Just look up the price of a replacement battery. That should do it.

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I actually already priced the hybrid battery out before I made this post. My local dealer is selling it for $3800 and change. They’ve come down in price some. I recall the battery packs in the original Escape Hybrids running somewhere around the $10K mark. The battery packs don’t scare me so much because I know a guy that has the technology and skills to repair and maintain them. I’m more concerned about the everything else I read about. The electronic failures were all more noticeable right in the driver’s compartment area. One guy claimed all his windows rolled themselves down once with the key out of the car. One guy was complaining about a 10 second delay on transmission engagement. There’s been a lot of complaints about various touch screen, blue tooth, and other driver control dysfunctions. It’s a lot of technology I may not even be able to diagnose or repair largely because it sounds like much of it requires reflashing before it still won’t work right. I own a MODIS, but it’s not current and I’m not dropping a thousand or better just for a car I still can’t reflash. My dad would have a mental meltdown trying to figure out all that tech when it’s working right.

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• cmaxbattery.png

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