Ford C Max, Prius killer?

Somehow, not surprised at all. Very few dealerships have Hybrid trained sales people, let alone techs. Ford has yet to list EV certified dealerships. There is one near my work, and the salesman actually knew his Sh*t. he came right out and said, dont expect good MPG in it in this weather, and he was right! At least when you go to Toyota, get in one of their Hybrids, unless it is really cold, like in the teens or lower, you can expect to hit their EPA numbers.

Ford needs to wake the F up, or they will lose a lot of buyers.

 

Ford lowers MPG ratings on six vehicles - Autoblog

"Ford critics will note that this is the second time in less than a year that the Blue Oval has had to recalculate the economy ratings for the C-Max Hybrid. That car was originally rated at 47/47/47 mpg (combined/city/highway), which was dropped to 43/45/40 last year and now to 40/42/37."

@jnadke , thoughts?

 

Guess who is laughing now! Compare Side-by-Side

 

40 MPG is no Prius killer.

 

That certainly says it all doesn't it?

However, I'm not immune to fair comparisons and driving in general. Other hybrid cars have proven that driving a hybrid doesn't have to be analogous to aiming an appliance. The Cmax, the Fusion, the Accord are all infinitely more pleasurable to drive and ride in than a Prius or a Camry hybrid.

I'm not sure when Toyota will get some folks that actually like to Drive cars, but sooner would be better than later, or never.

 

My wife owns a 2011 Altima Coupe 3.5SR, she loves the Prius.
My other car is 09 Corvette and I also love the Prius
We have a good frien who owns a Cmax, its a cool car also.

 

It's just nice to know that you can have a car that not only gets great mileage, but is fun to drive as well. There is hope

 

I've been looking at the C-Max as well, but as of right now they are a wee bit out of my budget. But they do look like cool as hell cars. Not quite the mileage a Prius gets but still a hybrid nonetheless. I've had many Fords, never steered me wrong yet so I'm still eyeing one out. Right now either the new Focus or a Fiesta is fitting my budget easily. Not hybrids but still good mileage.

 

It is worse than it looks.
If you round the unofficial MPG to the nearest gallon, Toyota meets their EPA estimates and Ford still doesn't.
(To the best of my knowledge, Ford is still scamming the system, using the 2 test approximation, rather than the proper 5 test suite for new cars)

 

In the real world, Ford pretty much gets away with it, and Toyota never will. That's just the way it is. A decade and a half of Ford denying and fighting about speed control related fires, and the design hardly changed. When they had axles failing and cars hitting walls, the bulk of the story always fell back to Toyota's unintended acceleration issues. Even when the last episode heard from was the runaway Prius in California, which proved to be a liar trying to get out of his delinquent lease. But Ford had the Teflon coating, Toyota settled for billions.

The only thing bad about the UA incidents is not just that most of them were pure play phony, it was the incredibly bad arrogant way Toyota handled them.

Now that Ford's suffered the ultimate humiliation of having the most arrogant commercials relating to fuel economy turn out to be bogus, they're not suffering at all really. No huge fines. Actually, they get sympathy, and to this day, many still think it's the fault of the EPA tests. Never mind that Toyota's EPA numbers are pretty darn solid, nobody cares about them. Never mind the repetitive recalls Ford had on most of their new fleet of vehicles, Escape, Focus, Fusion, CMAX, the press simply wasn't that interested. Neither were their customers for the most part.

But that's life, Toyota simply paid the fines, did whatever, and moved on.

I love it when I see the Fusion Hybrid owner near my office. I've been beating him out for mileage almost since the day he got his car.

 

As someone who put 133k miles on a Prius C, drive a G3 Prius for 3 weeks (5k miles), and owns a CT 200h, I looked at the C-Max as well. This is what I felt about it:

1. The C-Max looks great, and feels more modern. It is, after all, a European car brought here to the US. Styling is nice inside as well, with a lot of room, a cool glass roof (option or standard? Didn't check), great seating position (high ride height, like a crossover), as well as excellent visibility.
2. It rides really well. Smoother than the Prii I drove, and handled well too. It's based on the Ford Focus, just with a bigger greenhouse.
3. The gauges are excellent. Modern and well-designed, and very pleasing to the eyes. Ford has what I consider the best hybrid screens/displays on the market.
4. On a test drive, I wanted to see what kind of mileage the computer was calculating. Since at the time, my highway driving was usually at 55 MPH, I did that here too. In a Prius C, 55 MPH on the highway usually reads at 70-75 MPG. I can't recall what the Prius did when I had one as a rental for 3 weeks, but I believe it was lower. And finally, my CT 200h gets 60 to 65 MPG when cruising at 55 MPH. The C-Max? It was showing 49.9 to 50.0 on its gauges doing 55 MPH.
5. Don't forget that while the Prius C has 99 total horsepower, and the Prius/CT 200h both run 134 total horsepower, the C-Max has about 188 total.

Bottom line: the C-Max sacrifices MPGs to get a better ride, more car-like feel, and modern styling, along with features you only get with a Ford, such as the gauges, glass roof, and that trick optional automatic lift gate where you open it by moving your foot underneath the rear bumper.

 

So the core different is between sitting on your wallet or your rear.

 

sounds like you bought the wrong car.

 

I got rear-ended in my Gen 3 Prius 2, rented a C-MAX for the three weeks the Prius was in the shop. Raidin's explanation summarizes all my thoughts to the T when driving the C-MAX for the three weeks. Two of the biggest differences for me: C-MAX for less road noise BUT wider and inconvenient U-Turns.

 

If only the Prii rode like C-MAXs, and had normal, intuitive, attractive interiors/gauges...

Sorry to hear about your car though, hope you were fine.

 

The hybrid you describe is called Camry.

 

if only the cmax got prius mpg's...

 

CMAX never became a Prius Hybrid killer, but I am now thinking CMAX and Fusion Energi may account for much if the drop of PiP sales in CA, where PiP was more popular when it was the only plug-in-lite getting the green HOV stickers.

PiP killers?

 

they are not selling very well, so, they better do something quick, before the next pip arrives. and even then, ford will probably have to improve their versions.

 

Ford=Found on Road Dead or if you prefer, Fix or repair daily, I've owned two new Fjord products in my lifetime, never again.