11-2012 - First Disappointment with my 2013 Ford CMax Hybrid

I spent the next several days/weeks driving with great care.  I wanted to see just how close to the 47MPG I could get while the weather was still in the 60s and 70s.  I accelerated slowly, decelerated slowly while learning to do so in such a way as to regenerate the high voltage battery, and used cruise control whenever possible.  Sadly, I never achieved an average MPG above 35.  I was quite disappointed and started asking around to see if anyone else had this issue.  A friend sent me a link to an article about Consumer Reports ( http://www.autoblog.com/2012/12/06/consumer-reports-calls-out-ford-for-false-fusion-c-max-h/ ) that indicated they never got more than about 37 MPG during their tests.

I started searching the Internet afterward to see if this was a known issue and if Ford had a solution for it yet.  I did not find any solutions, but there are plenty of references to other Ford CMax owners with the same complaint.  In each case I could find, Ford continued to defend the EPA estimate of 47/47/47 displayed on the sticker by mentioning that individual fuel economy results will vary widely based on driver habits, road conditions, temperature, weather, etc.  I started feeling angry because I had chosen this particular hybrid car over a few others based not only on features, but also on expected gas savings based on the fuel economy listed on the sticker which now appears to be an "inflated" estimate which throws off all of my standard calculations (10% less than EPA estimate for normal weather conditions, and 20% less than EPA estimate for winter driving conditions).

In my opinion, Ford needs to correct this issue.  It is unacceptable to me to only achieve a fuel economy that is (at best) 25.5% lower than the EPA estimate.  I decided that the next time I went in to the Ford Dealership, I would mention this to the salesman and the Service Technicians to see if they had any solutions available.