James Sentman

Thought I’d update this a year later ;) They pointed to the edge of the glass where the crack ended and insisted that a rock must have hit the edge of the windshield perfectly to not leave a divot in the glass or a dent in the metal at that point so yes, I was off to get a new windshield. Thanks all.

walked out to run to the grocery before dinner tonight only to find my windshield cracked all around the central camera device mount. It’s pretty obvious that there was no impact, there is no “starburst” or other chip visible from the outside or in, just these nice flowing lines around that central camera/sensor thing. Any chance the dealership will recognize this as a defective install? Or am I doomed to pay for new glass as if I had gotten hit by a stray golf ball or something...

looking mine up in ETIS also says the “Vehicle software information is available for your selected vehicle. Click here to view further info” but when you click you get nothing. So I assume that it’s not actually needing anything since nothing is listed there. But it does have a red item above that for “14B03 - FUEL ECONOMY CUSTOMER SATISFACTION” as an outstanding field service action. Whats that about? It also says my car is a “saloon” while I have visited a saloon in my car I leave it outside and never perform saloon service inside the car at all.

If I ever start getting these messages I plan to replace the car battery entirely with some lithium sulphur-phosphate batteries and super capacitors ;) I’m kidding.. but only partially. Can you let the car know what the capacity of the battery is through some setting? Or does it just watch for voltage lag?

I dont think the MaxAC setting changes anything as to how much power is being used buy the compressor. I think it’s just a preset for, recirc, lowest temp setting and high fan speed. It’s there to preserve your regular climate settings so that you don’t have to hold the temp down button for 20 seconds to get it to scroll all the way down to Lo and then hit the fan up button half a dozen times and then hit the recirc button and then have to undo all those things when you want to go back to regular temp management. As a one hit preset for those settings I think it’s a great idea. but it doesn’t seem to magically make the AC colder or force the compressor to work harder than it would if you did those other things.

yes, the ANC works with the radio off. The amplifier is never really “off” in the traditional sense it just stops getting input from the entertainment system. It’s always on as I believe that all the system beeps and warbles and dings come through the system too. As far as that resonator, I’ve just looked under the hood of my ’13 FFH and it’s already got one. I was hoping to have a way to reduce that noise a little further but oh well. It’s really not objectionable it’s just such a contrast to the utter silence of the car in electric mode that it makes the switchover much more obvious. The switchover from electric to gas is handled so well in this car that you can barely feel it in any other way, but the sound ruins the effect ;) Sometimes the car goes into hybrid mode for a while and at those RPM’s you really can’t hear anything different, but then it switches to full ICE and lots of battery charging and revs up a lot. It’s not bad, it’s still less loud than my old car, but the contrast makes it seem worse.

was it a stock apple charger? Or a third party one? Powerline communications is part of my day job and some switching power supplies are so poorly made that they dump huge amounts of high frequency noise backwards down the powerlines. It is not completely out of the realms of possibility that a really bad switching power supply could create enough electrical noise in the car systems to make other things malfunction. The Apple chargers that I’ve tested are all of good quality but they can have parts fail too. I would get a new charger. Or, it could be totally unrelated ;)

they can start their own competing pet peeve thread then ;)

I’m trying to get used to just turning the car off at those times, taking my keys out of my pocket and leaving them on the seat seems even worse ;)

Yup, the proper technique does seem to be to accelerate normally and then let it switch to electric and not to baby it while the engine is running. My Fuely badge still says 30.4 but the car will be rolling over 35 during my driving today at the rate it’s going and continuing up from there. :)

Oh and one other thing. There seems to be nothing between the black metal back of the eyeglass holder and the roof of the car. Some foam or a little fiberglass stuffed in there might keep me from burning my nose when I change into my sunglasses!

I knew you would all try to blame it on me ;) I’m convinced that 2 things are different though. I’m absolutely sure that the car is using a wider range of the battery now than it was initially and it’s more apt to go into hybrid mode with the engine running and the battery draining driving the milage up into the 40’s with the engine running. I first noticed it on a cool day that I wasn’t running the AC for the first time since I got it. But the temp has returned to normal and even with the AC on now my milage continues to creep upwards. I dont know if we even do winter gas around here in the deep south, but if we did we switched back long before I got the car. In any case, I’m happy and i still love it!

Hi Folks, After I rolled over 600 miles my MPG started to improve. Is there a break in period for the battery or the motor or something? I feel like now it’s both filling the battery to a higher degree and using more of it in hybrid mode where the battery will help out the ICE. It wasn’t doing much of either of those things in the very beginning. I started out with milage right around 30mpg I could make it go up if I drove with agonizingly slow acceleration but in the last 200 miles my MPG has crept up to 34 and I’ve been driving more normally. I wonder if the car was babying the batteries during a break in period that is now over?

yes, thats correct. But thats the computer forcing it’s internal design upon the users and that is almost always wrong from a user interface standpoint. There is no reason that it HAS to change inputs and can’t just sit quietly. I know that the computer in there can’t really keep playing from the USB when there is no usb, but there is exactly zero reasons that the programmers couldn’t make it sit happily there waiting for a new USB connection to be made. We’re too used to adapting our thinking to the underlying computer. Proper UI design means giving me a useful overlay on top of the vagaries and vulgarities of low level computer function ;) They made the wrong choice here.

pet peeves... the only real one is the radio switching inputs when I unplug my phone. Treat the USB input like an AUX input on every other radio, sit there quietly in USB mode until I plug the phone back in. If I want to listen to the radio then I’ll actually switch modes to the radio. The remote start feature is not smart about selecting when to turn on the defrogger ;) In this climate it’s SO humid that every cool morning needs to be defrogged. (yes, I know, but as kids we always called it the deFROGGER so I still do ;) honking at me when I get out of the car with the key is a pain. It’s a long walk down the driveway and I often get it when I”m on my way out for some other reason, get out of the car to get the mail and it always makes my neighbors stare at me ;) So I take the keys out of my pocket and stick them in the cup holder. This has got to be worse than just letting me walk away for a moment.