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Hello All, This is my first post so pardon me if i miss anything.. this forum has been very helpful to understand the details about my FF Hybrid 2014 Titanium. Issue - The engine light of my FFH 2014 has been ON since September 2015 Reason per the Vehicle Health Report - On Board Diagnostics has detected an engine misfire. Drive in a moderate fashion and contact an authorized dealer as soon as possible. Description - This all started back in September last year when my engine light came back ON, i took my car to the dealership and they kept it for couple of days then they called me that the car is ready and as soon as i turned the car on the light came back on again.Dealership took it back and kept it for that whole week and they said they dont know what is causing the misfire.. They kept the car and drove it for couple of days for "testing purposes" and told me they still dont know the issue so gave it back to me and i drove it for another 2-3 weeks. Probable cause according to me- sometimes it goes OFF but as soon as i use the remote start the light comes back ON.the dealership is saying remote start is not related to the light turning ON.it just the computer system which kicks in the light to turn ON. Dealership is still saying that they want to keep the car for a week or so but since i dont have a second car to travel for work i can't afford it. shouldn't the dealership provide free rental car since they can't figure out the problem? Any help is really appreciated as i dont know if changing the dealership will matter. thanks in advance MyCar Info:Ford Fusion Hybrid Titanium 2014Mileage - 50kLocation - New York

So I just did a little walk around my 2014 Ford Fusion Hybrid SE 88k. One thing that I've kind of always noticed is the active grill shutters (AGS) (the main ones behind the fascia) always seem to be shut. I decided to a test to see if I can get them to open. I had been driving around prior so the engine was already fairly warmed up. The temperature outside was 90 degrees. With the car parked I turn the climate control to MAX A/C wait a min and check, shutters closed. I floor the pedal for about 20 sec. with ac still on, still closed. I feel both of these things should have triggered the system to open the shutters. I am very concerned that the AGS system has a fault or something is blocking them somehow. Theres another set of AGS in the lower grill area of the car that have seen better days but this set has a way to chalk them open or closed. The upper/main ones dont seem to have this. I am worried that: fans are working to hard to cool the engine and a/c system, also that the engine isnt getting enough fresh cool air that it should. Both of which hurt MPG. I hear of ford focus st owners removing this system and noticing more steady performance. But on the other hand I hear of Cmax owners installing additional shutters to extend MPG. Please Advise

I have been doing a lot of general research to prepare for this winter with a comprehensive winter weather strategy to see the least decrease in fuel economy. Part 1: Grille blocking Last year acdii made a grille cover, see this thread, which he then kindly sent me as a gift after he got rid of his first FFH, the Blue Devil. I ran out of zip ties so I bought more on Amazon planning to put this cover on soon as temps are now consistently below 50oF. Since the temps dropped last week I've seen a marked drop in fuel efficiency. Trips that used to consistently get 60-65 MPG now are only seeing 50-55. My current tank average has dropped from about 57.5 MPG over the first 200 miles to now 56 MPG over 275 miles. These last 75 miles have taken a big toll on my fuel economy averaging only around 52 MPG. Unfortunately, the zip ties I bought are being shipped from China. I'm am quite annoyed at Amazon that nothing prior to purchase indicated that they would be shipped from China and that they would take 3 weeks to arrive. I expected them to come like most Amazon items in about 1 week or less. So while I'm stuck waiting I decided to do more research. Grille blocking is useful to help the ICE warm up faster and to insulate it to keep it warm longer. The cold winter air flowing over the radiator and engine compartment while you drive quickly sucks the thermal energy out of the components that you want to stay warm for maximum efficiency. Since the FFH is designed to spend a large percentage of its miles with the ICE off this is a problem in winter. However, you do not want to block the flow of cold air to the electric components. While the ICE is less efficient in the cold, the hybrid computer and electric components are not adversely affected by the cold. In fact, you want to keep those components as cool as possible to keep them from wearing out. Thus it is important to understand where the radiator is for the hybrid system and not block its airflow. In the FFH you'll see that there are two radiators. A large one with a fan, for the ICE, and a small one that is in front (closer to the grille) than the large one. The small one is for the hybrid components. In the FFH it is located down low and receives its airflow from the lower grille opening. The ICE radiator spans the entire height and gets airflow from both the large upper grille and the lower grille. In my past experiences with using acdii's grille cover on the upper grille (see this thread) I found that even in the summer the ICE didn't get too hot with the upper grille blocked. However, I didn't leave it on because I was concerned that the electronics would get too hot from the limited airflow through the engine compartment even though the inverter radiator being still exposed to air. Sadly, there is no way currently to monitor the temp of the inverter coolant. Hopefully someone brilliant will figure out the XGauge coding for that soon. Thus, my plan for this winter is to use acdii's grille cover on the top grille while temperatures are consistently below 50oF. Once the temperatures drop down below freezing I may block one row of the lower grille. I do not want to block any more of that lower grille to keep the electric components as cool as possible. I discovered that as soon as the car is turned on the coolant is flowing through the inverter radiator. Even though the ICE was not very warm and the inverter coolant was barely warmer than room temperature the coolant was constantly flowing while the car was in park sitting in the garage in my tests this evening. I want to further test this when the car has been sitting for hours and the ICE/inverter components are completely cold but it seems likely that this coolant will circulate non-stop when the car is on regardless of temperature. For this reason I don't want to interfere with that by blocking the lower grille except partially in extreme cold. The reason to consider partially blocking the lower grille in extreme cold is because the ICE is still cooled by that grille and in extreme cold blocking the upper grille only might not be enough to keep the ICE warm. The common Prius grille blocking links talk about only blocking the lower grille on the current gen Prius since its inverter radiator is located up high. The Prius also appears to constantly circulate the inverter coolant anytime the car is turned on regardless of temperature. Part 2: Use the heated seats Instead of turning on the HVAC right away when the ICE is cold I plan to use the heated seats for initial warmth. Turning on the heated seats will not make the ICE come on like turning on the HVAC will. On low each heated seat draws about .13 amps from the HVB or 0.0364 kW. This is a minimal power draw, less than the headlamps. Part 3: Intelligent HVAC use I use "intelligent" here to mean that I'm applying my knowledge of the FFH's inner workings to how I control the HVAC settings. Since below a certain coolant temp threshold the ICE will run constantly to make heat I don't want to turn the HVAC on until the coolant temp is warm enough not to interfere with normal operation. Since the PCM update modified these settings I don't know yet what that temperature is. I also plan to not set the HVAC temp any higher than absolutely necessary. Parts 2 & 3 will improve efficiency by not causing the ICE to run only to make heat which is not efficient. Part 1 improves efficiency by getting the ICE warm faster and keeping it warm longer. I don't sacrifice much personal comfort to do this since in the winter I'm already dressed for being outside and don't need much heat anyway. When leaving from home our car is also parked in a heated garage so we always get into a warm car at the start. In any car you wouldn't have heat immediately so turning on the HVAC on from the start does no good. With the grille blocking strategy I hope to dramatically lessen the ICE warm up time so that the delay compared to a gas only car is minimal. I wanted to share this strategy so that others can consider implementing any of the above steps or adding their own suggestions. Once I know the minimum coolant temp to turn the ICE off and still have heat I will add it.

Hello, Here is the situation... Traded my older MKX in that had and older Sync with Nav built into it for a Ford Fusion Hybrid. I found the FFH I wanted with all the bells and whistles I wanted minus Nav being built in. I was sold on the ford turn by turn Nav via their service. As we all know ford dropped said service and now I feel a bit pissed off for not ordering the Nav built into the vehicle. I've done some and if I want to maintain the interface of My Ford Touch w/Sync I'm basically forced to replace the infotainment system with a Sync2/3 w/nav cloned module. Now I also have found a few threads that basically say the unit already has all the component parts for Nav and that there is a way to flash the firmware to unlock the nav. I don't exactly trust these post as I haven't been able to find any how toos, or any real proof that this is a thing. Has anybody looked into this?

Hello, Did anyone face problems filling up a gas in 2016 FFH? I tried 3 different pumps (costco, chevron, shell) and every time found that the fuel dispenser (Nozzle) pops out and cuts off gas. If I keep it pressed (just the nozzle pressed to stay inside without touching the lever) it works fine. When asked the dealer he said I am doing something wrong. But I own Honda Civic for 6 years now and I can fill the gas easily in my Civic. Please help. Regards.

I know that Sony audio system (in FFH Titanium) has 390W output. But what is the wattage / output rating for regular audio system in 2016 FFH SE?

If Ford did in fact infringe on these patents, then I hope that they do the right thing and pay the patent holder a fair royalty. http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140220/AUTO0102/302200079/Ford-sued-over-use-company-s-hybrid-vehicle-inventions Ford sued over use of company's hybrid vehicle inventionsSusan DeckerBloomberg NewsFord Motor Co., the second-biggest U.S. automaker, is accused of developing its hybrid vehicles using technology from a Baltimore company that won a patent-infringement case against Toyota Motor Corp., maker of the Prius. Paice LLC, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, says hybrid and plug-in versions of Ford’s C-Max, Fusion and Lincoln MKZ all infringe its patents covering ways to control electric motors and internal combustion engines so they have increased fuel efficiency and reduced emissions without any loss of performance. Ford had licensed one of Paice’s patents under a deal struck in 2010. The two companies agreed not to litigate over other patents until Jan. 1, 2014, to give them time to reach a broader settlement. The negotiations, according to Paice’s complaint, were “short and one-sided.” “The truth is that Ford built its new hybrid system by relying heavily on the hybrid vehicle inventions it learned from Paice,” the company said in the suit, filed in federal court in Baltimore. The Abell Foundation, a nonprofit group that invests in Baltimore-area companies including Paice, also joined the suit against Ford. Alex Severinsky, a Soviet emigrant and engineer, created Paice to commercialize his work on a high-voltage method to power gas-electric hybrid motors. From 1999 to 2004, Severinsky and other Paice officials held more than 100 meetings and interactions with Ford to help the automaker develop a hybrid engine that would increase gasoline mileage without losing performance, according to the 50-page complaint. At the same time, Dearborn-based Ford was working with Toyota to develop a hybrid vehicle using Toyota’s Prius as a template. Paice says that Ford was sharing its technology with the Japanese automaker. Paice won a patent-infringement trial against Toyota in 2005 and the two companies reached a global settlement in 2010 on the eve of another trial that might have resulted in an import ban on Toyota vehicles had Paice won. Ford sought to pre-empt the latest lawsuit. It filed a complaint in December in Delaware Chancery Court seeking a court ruling that Paice couldn’t file a complaint under the terms of their 2010 agreement. The Paice lawsuit doesn’t seek a specific dollar amount from Ford. According to the complaint, Paice offered to license the technology to Ford for $150 per vehicle in 1999. Ford’s U.S. hybrid and electrified vehicle sales in 2013 climbed to 85,919, more than double the 33,476 a year earlier. By May last year, the automaker had beaten its previous annual best for hybrid and electrified U.S. vehicle sales, achieved in 2010. Ford and Toyota last year ended their collaboration on gasoline-electric systems for pickups and sport-utility vehicles. Paice also has pending infringement complaints against Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. over the same patents.

We are 2014 FFH owners and love the car minus the battery saver lights coming up. Yesterday, I unlocked the car from a few feet away with the fob and all 4 windows went down at the same time, same speed. Glad it wasn't pouring out. We are interested in learning what is going on with this and how other owners are dealing. We've been very pleased with the car but just made 1 year on it and it's looking like a tradein before we are out of warranty and stuck with problems known to Ford. ugh. We really liked this car.

With all the beautiful weather we've been having here in Vegas recently, it made me wish I had the moonroof like my 2012 (gas) Fusion. The weather's been so nice we even set a new temperature record a few days ago! Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I thought how cool it would be if you could buy a convertible FFH. I know a lot of you wouldn't care because you don't get enough "convertible weather" to justify buying one, but for those of you who live in fair weather states, what would you think? Would you consider buying one? I know where I live, I could put the top down for about 6 months of the year. How about you?

While doing a little research to verify the "correct new number" for the 12V battery, I discovered some interesting things. First, on fordparts.com I discovered that there are actually 2 different batteries listed for my 2014 Fusion Hybrid: BXT-99RT4 (listed in the 2nd printing of the 2014 OM as BXT-99RT4-390) and BXT-99RT4-A. The former (BXT-99RT4) is applicable to: 2.0L 122 CID 4 Cyl Electric/Gas and the latter (BXT-99RT4-A) applicable to: 2.0 4V Dual Overhead Cam PFI Gas/Electric (See attached FordPartsBatteryResults.pdf below) Huh? There are two different engines in the hybrids? THAT got my curiosity up, so I checked 2013 and 2015 as well and both batteries were listed for each model year with the same applications. So, I started a chat session (see attached) with fordparts.com to try to determine the correct battery and also to verify that there are 2 different engines. As you will see by reading the chat transcript, I was told that BXT-99RT4-A is the correct part number for my VIN because I have the 4 valve per cylinder engine per the "build sheet". When I asked which Fusion Hybrid the BXT-99RT4 was for, I was told "the one with 2 valves per cylinder". So, there are two different hybrid engines? I was told yes there are. Is it possible that the Energi has a different 2.0L engine than the Hybrid? I don't know. How about you? I got the brilliant idea to call the Ford Customer Service line and ask these same questions. I really didn't get any help there. I was referred to my dealer who would know more about this. Really? Next I called the Team Ford-Lincoln (my closest dealer) parts department and asked them too. I was told that the "-A" part number didn't even come up in their computer and that all they stock is the BXT-99RT4 for $119.95. They had no idea about a different battery OR different engines. Ihave attached a copy of the page showing these two batteries/applications, and a copy of my shopping cart where I successfully placed one of each battery so you can see you really can order them (through fordparts for pickup at your dealer). Maybe somebody out there among you has some knowledge of the two different batteries and/or the two different engines? Waldo, you listening? Maybe this is a another case for Meagan.HELP!!!! :) 12V Battery Chat Transcript.pdf FordPartsBatteryResults.pdf FordPartsCart001.pdf

I was driving home from about an hour away and the Ford Sync was doing great the ride duration until then. Before it has gone from radio to nothing on and no windows on my right side, door locks in front intermittent and climate control as well. The radio would stop like i pushed the off switch, then the air would go right behind it. Did a master reset when it was on for about 5 minutes. Worked for about 10 minutes after that then continued to flicker. Climate control cluster lights would dim then brighten and go black. Turn back on and repeat process. My iPhone 5s was commected...ran vehicle health report x2 nothing popped up from it. I'm thinking theres a loose connection somewhere? On the 10 min ride en route to my place, it would only kick in when EV mode was running and engine was off. Any other suggestions?

Based on an idea at the C-Max Hybrid forum I think it would be cool to see what is the best MPG we can each get over 1000 miles. Leave one of the trip meters without resetting for 1000 miles and then post the pic once you get a result. Now that the weather is warming up I want to see if anyone can break 50 MPG over a 1000 mile time period. There have been a few at the C-Max Hybrid forum who have broken 50 MPG. Let's see if we can too!

I would. And that's exactly the situation we found ourselves in this week. Let me explain... The recent purchases reported online of leftover 2013 FFHs & FFEs along with 2013 C-Maxes made me curious as to how many 2013s are left new on dealer lots across the country. So I spent a few minutes searching on cars.com and saw that there are still quite a few around. I noticed that a lot of the leftover vehicles seem to be rather basic models, without a lot of the advanced driver assistance technologies. And quite a few of the Fusions have MFT & Nav without many other options. Then I happened upon a loaded Energi Titanium with all the advanced driver assistance options just like we had on the white FFH. Out of curiosity I e-mailed the dealer to see how low they'd be willing to sell it. The prices on cars.com basically all showed just MSRP or only a very small discount. The dealer e-mailed me back and indicated that they were willing to knock about $15k off MSRP (about 33%). I then wrote back to see what they'd give us in trade for our FFH. I decided before I wrote them that the only way we'd do anything is if they were willing to give us $1500 above KBB for the trade. I decided upon this price because it would allow us to get the Energi for free, the tax credit basically equals the difference. Their initial response was right at KBB trade-in value. Before I continue, I want to give you a little background on the dealer. They're a dealer in a small town in Wisconsin, about 4 hrs from Minneapolis. They're not near any big cities. They sell four brands at the one dealer building: Ford, Lincoln, Hyundai & Volkswagen. I had learned at a MNPEVOC (Minnesota Plug-in Vehicles Owners Circle) meeting that you can often find the best deals on plug-ins and battery electrics at small town dealers in the country that get sent a car that they don't know how to sell. A number of the Focus Electric owners in the group got their cars from dealers in rural MN or WI, same story for a few Energi owners in the group. Some of the Nissan Leaf owners also said that they found the best deals by getting a Leaf from a rural dealer rather than from one in the Twin Cities. A Mitsubishi iMiev owner did the same thing. Considering that this dealer has 70 trucks out of 100 new Fords on their lot I figured that they fit the same profile. On Tuesday I told the salesman that they'd have to do better on the trade difference to make it work. He spoke to the used car manager (also the finance manager who did our paperwork today, very small dealer) and offered another $1000 for the white FFH. I asked if I could discuss it with my wife and call him back Wednesday. After we agreed Tuesday night that we'd do it only of they'd give us another $500, I called the salesman and told him that on Wednesday morning. He said he'd ask and e-mail me. Less than 5 minutes later he e-mailed me and said they'd do it. Today we drove about 4 hours (220 miles) each way to Wisconsin and picked up the Energi Titanium. After the tax credit we will have paid less than $500 for the new Energi Titanium. And about $30 in gas total to drive 440 miles today. It was really incredible!! And I encourage anyone who's looking for a new FFH to consider one of the leftover 2013s because you can probably find a dealer who's desperate to get the car off their lot.

I'm curious how many issues others have had and how they compare to your expectations when buying the first year of a new model. Please succinctly comment on your problems/issues below. Idea credit goes to Frankman on the C-Max Energi Forum. Thanks

Has anyone used the Torque Pro app with the FFH to track data like you can with a ScanGauge? Larryh has done a lot of interesting analysis using Torque Pro in his FFE. I'm thinking about getting setup with Torque Pro for the FFH so that I can use the ScanGauge for instant feedback while driving and Torque Pro to analyze data on the computer after the fact. Check out this thread for Larry's observations.

NYPD is using its best cars for self promotion. Guess which car they used. I passed 10 hybrids on my way to work. 2 on each street crossing.

I'm hoping to better understand how the FFH powertrain works with the power flow screens. Below is a pic with the different powertrain options of how the Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive operates Engine & Motor drive for HSD appears to be Hybrid Drive on the Ford Power Flow screen as shown below This doesn't seem to be very common in the FFH. Here the FFH has blue flow from the battery to other, but aside from that the HVB is isolated. There is white flow from fuel to engine to drive and from engine to electric motor. There is blue flow from electric motor to drive. HSD's Engine Drive + Charge should be shown on the Power Flow screen as white flow from fuel to engine to drive. There should also be white flow from engine to electric motor. And then there should be blue flow going from electric motor to battery. In this scenario there would be no blue line connecting electric motor to drive. Has anyone seen this? I haven't yet. Granted, I've only driven a few hundred miles in the new FFH which has these screens and I do have to look at the road at least occasionally while driving, but I haven't seen this yet. Here's another set of Toyota powertrain options for HSD Engine & Motor drive + Charge should correspond to Charging HV Battery on the FFH Power Flow screen. Here you have blue flow from the electric motor to the battery. There is also blue flow from the electric motor to drive. There is white flow from fuel to engine to drive and from engine to electric motor. This seems to be one of the most common powertrain options chosen by the FFH computers. Another HSD option from the pic above is Full Power. This should correspond to Hybrid Drive on the FFH screen as shown below. In this scenario you have blue flow from battery to electric motor to drive, white flow from fuel to engine to drive and white flow from engine to electric motor. This is also known as assist because in this scenario the electric motor assists the ICE in accelerating or propelling the vehicle. In this scenario the ICE is on but is discharging. While the Toyota display doesn't differentiate MG1 & MG2 as in the graphics above, it does show enough arrows that you can discern what is happening with MG1 & MG2. Below is a pic of the different displays on the Toyota screen with the names of the powertrain modes that correspond to some of the aforementioned options. The FFH display also shows enough to infer their operation. One solid conclusion is that while the FFH powertrain doesn't have MG1, MG2 and the ICE on the same line like in the Toyota HSD system (click here for more info about how HSD is designed and operates), it works roughly the same. It seems that the FFH often runs the ICE both to power the wheels and to send electricity from MG1 to MG2 to power the wheels. I didn't know this before because our old FFH didn't have MFT and thus didn't have the Power Flow screen. Four questions arise from this. Does the FFH do an equivalent of HSD's Engine Drive + Charge? Why does the FFH not show Engine & Motor Drive (with the HVB isolated) as often as the Prius does? Will this have a negative impact on the FFH battery pack life? The Prius seems to very frequently show this mode. The FFH very rarely shows it. How will the HAH compare? Honda says that their ICE runs as a generator and isn't connected to the wheels. This would mean that its Power Flow screen would show white flow from fuel to engine and from engine to electric motor. There would also be blue flow from electric motor to drive. According to what Honda has published, the majority of the time in the HAH you wouldn't see white flow from engine to drive like we see in our cars. Has anyone seen their FFH display what is described in question 3 like Honda has said the HAH works? It doesn't appear that the Toyota system can operate this way because MG1, MG2 and the ICE are on the same line.

Fuelly has now broken out the FFH as a separate model per requests from members of this Forum. To update your vehicle click on the vehicle in your garage. Then click the "EDIT CAR" option. Then click on "change type". Then in the drop down box where it says "Fusion" you can now select "Fusion Energi" or "Fusion Hybrid". Once you select "Fusion Hybrid" you an click the button "Update Car" and your FFH will now show up correctly on Fuelly.

I was doing some research on the history of the FFH and discovered that the new FFH isn't the first time some have questioned Ford's EPA ratings. Just as how we've come to the conclusion that the FFH was specifically engineered to get high EPA numbers while hybrids from Toyota have not been it appears that the 2010 FFH may have been designed the same way. All three articles cited below call out the 2010 FFH for not coming close to EPA numbers in comparison to other hybrid competitors, most notably the first gen TCH. From Edmunds http://www.edmunds.com/ford/fusion-hybrid/2010/long-term-road-test/2010-ford-fusion-hybrid-200000-miles-of-fuel-economy.html From Motor Trend http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/alternative/112_0901_2010_ford_fusion_hybrid_2009_toyota_camry_hybrid/viewall.html Hmmm...very interesting...

Hey guys-- Buying an HID kit online--does anyone know what size bulb we need for the 2013 Ford Fusion hybrid? Just want to make sure I get the right one! Thanks!

I like to drive with my fog lights on after dark because I find that they help me see the road in addition to having headlights on. Do others? I also late in the day when the shadows are long I like driving with the park lights and fog lights on because I think the car looks sick awesome this way. Do others do the same? I recall seeing in some pictures posted by other users the symbol on the dash that they had their fog lights on in addition to other lights so it's made me curious.

Since we've established that your Brake Score has an impact on Fuel Economy and that a Brake Score of 80% would cost about .5 MPG over a few thousand miles like in the case of clummus I wanted to create a thread for users to share what their Lifetime Brake Score is, along with the number of miles that the aforementioned score is applicable to. Like this: Brake Score 99% over about 15,700 miles

Thursday leaving work in Owatonna I got into a very hot car that had been sitting in the sun all day. The outside temperature was 93 degrees. When I got in and started the car the temp display showed 100 as seen below, I had to take a pic of that because it looked neat. I also can see in the picture that I need to get out my California Duster and dust again lol Anyhow...I had a mile or so to get on the freeway from our factory in Owatonna so I drove that stretch with all the windows down to help get the hot air out of the car. Once I started accelerating onto the freeway I turned on the AC. Check out the graph below. You can see that the first 2 bars (12 minutes) of driving have lower fuel economy because of the electricity being used by the AC to initially cool the car. Once the car was cooled down the electricity required to maintain that temp is much less and the subsequent bars are much higher. My MPG results for the whole trip at 65-70 MPH on the interstate are below, not bad for running AC at that temp. Those first two bars show what happens when using the AC on short distance trips. When you're getting into a hot car and driving only a few miles you don't drive long enough at the lower power draw to make up for the high initial power draw of the AC. If the first 10 minutes or so come at lower fuel economy while the car is cooling down you'll need to drive many minutes more to bring the trip efficiency back up or else your trip MPGs will be very low. When it comes to hot weather here are some observations I've made about how to be comfortable while using the AC efficiently. When the car is hot and you first turn on the AC set it to a higher temp and make sure that recirculate is on - we usually have the AC set at 72 or 73 to be comfortable while driving, but when first turning it on in a hot car I'll set it to 76 or 77 until the auto climate control drops the fan speed, once the fan speed starts dropping I gradually decrease the temp one degree at a time over the next few minutes until it is down to 72, doing this gets you to the lower power draw state more quickly because then decreasing the temp one degree at a time doesn't increase the load or fan speedTry to do without the AC on short city trips - even in the hot humid weather we've been trying to do without the AC on short trips, if you're only driving for 5 minutes the AC isn't going to do a whole lot anyway and will really hurt your fuel economy, it's better to have the windows downIf you're driving a short city stretch and then on the highway don't turn on the AC until you reach the highway - often times leaving our house we are driving a couple miles and then getting on the freeway, we'll leave the AC off until getting onto the freeway and then turn it on for the highway portion of the journeyIf you're using AC it's better to drive the freeway rather than take the city route - we can view AC power consumption as a rate over time, as long as the AC is running it will draw x kWh from the HVB, when using the AC it's better to take the highway route because then your total driving time is shorter and thus your kW consumed by the AC is less and thus your MPG is higher. For example: to one of our frequent destinations we usually get 55-65 MPG over 6.6 miles depending on the lights taking the city route with no AC, taking the city route with AC drops that to 40-45 MPG, or we can take the highway route using AC as mentioned above only on the miles spent on the highway and get 50-55 MPG (since discovering this over the weekend we won't be driving the city route anymore unless the weather is cool and there's no need for AC)Hoepfully these tips will help all of us to keep cool in the summer while still getting the most efficiency out of our cars. Please feel free to add additional tips below to maximize efficiency while using AC

We've noticed something strange on this road trip. After we spend a long time driving on the freeway the car behaves strangely once we start driving in the city. Normally when I accelerate in the city the ICE comes on and revs up to about 2k RPMs when the power bar is at the 2nd bar on the Empower screen. After driving many hours on the freeway at 65-70 MPH when we come into a city and are accelerating away from a traffic light the ICE has been revving to about 3k or 3500 RPMs when the power bar is at the same level on the Empower screen. Turning the car on and off has not made any difference. But then after the car sat overnight it has been fine the next morning. We saw this when we first got to Winnipeg and attributed it to a one time fluke. But then it happened again when we got to Calgary yesterday evening. And then the car did it again last night when we got to Edmonton. In Calgary and Winnipeg it didn't fix it turning off the car and restarting it. In Edmonton after a few traffic lights of stopping and accelerating the car fixed itself and began behaving normally. We also saw this behavior in some of the small towns that we drove through along our journey. In Canada, unlike interstates in the US, the Trans-Canada highway goes through all the small towns and slows down to 50 kmh (about 30 MPH) for every town with traffic lights in each town. Has anyone else experienced this strange behavior? I am wondering if it is because of my grille cover, but I don't have any credible idea of why the grille cover would cause this. One theory is that the car is learning the highway driving pattern and for some reason is thus revving higher in the city than normal, but I don't know if that makes any sense. When cruising at 65 MPH the RPM is right about 2k exactly.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1084565_gaming-the-epa-gas-mileage-tests-how-it-really-works There is no doubt in my mind that Ford did exactly this. The Road & Track article they reference can be read here and is a good read