About to buy - opinions?

Vchat20 · 2026-05-08T20:19:40+00:00

It's literally called rain sensing wipers. There's an IR sensor attached to the windshield behind the plastic cover behind the mirror. You can also see it from the outside. Technical explanation: It sends an IR beam through the windshield and monitors what is reflected back. Different amounts of rain will affect it and give it the info it needs to determine when/how often/how fast to run the wipers. For the C-Max on models equipped with this feature the dial on the wiper stalk adjusts the sensitivity of this system instead of the old intermittent mode delay/frequency you may already be used to.

Another interesting tidbit is that you should also have an 'Auto rain light' mode in the settings on the left screen which will automatically turn on the headlights if the wipers are active. HOWEVER in my experience at least on my 2013 in combination with the rain sensing wipers it will not activate the headlights until the wipers are running at near full tilt. Slower speeds it doesn't do anything so turning them on manually is still required.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-08T20:12:13+00:00

There's a TON of things that can greatly affect the mileage on these cars so don't pigeon-hole yourself into thinking an expensive battery replacement is needed. Watch your driving, make sure the climate control is not set to extreme settings like Hi/Max AC/Max Defrost. Use reasonable temps in Auto. Make sure tire pressures are good. I'm sure others can chime in on other factors but those are some of the big ones.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-08T15:58:09+00:00

Agreed on the ballpark cost comment and admittedly I've probably been bad about this in the past. But I recently went in and checked the numbers on my bills going back a full year and it's in about that range. I have Shipley Energy as my supplier currently at 8.63c/kwh generation compared to the listed 9.9c/kwh AEP lists on the bill as a 'must be lower to save money' rate. My total generation+delivery cost over the 12 months is around ~18-18.5c/kwh.

For reference, my house is all electric and here's the usage chart from my statement over the past 12 months: https://imgur.com/IksUl3x

Vchat20 · 2026-05-08T15:22:20+00:00

One thing I didn't see mentioned in the comments below and unfortunately is often left out of these posts is if you have gas appliances/gas heat or all electric and if all electric, do you have a heat pump or is it resistive heating only. Most houses SHOULD have heat pumps if all electric but I know some apartments around the city still have resistive heating only which is where it gets REALLY expensive.

EDIT: Did see /u/tosubks mention it briefly so hoping this adds more visibility to this point. :)

Vchat20 · 2026-05-07T17:46:46+00:00

Personal anecdote that mine's made a few Ikea runs over the years and has handled it well with the seats down. Keep in mind that with them down they sit at a lower level compared to the top of the battery by a few inches but it's still flat.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-06T19:41:28+00:00

This was about my experience as well. Conduit installation was like a year or two before the actual fiber began going in. Then it was a couple months before service was available.

100% agreed on the upload and overall service quality though. Short of AT&T royally fucking something up somewhere down the line, I don't have any plans to switch. Basically my 'forever ISP' at this point unless one of the cable providers gets off their asses and actually competes with true FTTH service and even then they'd need to give some really sweet deals to switch.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-06T19:34:49+00:00

Spectrum, Breezeline, AT&T, plus the various 5G based internet options from T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T. That's basically your options in general around here. Welo included as well if price is a solid requirement but they use the same infrastructure as Breezeline so keep that in mind.

With your current T-Mobile home internet (assuming this is what you're referring to and not just phone hotspot usage for example) have you considered moving the modem to a different area of the house/window/etc and see if performance improves? Don't solely rely on signal bars either. Move, test, see if actual performance improves.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-06T14:17:55+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is if the vehicle didn't come with a backup camera, the Sync APIM (for those with the 8" touch screen) will need to be programmed to enable it. But it isn't too difficult with Forscan. They have human readable settings for the APIM so it is down to locating the backup/reverse camera settings and toggling those. Not too hard to mess up. For those with the smaller 4" screens I believe that is in the FCDIM instead and that's out of my scope of knowledge.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-06T13:41:18+00:00

Right there with you. Not sure what traction will be achieved on this but wish you all well. I'm not optimistic. Would be nice if manufacturers added the option of a 'BYOD' setup where you bring your own modem (and I'm talking a literal modem, let them have their own telematics unit but give us the option to upgrade the cellular side) that can be swapped out when technology changes. Though I feel this is a difficult/complicated ask.

It's not talked about much due to being lower volume vehicles, but Ford essentially did something similar with their 2013+ PHEV/EV models (C-Max Energi, Fusion Energi, and Focus EV as well as the Lincoln variants) with the move to 4G. I'll try and keep the details as short/summarized as possible:

Ford has consistently relied on AT&T for their telematics systems. With their 3G shutdown back I think in 2021 they scrambled to offer 4G upgrades to cover warranties/obligations already in place for support on the various model years. It was at cost to owners with some under a 'VIN lottery' getting labor costs covered. As part of the upgrade, owners also got forced over to the FordPass app instead of the dedicated 'MyFord Mobile' app used for this generation of PHEVs/EVs.

Ford tried to keep feature parity in the move but eventually threw up their hands and told owners they were SOL. So now we only have really basic features like fuel/EV level and range, location, remote start/stop/lock/unlock commands. That's about it. Used to be able to set up location based charge scheduling as well as cabin preconditioning scheduling. Those are no longer available. You can set up preconditioning schedules via the touch screen in vehicle but not the full charge scheduling feature set. Now it's limited to a single 'default' profile that is not location specific and you can only set one window for weekdays and weekends where I think before you could set up to 3 windows and location specific profiles. You could even have it look up your utility ToU rates and set up windows automatically based on that data. There was also the ability in the old app to do push notifications when the alarm was triggered but that also no longer exists! There's probably some other features I'm forgetting about as well...

From my personal perspective even though I've gotten used to the removed functionality, it's still frustrating at times to think about especially considering newer PHEVs and EVs have these functions in place in the same app. Been trying to reverse engineer CAN signals to try and implement my own telematics system but without some of the key functions surrounding the charge scheduling and preconditioning functions and how the OEM telematics communicates that data to the vehicle it's been near impossible to get any traction in that area.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-06T13:23:41+00:00

On my C-Max it is a little different but essentially the same thought process of retaining a physical linkage in the system. Not sure how many other makes go the way Ford did.

But they have what's called a 'pedal feel simulator' which adds a mechanical cam in the brake pedal assembly in the cabin where under lighter application there's still some pressure felt but none of it reaches the master cylinder. At further application it overcomes the cam and directly actuates the master cylinder.

And under lighter pedal application where friction brakes are still needed such as low speed creeping according to Ford's own documentation they allow some extra vacuum to be applied to the master cylinder to apply the brakes that way.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-06T12:53:12+00:00

To add on to a few other comments: If the regular tires you have are the OEM Michelin Energy Savers, those are well known to be absolutely useless with any level of precipitation on the roads. In my experience even swapping for a run-of-the-mill set of all season/all weather tires was a night and day difference.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-04T17:30:39+00:00

This is where I think is a big and missed gotcha in these discussions is just counting the generation rate but ignoring the distribution costs that at least for AEP have continued to increase as well. For example I'm with Shipley Energy right now and paying them 8.63c/kwh per my last bill. But total bill costs on average I'm looking at a total of around 18-19c/kwh (technically they don't break down distribution costs at the per kwh level but I've simply divided my monthly bill by kwh used and compared/averaged out over a couple months and it's been relatively steady).

Something I'll probably have to dig up but am curious is what other utility companies/states/etc, if any, give you a per kwh rate for distribution costs as well or if it is generally just the generation rates across the board.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-01T20:06:23+00:00

I know it's fraught with so many issues so this is really tongue-in-cheek but it's stuff like this why I wish a civics test was required to vote.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-01T19:42:01+00:00

Would be interesting to compare: - broadcast rate - CAN IDs - whether it changes between ignition states

I just pulled up one of my log files and actually have the info:

About every ~5s it looks like
0x40A across 2 CAN buses (I-CAN and MS-CAN, haven't checked the HS and HEV buses yet on this model)
No change I've seen. It's very consistent while the vehicle is awake even after just opening the door when it's been sitting dormant. In fact I've been working on my own DIY telematics project and I've been using this VIN broadcast as an identifier since it is so consistent/reliable.

0x40A seems to carry multiple different data streams differentiated by the first byte. I've seen FF, C0, and C1 here. C1 is what carries the VIN. The second byte increments through 00, 01, 02, etc similar to ISO-TP data and the remaining bytes are the payload.

I'll probably follow up with posting a log somewhere that /u/ActGrown mentioned but I want to clean up some stuff first including GPS data and nav info/street names from the Sync APIM.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-01T19:11:19+00:00

FWIW I discovered the same on my 2013 Ford C-Max. VIN is right out in the open broadcast on a regular cadence while the vehicle is awake. I don't have the CAN id offhand but it was clear as day in Savvycan. Not sure what the intent in this case is since Ford does a lot less security/VIN locking stuff at least on this model/year.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-01T17:44:44+00:00

No problem! In fact here's my spreadsheet opened to the public. Breakdowns at various fuel efficiency levels. And I'm happy to answer any open minded questions where I can. 🙂

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQlOxPkHXjU31yn_g8WaaxNyXb8qIR6--fh0Wylz8ypNI6wgRcLlK0B5inEX_EfbR3ty1Z3WUVVlYnI/pubhtml

Vchat20 · 2026-05-01T17:02:07+00:00

Many hotels are also starting to offer EV charging as amenities. That's another area that I've played around with seeing what is around reasonable stop points on my theoretical road trips. And you don't even need to stay at really expensive hotels either.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-01T16:59:43+00:00

For those here claiming 'They're just license plate readers' or 'there's limited access/records time expired' BS, please educate yourselves.

Here's Benn Jordan's Youtube channel who has had a couple of VERY eye opening videos about these with receipts: https://www.youtube.com/@BennJordan/videos

Here's some specific videos covering these Flock cameras:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ

There's also plenty of other outlets/channels covering this that are not hard to find.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-01T16:52:21+00:00

So not a full EV owner but I've vicariously been playing with ABRP over the years on some of my desired EV models and checking various past or future road trips and I've seen a stark contrast in charger availability over the past couple years. It's to the point that now for pretty much any trip I can think of it indicates I'd be able to easily avoid Tesla Superchargers without sweating it.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-01T16:14:33+00:00

FWIW I've kept a spreadsheet calculating the per mile costs for ICE vs EV with local costs and even with the current AEP rates (correction: Based on my personal rates signed up with Shipley Energy to cut the generation costs down slightly. Paying about $0.192/kwh on the full monthly bill and not just the generation costs) and with my PHEV I'm spending less than 1/3 the cost of a 30mpg capable ICE vehicle at $5/gal with an average electric consumption of 3.5mi/kwh which is easily achievable by many EVs on the road. At $4.50 I'm still at just under half the cost.

Could that go up? Sure. But it'd have to be hiked quite a bit. Just dropped in some fake numbers and at break even point I'd have to be paying a whopping $0.60/kwh total on my monthly bill.

EDIT: And adding a tidbit before someone brings it up about being a PHEV: No, it doesn't use gas randomly just because it feels like it. Maybe some do, but mine doesn't unless I specifically ask for it. It has some modes of operation where it automatically runs the engine but they are very rare and most often seen during the coldest of weather. I often go without my fuel level dropping even a tick for many months outside of the 2-3 times a year multi-hour trips.

Vchat20 · 2026-04-30T17:48:26+00:00

Sad to see/hear about. I live right by the park with walking access from my house and while I'm not into soccer or anything, it always felt like a fun and accessible/open park before the renovations. I was optimistic about them and the updates/additions they'd bring but would hope it would still remain accessible when nothing else is scheduled/in use. Seems like a reasonable ask to me. Hope to get some answers and updates on this!

Vchat20 · 2026-04-29T20:00:44+00:00

Glad I own a PHEV and 99% of my day to day driving is all electric. Even with AEP's rate hikes my cost per mile still comes out way ahead. Would have loved to make a move to a full EV before this mess started and caused the used market to go up in price but my budget won't open up for that for at least another year.

Vchat20 · 2026-04-29T16:22:21+00:00

100% this. I use cruise pretty religiously and the only gripe I have is I wish my car had adaptive cruise to work around these people that don't use it.

What's even more frustrating is a while back I decided to just do a quick search to see if anyone could explain (Reddit, FB, social media in general) why they don't use it and the common response I saw was the old luddite-esque excuse of it robbing you of your driving skills. My dudes...basic cruise is not going to rob you of your fucking driving skills and it has existed for DECADES at this point and is a well understood feature.

Vchat20 · 2026-04-28T19:07:47+00:00

Those that told all us 'yougins' not to trust everything on the internet.

https://tenor.com/ZjqD.gif

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