Won't run in EV mode, ICE kicks in immediately.

[Rob]

I've noticed the same problem on my 2010 Fusion Hyb. (owned since June '09) It came on rather suddenly, starting in Oct. '18. Local dealer can't find any fault codes related to the EV function. I notice that high voltage battery takes and holds charge but can't supply enough power to drive the electric motor in EV mode. I also note it can assist the ICE mode.

 

May I ask how many miles you have on your FFH?

 

Rob

[Automate]

That's where it is when the car's stopped.

 

Hardly matters. Here it is 100% battery and 20 mph.

 

[lolder]

Yeah that's 1/2 a division about what mine was doing before it went to my grandson last year. I could coax it up to about 35 mph tops. Maybe 2-21/2 divisions when new. I forget. This is symptomatic of shorted cells/lower voltage. The system still tends to keep the HVB at about 1/2 charged on the gauge. As long as the car runs you can still use it. The mpg will degrade somewhat mostly at lower speeds where it won't cycle between ICE and EV much.

Edited January 19, 2019 by lolder

[FordHEVtoy]

I also am having the same problem with my early 2010 with 95,000 miles. I live in Oklahoma and noticed the lack of switching into EV and displaying full battery in cold winter weather some last year and now more of it this winter. Mine often goes 2 weeks without use. After about 20 to 30 miles of driving it starts running normally if not too cold. I have been attributing it to going into the HVB rebalancing procedure, either because of low temperature, long rest between use and/or weaking of HVB health. I had the air bag recall done last weak, but it was doing it before that so I can't blame it on messing with the dash removal. My dealer is dumber than a soda cracker about hybrids so is of no help.

 

Helpful to know that I'm not the only one having the same problem, but still looking for a good understanding about just what is causing the symptons and a realistic fix. Does anyone have any experience with replacing the 12 volt battery to see if has any effect on this issue? I still have the orginal battery - coming up on 10 years this summer. Previous experience witth gen1 Prius and Tahoe 2-mode Hybrid is that 12 volt battery needed replacement after about 5 years.

 

I also had my Fusion Hybrid throw a red wrech powertrain malfuction light while internstate cruising at 75+ mph in 100 deg F temps last summer. Took about an hour to get the red wrench, would go away when shut down and restarted - leaves no codes. I'm attributing it to excessive temperature somewhere in HVB package, but no permanent damage. Anyone else seen this happen?

[markwilson66]

I replaced the 12v battery last year. Didn't make any difference. It was 8+ years old so was about time.

 

The wrench light at highway speed/warm temps is a separate issue from hybrid battery problem. There's a TSB that I had my dealer apply, I have not had that problem since but it has been pretty cool here in CA.

 

The EV mode seems to be getting worse. It's almost impossible for me to stay in EV mode for more than a few seconds. My fuel econony is at about 38MPG but it usually goes down a little in winter.

[akaroot]

experiencing the same issue. 2010 FFH will not go into EV mode anymore unless fully warmed up and stopped with foot on brake. MPG is down to about 28.6. Had it sitting in garage for about 6 months waiting for Takata air bag to arrive. Heard nothing about special maintenance like running every so often. Did have to sign form stating the car wouldn't be driven. It currently has 133K miles. Does reconditioning battery really work?

[mmtphoto]

My wife uses our 2010 Hybrid to go back and forth to work, about 35 miles round trip, five days a week. It is almost exclusively stop and go city driving, and for the first year and a half of ownership, that is how it was used. Then came the Takada airbag recall-end of May 2018 until early December 2018 we had the use of a 2017 Ford Escape (20 mpg tops). After the first month of using the rental, Ford contacted me and told me to come in to the dealer to sign a paper saying our Hybrid would not be driven-I told them I had driven it about 50 miles total the first month, and that I would continue to do so since a Hybrid has to be driven and the regen function had to be done to maintain the level of charge in the HVB. I contacted Ford and they agreed that it had to be driven, on a limited basis, to maintain both batteries. Over the entire period I ended up putting about 250 miles on my Hybrid. I also own a scanner that will rebalance the HVB which I did complete after it was placed back into service...My personal observation is that gas mileage is down about 15% (from about 33 to 28), and it does not seem to go into or maintain EV like it did prior to the inactivity. I did express my displeasure with the amount of time the repair took, and was torn between driving it more during the layover and my desire to try to keep it active enough so that it would not damage the batteries. I am going to hope that when the weather gets warmer here, the EV works more like it did-I for one think the dealer and Ford royally screwed this up by not advising owners to maintain the HVB system-afterall, it costs 2-3 grand to replace it-almost the value of the car after 8-9 years. So if this layover DID damage my and others' cars, it's like they totaled our cars when they 'shut them down'. and gave us something to drive until we got back our damaged (?) vehicles. That is not right, and the idea that I or others should have no recourse is wrong, Ford needs to own whatever this becomes.

[goody1926]

Add me to the growing list of FFH owners experiencing this problem. Mine also started to act up after sitting for the airbag recall for months. No acceleration in EV at all with some very limited EV cruising at slower speeds. I have about 62k on mine (2010). Seems a potential leading theory is the HVB pack that has potentially degraded significantly and rebalancing might not or may no longer be able to cure it.

 

I went to the dealer a couple days ago just for an initial inquiry. I already have a routine P2450 and intermittent tire pressure sensor failure that they said would need fixed before they would even try to diagnose the EV mode problem. I had the P2450 prior to the airbag recall timeout and the EV mode was working just fine then.

 

I have yet to begin research on how to diagnose and repair the TPS failure. Unfortunately it did not set a code or my OBD reader is just too old. Since it tends to come on after several miles then after several more miles of driving goes off maybe I need to check codes while the MIL is lit.

 

It seems that even with those fixed then going back to the dealer might still result in their inability to figure it out.

 

Maybe I should just ask them to force a rebalancing and go from there. Does anyone know of a particular brand OBD tool or software plus adapter that can force a rebalance?

[Steel705]

Add me to the list. My 2011 FFH started acting up the end of January. The 12V battery failed to start the car. I boosted it with my booster pack and immediately had a charging system failure pop up on the dash, instructing me to shutdown safely.

 

I boosted it again and then it was fine but the battery wouldn’t hold a charge. I replaced the 12 volt battery and now it starts just fine.

 

However, like everyone else here, my car doesn’t go into EV Mode unless, I’m stopped with my foot on the brake. I took it into the dealership to have it diagnosed and low and behold, was told that all tests were run on it and couldn’t find a problem. The mechanic told me that he cleared a long list of error codes.

 

I haven’t seen anyone mention this but, after he cleared the codes, I got the best mileage I’ve had since the summer. That was short lived however. It’s back to the same as it was before I took it in.

 

I’m gonna try put a code scanner on it again and see what it shows. This is definitely not a cold weather driving issue. I live in Northern Ontario in Canada and even when it’s -40, the car starts and runs in EV Mode not long after the engine warms up. Or, at least it used to.

[Automate]

They serviced it by rebalancing the battery cells. ... it now works and drives as it should.

 

 

Update: The dealer contacted ford Engineering to make sure they were servicing the battery correctly, and they had me come back in because apparently the mechanics didn't realize they needed to configure the battery re-balancing system specifically for my 2010 model. Anyway, they re-balanced it again, and it is now 90% back to normal.

 

@hsk8te2006,

 

Since you seem to be the only person to get this problem fixed, can you give us some more details? Why did you think it was fixed after the 1st trip to the dealer? Was it a little better but not 90% better? What dealer did the work? Can you post a copy of any paperwork you received showing what actual work they performed?

 

Thanks,

[proffitt25]

Ugh! Add me to the list!

 

I came here to post a longer story and then get to this issue and see it high on the problems, it's uncanny some of the similarity.

 

First off, Ford has royally p-ed me off, corporately, and locally.

To get right to it, I have 2010 fusion hybrid with about 125k miles. I'm not the most conscientious hybrid driver, at best I've gotten 35 mpg with any averaging (2nd owner purchased with 40k miles), and I've quit paying super close attention to when I'm battery and when ICE. I try to drive somewhat conservatively, but just use it as a car.

 

I also have the Takata airbag recall problem of course, passenger side, and Ford took a solid year and a half to get to it. I never stopped driving the car when in my possession (but never let anyone sit passenger). Then after months of waiting I complained enough to get a loaner. Initially I left my Fusion at the dealership. It probably sat there a month, and I did not really consider the possibility of any battery issues as a result. I feel fairly certain Ford did nothing to maintain it. They called me to come trade out the loaner and at the same time realized they weren't actually supposed to let me leave the Fusion with them on their lot. Since their loaner was getting me 20 mpg and my minivan was doing just as well, I decided to get my fusion back, at least I could drive it and get better gas mileage when it was a single-person trip.

 

I don't *think* anything was awry with vehicle performance in the next 6-8 months that the fusion was back in my possession. After some royal screwups from Ford where they thought they had my parts and then only realized they didn't after I'd dropped my car off, I finally got my airbag replaced. Somewhere in here I noticed though that something wasn't performing right: what I noticed was that when I'd come to a stop , especially perhaps on a cold morning, and be waiting for oncoming traffic to clear before turning, then hit the gas, there was an unreasonable delay, kind of like the car was trying to decide whether to fire the ICE or run in battery mode. Meanwhile I'm practically stalled for a 1.5-s delay, which feels pretty long when the traffic is coming at you and you're trying to make a tight turn. I did not have this issue looked at, probably back in November, because Ford was going to charge the diagnostic fee as per usual, and I wasn't sure it was a real issue.

 

The day I got my Ford back after the recall, my air conditioning system was screwed up. The thermostat was not functioning correctly- set at 60 deg, it would blow cold, set at 65 (the next notch warmer), it would blow hot, and it didn't matter what the temperature in the cabin was. When I took the car back in I had them look at this and finally look further into the delayed start issue. 2 diagnostic fees. They said the a/c was ultimately about a wire coming loose, related to ambient temperature sensor, claimed unrelated to their airbag recall work, initially said there would be a labor charge to reconnect, but between my distaste for that idea and time to pick up my car, they did that work with only the diagnostic fee charge. They were unable to find anything wrong as far as a delayed start, claiming they were never able to reproduce the behavior. I have serious doubts that they did anything to try and reproduce behavior. They also made an appointment with me to drop the car off to have it looked at and then proceeded to not LOOK at my vehicle for a full week. This was not the local dealership's first bad straw, it was my last. It was already my last, and that was before they broke my door handle and told me they could fix it for $175 I think (I ordered the $17 part on amazon and fixed it myself in 10 minutes for free). I digress, but it is pertinent to note that I have a general distaste for Ford on large and a great distaste for my local dealer. I would LOVE to find a hybrid mechanic elsewhere, but that is proving difficult.

 

So the delayed start issue persists. it's been at least a tank of gas since picking up from the dealer (28 mpg), and today I decided to test it more and pay more attention. I drove around in 56degF for a good 40 minutes, and the temperature gauge never changed from white to green (it does change to green right, I'm not misremembering this?). The battery engine would not kick in, though of course the ICE cuts off when stopped or cruising downhill. The battery shows full charge, I'm unaware of any codes. I wonder if there's any chance I have yet another temperature sensor problem (another "spontaneously" loose wire??), and that is my entire problem. I'm not entirely sure how long the ICE has simply not been kicking in (and I also don't know where this relates to the delayed start that I was initially experiencing). You'd think the dealer when checking into this would have noticed if the battery power just wasn't kicking in, but I am not sure.

 

I live in Nashville, and if I'm stuck with a Ford dealer, I think my next action is to drive it down to Franklin and at least avoid the local guy. Personally, I feel like I'm already out ~$600 in lost gas mileage waiting for a recall, $150 in diagnostic fees, and $17 in my broken door handle-- doesn't make me want to go spend $400 to have a battery recalibrated or whatever, and if that were required it is hard to not feel like it's somehow Ford's fault.

 

So, venting complete, thanks for reading. I will listen to all advice and ideas, or at worst just add my complaint to the list and we will commiserate.

[proffitt25]

okay, I ran out to do more experiments. First, hooked up my OBD2, no codes or anything. I intended primarily to test more whether hitting the gas while holding the brake would fix the delayed start issue... I think it does help, but ultimately I still feel there's some unnecessary lag. The most interesting thing though is that my EM started working again. Hmm. It was actually working while the thermometer still showed white, and it did not take driving long this time for the thermometer to turn green (whereas 45 mins of driving earlier would not get it there). Again I haven't been paying super close attention, but thinking back, I feel like my HV battery has been showing full more often than not lately.. I think it just hasn't been getting used since the last pickup from the dealer. I know they did reset the PCM at some point to try and fix the issue, maybe I just needed to do something different, drive longer? to ensure it started cycling normally again? So many of my trips are the 5-10 min variety, and maybe that doesn't let the battery warm enough to get used most of the time and has kept it from re-entering some normalcy.

 

Anyway after the thermo went green I drove a while. Some things I notice: I do think I'm not getting the power from the battery I should. I managed to nearly drain the battery but it took some real work, finding flat places where I could drive 5 mph to get it as low as I could. I think I managed to get it up to 25 mph one time on a nice flat surface being as conservative as I could before the ICE kicked in. It's hard to say if this is totally new territory or if it's been like this for a year, but it's definitely not how it was when I first got the car. I then tried to get it back to full battery. First I sat at a stop sign with foot on brake and foot on gas. Again it only idles very low, and it only charged to perhaps 70% before it quit even doing that, the ICE just basically went off despite my foot on the gas. Interesting. I drove around a little while longer seeing if I could primarily use the ICE and regen brake to get it higher, but I couldn't. As a general rule it was going between 50-70%. Again I tested out battery power and it still seems underpowered. I'd be very interested to have some more discrete data about what's going on with the batteries.

 

Finally when I got home I put it in park and then hit the gas to charge up. In that manner I got it filled back up. Interesting that in park it will allow the engine to rev to about 3000 rpm. I don't know if it's charging faster at 3000 rpm than 1000 rpm.

 

Now I'll head out for another trip soon and see if overall the behavior is more what I would expect.

 

Again ultimately I think the laggy delayed start persists, and my suspicion is it's ultimately about the HV battery either being underpowered or the computer believing it's underpowered and not using its energy appropriately, getting only a small kick from the EV before the ICE kicks in and finally gets it moving for real.

 

Will report back...

[proffitt25]

one more quick note. With normal driving attempted, right now I can't seem to get my HV battery below like 85%. It doesn't seem to have a lot of power so a takeoff is very slow if I keep it in EV and I can't get more than 25 mph or so. When I have drained 10% or so, inevitably I'll end up coasting downhill or something, and it starts recharging the battery. I don't know that this even makes sense: the HEV info screen shows only the electric motor on but shows recharging battery, and battery is in fact recharging... but how can the electric motor recharge the battery (no regen braking occurring)? It definitely doesn't seem to be behaving normally. I guess I should be happy that at least the battery is actually being used again?

[murphy]

There are two electric motors. Either can be a generator or a motor. The car tries to keep the HVB at 50% SOC so there is a place to store regen energy. If the HVB gets to 100% SOC, regen is not possible since there is no place to put the generated energy.

[proffitt25]

There are two electric motors. Either can be a generator or a motor. The car tries to keep the HVB at 50% SOC so there is a place to store regen energy. If the HVB gets to 100% SOC, regen is not possible since there is no place to put the generated energy.

 

Hmm, ok. Yes I think it makes sense that the car wouldn't ideally cycle between 0 and 100%. Is that normal behavior, though, when I have a 70-80% full HV battery, and I begin to coast down a hill, to use an electric motor to charge the battery back up to 90%?

And... again, this doesn't make sense to me. An electric motor needs battery power to run. To use battery power to run an electric motor to charge a (the same?) battery.... isn't that nonsense? We'd have perpetual motion if we could work that out, wouldn't we?

 

If, perhaps you just mean there are two motors, one gas, one electric (as was my prior understanding), then it makes sense for the computer to kick the gas engine on to recharge the battery at appropriate intervals, but it still doesn't make sense that it would do it between 70-90% charge, that would just be unnecessary and hurt my gas mileage overall when I could run in EV mode longer with an opportunity to regain that energy at braking instead of with an ICE assist. Am I wrong?

[murphy]

There are two electric motors. Either can be a motor or a generator. In normal operation if the engine is running it drives one electric motor as a generator and the current flow is to the other electric motor driving the wheels. If there is excess current available it also charges the battery. There are very few conditions where the engine is directly connected to the wheels. Reverse is not possible from the engine. It is always from an electric motor. Under full throttle acceleration the engine and an electric motor can combine to drive the wheels directly. I no longer have the link but search for the Toyota hybrid drive explanation. The Ford system is almost exactly the same.

 

It is impossible to charge and discharge a battery at the same time.

[dogo88]

There are two electric motors. Either can be a motor or a generator. In normal operation if the engine is running it drives one electric motor as a generator and the current flow is to the other electric motor driving the wheels. If there is excess current available it also charges the battery. There are very few conditions where the engine is directly connected to the wheels. Reverse is not possible from the engine. It is always from an electric motor. Under full throttle acceleration the engine and an electric motor can combine to drive the wheels directly. I no longer have the link but search for the Toyota hybrid drive explanation. The Ford system is almost exactly the same.

 

It is impossible to charge and discharge a battery at the same time.

 

Here is a great little article along with working image that you can adjust on how they work together:

http://eahart.com/prius/psd/

 

 

[proffitt25]

Huh. That's interesting. I should have researched more before I started driving one of these just for fun's sake.

 

So, this model doesn't include the battery yet, that's an additional layer, but it shows a larger MG2 motor that is attached to the wheels; wheels don't turn unless that electric motor is turning. ok.

Murphy said: In normal operation if the engine is running it drives one electric motor as a generator and the current flow is to the other electric motor driving the wheels. If there is excess current available it also charges the battery.

ok. if in that model I kick the ICE to 2000 rpm, holding MG2 at 0, MG1 is spinning, but actually too fast (that's an aside interesting as I can sit in park with my foot on the gas at 3000 rpm, so there's something different between that model (prius) and our vehicle I think). But anyway, assuming I'm driving, maybe MG2 kicks in to get me to 25 mph. MG1 is spinning at 3391 rpm. So, the current flow is to MG1, which is driving MG2, correct? I don't know how to know if there would be enough excess to also charge the battery.

 

I'm further not sure how my pushing the gas pedal converts a signal to fire MG2 vs. ICE. Obviously it's dependent on how hard I'm pressing it, whether I'm on a hill, and battery charge level, but how those factors convert to this model I don't know.

 

I'm trying to bring this back to the question: if I have a 75% charged battery, and I coast down a hill, should a) the battery be charging up, b) is this kicking on the ICE to do so? and is that by design or indicative of a problem?

I would presume that when I'm coasting downhill, the ICE is off and no electrical motors need to be driving the wheels. I'm sure that betrays my naivety about how cars work. If that were true then you couldn't correlate it to the power split device model, because RPM would be zero on the motors, but speed would be positive. I suppose that with a positive speed downhill, MG2 is getting turned by the wheels? and thus MG2 is turning in reverse-- so maybe the battery is getting charged simply by that energy, sort of like regen braking? and the ICE is out of the equation?

 

I'm not sure, this clarifies some things and yet shows I need a deeper understanding.

Back to real world numbers, I filled up today and then spent a little time looking back through my mpg history. It's variable of course, I think my best tank ever was 38.5, soon after I acquired the car with about 40k miles. It's somewhat steadily fallen over the following 6 years and was hovering around 30 mpg before it just took another little nosedive in the last couple of months to 27-28. Which all adds up to this newest behavior, possibly affected by airbag recall and computer reset, not having a great effect on my gas mileage.

It does make me wonder a couple of things. First, in another thread someone posted the images showing how much available power they have to run in electric-- from the dead stop the line is barely discernible from 0. This matches my behavior and I think probably has for a while. Under ideal conditions, how high do you guys see that bar go? I have 7 notches in the "empower" view, I think it is. With the HV full, flat surface yesterday running at 15 mph, that bar goes only to the first notch. Thinking back on it, I'm not sure I've ever seen that (green) bar go any higher than 1 notch. Wish I'd paid closer attention. So-- are my batteries dying but none of my systems are telling me yet? Are there other tests I can run to know more about that, or must I visit another dealer to learn more? I'm afraid most of the time real-world driving conditions are severely limiting my car's use of its battery; my primary mpg gains are coming from the engine turning off at a stop sign or at a coast, not from the electric motor, driven by the battery, turning the wheels. I'll keep experimenting...

[proffitt25]

 

Hardly matters. Here it is 100% battery and 20 mph.

 

 

Ah yes, looking back through this thread, it's automate and iolder discussing. Now I understand what he meant about 1/2 division vs. 2.5-3 divisions. So perhaps people see 3 divisions of power sometimes with a new battery pack. I'm seeing up to 1 right now, so a little better than automate's image, but still not great.

 

Iolder says this is symptomatic of aging battery. Boo. I guess we're coming up on a 10 year old battery pack. What can I do?

[murphy]

When coming down a hill with the engine off the motor connected to the wheels becomes a generator which charges the battery. If the battery gets full the engine will start running but the injectors are not putting gasoline into the cylinders.. Think of it as a big air compressor used to provide the back force to keep the car from speeding up as it goes down the hill.

[proffitt25]

When coming down a hill with the engine off the motor connected to the wheels becomes a generator which charges the battery. If the battery gets full the engine will start running but the injectors are not putting gasoline into the cylinders.. Think of it as a big air compressor used to provide the back force to keep the car from speeding up as it goes down the hill.

 

So bottom line you're saying this is expected and normal behavior, I'm getting a free recharge, not a hit to my gas mileage from an unnecessarily fired-up ICE. ok, good.

 

Still sounds like my batteries are dying. sob.

[Cnaroach]

I just bought a 2010 FFH with 72k miles, having the same problem. In the three days since I bought it, it's never run in EV mode. Ugh.

[proffitt25]

I just bought a 2010 FFH with 72k miles, having the same problem. In the three days since I bought it, it's never run in EV mode. Ugh.

 

Of course knowing nothing about your purchase, I'd be looking for a way to back out on that deal... at least, going into the deal it would be pertinent information to gain that the battery is in bad shape and to make your purchase accordingly.

 

Going way back in the thread, Iolder said this: "the car no longer appears to do periodic battery re-conditioning. Mine did it about every 8K miles until the problem started and then didn't seem to do it anymore."

 

How do you know when your car is doing reconditioning? I seem to recall reading about this 6 years ago, but I'm not aware mine has ever done any sort of conditioning.

[markwilson66]

I only noticed the battery reconditioning 2 or 3 times since I've owned it. The most recent was probably a couple years ago and under 60k miles.

The engine was run constantly while driving and no EV mode at all. Also it would make these clicking noises from under the back seat.

[lolder]

Battery reconditioning is noted by the ICE not turning off for about 15-20 minutes and the HVB charging to above the normal H level. When finished it goes back to the normal 1/2 charged level. If you were cruising above 46 mph you might not notice it. The HVB systems in these older cars are obviously having a problem. Don't count on Ford finding the problem or telling you if they do. They're getting out of the car business so you won;t be a repeat customer.