Battery Warranty

[NewHiTi21]

Anyone have any experience with Ford and the Hybrid Battery Warranty.

Just wondering what would be considered a defective battery.

If after a few years the battery only has 40% available. Would this be considered defective?

What is the cutoff?

The battery is covered by the 8 year/100K mile warranty but here is a quote from the warranty book

The Lithium-ion battery (EV battery) will experience gradual capacity

loss with time and use (similar to all lithium-ion batteries), which is

considered normal wear and tear. Loss of battery capacity due to or

resulting from gradual capacity loss is NOT covered under the New

Vehicle Limited Warranty. See your Owner’s Manual for important tips

on how to maximize the life and capacity of the Lithium-ion battery.

[acdii]

Warranty covers a dead cell or complete failure of the pack. Kill it with fire if you want it replaced. :)

[neod192]

Warranty covers a dead cell or complete failure of the pack. Kill it with fire if you want it replaced. :)

I wouldn't be surprised if Ford doesn't have a way to check if a cell is dead :extinguish:

Edited March 13, 2013 by neod192

[acdii]

oh it isnt hard to do, each cell is a set voltage. At full charge the pack will register a certain voltage, if it doesn't and the difference is one cell, then bingo dead cell. Another test is capacity. A fully charged pack should discharge at a set rate under a set load over a set period of time, and based on the percentages they can determine if it has a bad cell, or group of cells.

 

Other tests they can perform, which requires expensive equipment, is the balance charge and load the pack.They run the pack through a series of charge/discharge cycles and try to revitalize the pack. Sometimes this is all it takes to get them working again. It would also point to issues that usually wont show up in one simple test drive. Drawback is, the equipment needed to perform the test is not easy to obtain, and very expensive. A good charger that can do this for a Lion/Lipo/Life RC battery can run hundreds of $. It could ost 10's of 1000's for one to charge one of the car packs. Much higher voltage/amp draw.

[lolder]

Loss of HVB capacity will most likely go unnoticed in hybrids except in one minute full throttle tests. Early gen 1 Prii sustained 60% capacity loss at the end of 160K mile government tests but drive-ability and mileage was unchanged. Most other hybrids had only a 10% loss or less. The 2010 FFH lost 8% at 160K miles:

( http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/hev/batteryfusion4757.pdf )

These are lifetime batteries unless they suffer a short or open circuit failure. Ford claims only 6 NiMH cell failures in over 42,000,000 cells since 2004 and most of them were in gen 1 Escapes. There are over 200 cells in the NiMH HVBs, probably less in the LIons. These are more reliable than automatic transmissions.

Edited March 14, 2013 by lolder

[TX NRG]

There are over 200 cells in the NiMH HVBs, probably less in the LIons.

 

The '13 FFH HVB has 76 power cells.

[acdii]

273.6 volt mean rating. That's with all cells at nominal charge. 319 volts at peak charge. I doubt the Ford system will peak the batteries though except during a conditioning cycle. Either case, that will sting a bit if you touch those!

[hybridbear]

Loss of HVB capacity will most likely go unnoticed in hybrids except in one minute full throttle tests. Early gen 1 Prii sustained 60% capacity loss at the end of 160K mile government tests but drive-ability and mileage was unchanged. Most other hybrids had only a 10% loss or less. The 2010 FFH lost 8% at 160K miles:

( http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/hev/batteryfusion4757.pdf )

These are lifetime batteries unless they suffer a short or open circuit failure. Ford claims only 6 NiMH cell failures in over 42,000,000 cells since 2004 and most of them were in gen 1 Escapes. There are over 200 cells in the NiMH HVBs, probably less in the LIons. These are more reliable than automatic transmissions.

 

Fascinating reading, thanks lolder

[kenbefound]

 

Anyone have any experience with Ford and the Hybrid Battery Warranty.

Just wondering what would be considered a defective battery.

The battery is covered by the 8 year/100K mile warranty but here is a quote from the warranty book

 

 

Has the warranty changed? The warranty for the 2012 model states 10 years or 150K miles.

Edited May 12, 2013 by kenbefound

[neod192]

 

Has the warranty changed? The warranty for the 2012 model states 10 years or 150K miles.

In all states other than CA it's 8 years/100k miles. I believe it's 10 years in CA, but don't know how many miles.

[kenbefound]

In all states other than CA it's 8 years/100k miles. I believe it's 10 years in CA, but don't know how many miles.

 

I forgot about the state provision, my bad.

 

Here is the exact working from the 2012 model year literature, "10-year/150,000-mile Hybrid Battery Limited Warranty in CA, CT, ME, MA, NJ, NY, RI and VT; see dealer for details"

Edited May 12, 2013 by kenbefound

[rico567]

The loss of capacity in the Li-ion pack in the FFH parallels that in my laptop's battery. They all do this, and the laptop wont run as long, but it still works. I'm sure this condition is well-covered in the warranty, and an HV battery replacement is only going to happen if it conks out completely.

[hybridbear]

The loss of capacity in the Li-ion pack in the FFH parallels that in my laptop's battery. They all do this, and the laptop wont run as long, but it still works. I'm sure this condition is well-covered in the warranty, and an HV battery replacement is only going to happen if it conks out completely.

The batteries in hybrid cars are VERY different from laptop and cell phone Li-ion batteries. The batteries in consumer electronics are designed to rapidly charge and discharge to allow a smaller battery to serve the needs of the device. The batteries in consumer electronics also usually see significant degradation after 1 year. In a hybrid the battery should last 100,000+ miles with minimal degradation due to the different battery chemistry. Just like how you cannot compare the FFH batteries to the Li-ion batteries in the Dreamliner airplanes that caught fire you cannot compare the FFH batteries to the Li-ion batteries in your cell phone or laptop

[lolder]

At the end of DOE tests on the 2010 FFH, the HVB experienced a capacity ( energy ) loss of 8% after 160,000 miles.

http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/hev/batteryfusion4757.pdf

[expresspotato]

Only 8%? Astonishing!

[KDWyman]

After alot of time in the shop, Ford now says my 2010 Fusion Hybrid (<10 yrs old; 87.6K miles) that does not run in EV mode has low capacity high voltage batteries that cannot power the car any longer in hybrid mode and that they are not covered by the battery warranty (10yr, 150K miles in New Jersey) because they haven't "failed". The batteries have been age reconfigured by Ford service which only helped a little in colder weather, but now ICE will stop only at red light in warmer weather when foot on brake. Ford has a way to "trick" the car into thinking that the batteries are only 2 yrs old and the car will then work as designed in Hybrid mode, but this is detrimental to the batteries and not recommended by Ford. Since officially my battery warranty has not expired in NJ until the end of July, 2019, I must follow Ford's recommendation... To say the least, this is all very disappointing and I will not buy another electric vehicle of any kind without somekind of assurance that it will still operate properly after 10 years.... The battery warranty means nothing; companies will just blame you for not driving the car enough or not driving while on vacation or just plain battery age related "wear and tear".. For almost 9 years it worked as designed, but I've already put over $5000 of repair into this Ford vehicle in less than 10 years....throttle body, brakes, broken front spring and other front end work, rusted gas filler pipe, regular Ford milleage/preventative maintenance, etc.....

Edited April 22, 2019 by KDWyman