HELP! Gas engine won't shut-off and no exterior lights.

[Jordon Anthony]

Sorry if I posted this in the wrong section but.....

I have a 2010 Fusion Hybrid that I just bought about 2 months ago. This morning driving home the headlights turned off and the ICE would not turn off allowing me to drive in EV mode. I checked the fuses, all looked fine. I have called the 3 dealers close to me and the earliest any can get me in is Wednesday (4/23) and this is my only car. I work nights so it's not possible for me to just "deal" with it until then. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

[murphy]

Have your 12 volt battery tested. Unfortunately if it is bad the only place you can get a new one is from a Ford dealer since it's a non-standard size.

The 2010 Fusion Hybrid came out in early 2009 so if it is the original battery it could be 5 years old.

[acdii]

I dont know about the lights, but the 2010-12 FFH has a battery conditioning cycle. It happens at random, so dont know how often or what triggers it. The ICE does not shut off at all, and will stay running for up to 30 minutes. What it is doing it peak charging the HVB. If you look at the battery gauge, you will see that it should be maxed out. Once the conditioning cycle end, the car will drive normally. It does not have any affect on lighting or anything else in the car, it just does not use EV during this time. I don't recall if Regen braking is disabled or not while doing this.

[Jordon Anthony]

The car was just going through the reconditioning cycle, guess I should have read the whole owners manual instead of just reading certain sections. Thank you for replying though; the lights were odd, but they are working normally again. I was concerned because none of the service centers I called even mentioned that my car could be going through the reconditioning cycle, so it caused me to freak out that I bought a "dud."

[acdii]

It was a WTF moment the first time mine did it, but once I realized what it was doing, I just let it, and my MPG jumped up right after that.

[SteveB_TX]

I don't ever recall our former 2010 FFH doing that. But, then again, I was not the primary driver. :)

[murphy]

I had a 2010 hybrid for 4 years and never noticed that. It could have done it when I was on a trip since the engine runs continuously when above 47 mph in the 2010.

[lolder]

I've had five HVB re-conditioning events about every 12K miles but varying between 8K and 17K miles in my 2010. It equalizes the cell chemistry in the 207 series connected cells. If it's unsuccessful, I've read that a message will appear in the message center instructing you to take it to the dealer. I have not heard of this message appearing on any forums.

[acdii]

I only noticed it the most when I was driving through town, the other times I was driving 55 MPH, and only know it was happening when I came to a stop and the ICE kept running. This was the first time it did it. Once the ICE shut off and everything returned to normal, I knew what it did, so the other times I just said, oh, must be a conditioning cycle. The first time always does make you go, Oh NO whats wrong with the car!?!?!?

 

I just happen to use NiMh and Lipo/Life batteries in my RC stuff, so have a good understanding of battery maintenance, so once it happened the first time I had a good idea what it did, and confirmed it later with the service manager.