r.furborough

Well today I took my work van, an E250, in for service and as usual rather than sit waiting I wandered the lot looking at the vehicles. There were not may FFH's in stock but those in stock had an additional sticker next to the normal sales information stating that the MPG's of 47, 47 and 47 was wrong and that new stickers were being printed! Well the salesman knew nothing about this and did not seem interested in finding out, so tonight I googled it and found this http://www.freep.com/article/20140617/BUSINESS0102/306170099/Ford-Fusion-Fiesta-C-Max-Lincoln-MKZ-EPA-mileage-mpg-checks Looking at the Ford website the new rating is 44 MPG City / 41 Highway

Corrected - Thanks You for the heads up...

Had a chance to look into the 'noise' issue this weekend and found that the transmission is also noisey when the vehicle is stationary. With the vehicle stopped, the hand brake applied, I started the car, placed it in neutral and pressed the accelerator to the floor to start the ICE. Here is what I heard http://www.littlecreek-va.com/temp/FFH Transmission Noise.mp3 The noise appears loudest behind the engine infront of the firewall, this is where the recording was made. The engine starts at about 10 seconds and you can hear a knock in the background of the normal engine noise. Unfortunately, the engine cannot be revved in this mode, so I was unable to reproduce the noise I normally hear. Anyone care to see if their car can reproduce this. Bob

I have been trying to locate a diagram or picutr of the Atkinson Cycle engine in the FFH to see if any belts and idlers are fitted as I know many of the engine ancilliaries that would normally require a belt on normal engines are replaced with electric motors, i.e. the water pump and AC compressor. I did a rearch on www.rockauto.com for a 2013 FFH and found they have a belt and idler listed for the AC systems, so I can only assume the electric motor for the AC is remotely mounted and the AC pump is belt driven. However, I cannot confirm this as I cannot find any information.

ROB281 - No it's not - Its only present whil;e the ICE is running,

Had an interesting turn of events today. Spent a few hours touring local neighborhoods looking at houses and taking the wife shopping. The noise making itself known fom time to time and then it happend while parking. Ths car was almost at a standstill and the ICE started to either provide heat or replenish the battery and the noise was present and without any road noise I suddenly remember where I have heard the noise before. Its like a bad idler pulley! Will have to look into this a little more......

acdii - yes it does have the later air intake tube, it was upgraded within the last month.

Bummer - I know how this feels, not long after we got our car we hit a Raccoon. It displaced the trim on the drivers side lower valance, fortunately I managed to pull it back to a point it is hardly noticeable. Worrying not having a spare though - I had thought about getting a space-saver spare some time ago. Your experience will motivate me now, particularly as we have a pot hole epidemic locally.

Today I met briefly with jeff-h, thanks Jeff, for taking a few minutes to meet and good luck the run tomorrow. Unfortunately Jeff was unable to hear anything that was not normal, he also drove my car and tried to replicate it for himself. Jeff also allowed me to drive his Energi to see if I could replicate the problem with that - Answer was no. However, after we parted this had me thinking. The Energi was a Titanium version and was noticeably quieter. Was this due to more sound deadening material, better noise cancellation or maybe I have a problem with my Noise Cancellation. This was something acdii alluded to. Anyone care to comment on this or the diffference between the SE and the Titanium? I have another vehicle to test drive soon, I turned a close friend on the the FFH and they bought a similar SE hybrid about a month after we got ours. This will be a better comparison but I may not be able to drive is for a couple of weeks. Bob

jef_h Sent you a PM Bob

BTW: the details of the car are 2013 FFH SE + 505A - 3FA6P0LU4DR161XXX Build Date - 11/3/2012 Purchase Date - 12/8/2012 Current Mileage 24,283

jeff-h: will certainly try to record the noise - it seems to come from the footwell area, more from the drivers side than the passenger, it's also one of those noises that your not quite sure how much you hear and how much is felt. BTW, I don't know how close we are to each other, I am in Norfolk, VA. GrySql: I first noticed this when it was cold out, when you would normally be driving slowly and on battery, the difference was the ICE was running to deal with the heating demand for the occupants, so running at a fast idle. However, yesterday, I and the technician was able to reproduce it repeatedly with the outside temps in the 50's and the car already warm. The way I reproduce it is to initially accelerate briskly to get the ICE to operate, then back off the throttle to a point that maintains the ICE operation while aiming for a target speed of 20 -25 MPH (higher than this and road noise seems to mask the noise). Just as you near the target speed and the maintain just enough throttle to prevent the ICE from cutting out. The Technician was able to replicate this and also by repeatedly accelerating to get the ICE to operate and then gently backing off to just before the ICE cuts out. He thought is was there at higher speeds also. acdii: Interesting thought about the noise cancellation, I know what you are referring to as I used to work in communications in high noise environments and noise cancellation was a technique that was used in ANR (Active Noise Reduction) headsets. It would be easy to find out if the noise reduction system could be temporarily disabled.

Today, I visited my dealer again. This time I have a transmission technician test drive the car after I first demonstrate the noise and have a confirmation that he heard it. During the drive, he replicates the noise repeatedly and states that he does not think the noise is from the transmission, but is resonance within the exhaust system. The car stays at the dealers for the day. I get a call fom the service advisor about lunchtime to explain that 2 mechanics have been trying to locate the source if the noise, but so far have not been able to do so and will be contacting Ford. I called after 5pm to find out what the status was and was advised that the noise source could not be found. They had also taken a new 2014 FFH and were able to replicate the noise in this vehicle and as no reports were found in Fords Oasis system, the noise is probably normal. I did not have an opportunity myself to drive this vehicle, but have no reason to doubt the report. I now have the vehicle back and aparently further enquiries are being made to find if this noise is normal. As the transmission in the FFH is a hybrid component and is covered by the 8 year / 100,000 mile warranty I have no immediate concerns, but I do find it quite strange that no one else has reported this or a similar noises that are aparently normal in this type of vehicle. I will follow up with them in a week to find out if they have any further information from Ford,

Well, I got the car to the dealer we bought the car from, Got a mechanic in the car and I repeatedly recreated the grinding noise. Swapped seats and the mechanic could not recreated it. He acknowledged he heard the problem while I was driving but he obviously was not a hybrid driver. However, we did get an appointment, after he spoke with the service advisor, and the car is going back in on Monday, when, hopefully, I will be able to demonstrate the problem again.

Awsome, thanks acdii. What an easy fix, I kinda feel a bit of a dumba88 is was so easy. Just installed adblock and didn't have to reboot or even restart the browser.

Is it me, have I got an adware virus, trojan or some other malware, or does everyone suffer from a higher than normal amount of 'off topic' advertising on FFHF. I find the AdChoices advertizing that has sound or movie content prticularly annoying, particuarly when it is slow to load, I start reading a thread and suddenly the advert loads and the page jumps and I have to then scroll to find the section I was reading. Then come the distraction of the sound from the advert.

I first started to notice this noise when staying with friends over christmas/new year. I noted that as they live in a development with a 25mph speed limit and there are several intersections before reaching the main highway. With the cold temperatures, the ICE starts almost immediately as the car starts and slowly accelerates. Just before the car reaches 25mph and the RPM's meet the road speed there is a rumbling / grinding noise from the transmission just before the ICE shuts down and the electric drive takes over. I can only describe it as a noise you would get from a worn or dry bearing that chatters or an old inertia starrter, the ones with a Bendix gear that bark or squeal after starting an engine, but much more muted than that. It does not do this in a similar scenario when in electric mode, it's only when the ICE is being used. The noise is also repeatable at will and appears to be louder now than I first heard it. My wife is the normal daily driver of the vehicle, so I have not thought too much of it until I drove it this weekend after installing the new air intake tube. Maybe that is why it seems louder. I will be contacing my dealer to try and get an appointment where i can demonstrate the noise rather than just report it and have to return again to have it addressed. Any thoughts or ideas?

Well My wifes opinion was that it seemed quieter, my opinion is somewhat quieter but, more importantly the intake noise has lost the harshness that made it unpleasant. For $40, well worth the expense.

Got one delivered from Levittown Ford Wednesday, fitted it last night 2/27/14 to our FFH SE with a build date of 11/3/2012 My Wife will be the first to drive today - I won;t get to try it until tomorrow.

looks good - Now lets try mine