jonessoda

The dealer that I bought the Fusion, the dealer that I had it serviced at regularly, and the dealer that I bought the Focus at are all different. It wasn't really the service guys either, I worked with the same service writer the whole time, and each time I brought the car in, it was for a different issue. However, the dealer that I got the Focus from, although considerably further away from my house, is much larger and more equipped for handling EVs, so I will probably use them in case of service with the Focus. Thanks!

Yep! Negotiated for one last night, I pick it up today.

Service guy told me the battery was good, and they can't replace the battery under warranty if it passes the load test. He said they also did an electrical test to see if anything was drawing, and they didn't find anything. I'm pretty over this car, it's getting traded in tomorrow.

Yeah, I have read up on both of those issues. I told the dealership about the other issues today when I had the car taken in for the dead battery. I do have an early 2013 MY car, I bought mine early Dec 2012, so this could be the case. I may look into modifying the trunk to hold a larger battery. I've seen that a few others here have had success doing that, so I may look into it. I live in San Diego. They don't know what cold means here. I've never used the key pad. In fact, I don't even know the entry code, and I don't know where the paper is that has it. I had to go back to the dealer where I bought the car to get it, so it's not with my owner's manual. I see in the owner's manual it talks about using both keys to display the factory code, but that would mean tracking down my other key. I've moved twice since buying the car (military), so I'm still pretty disorganized.

I dont have that key, and it is definitely the 12v battery. When you open the door, nothing lights up. You were right about that charger, when the tow guy showed up, he used a jumper on it and the car started. I had them tow it to the dealer anyway. Now I'll wait and find out. Definitely. The reason I didn't do a anything before this is because the description of the battery saver mode in the owner manual makes it seem like it is a normal thing. I only recently discovered the real reason it comes on by reading topics here. The dealer knows about it now. They've been good to me so far, so I don't think they were trying to avoid it.

Murphy, thanks for the reply. I did end up getting the trunk open that way last night to get some things out of it, but I didn't see if the battery was putting out 12 volts or not. I'm not sure about the charger, it's my roommate's and he's gone for the weekend. When I plugged the charger in, it would go into charging mode, then I would hear a bunch of clicking in the power module, and it would look like it was charging. Then when I came back a little later, the charger had indicated the done charging light, but still nothing from the car. The charger doesn't have any words on it, just little pictures, so I couldn't tell you exactly what each one means.

Update: After having the car on a charger for 4 hours, it is still dead. No lights, nothing. I guess I'll have it towed to the dealer tomorrow. Pretty disheartening.

Went to get in the car today and it was lifeless... Nothing. It is in my garage, so it was unlocked, but I am unable to get in the trunk (any idea how to do that on a dead battery?). I'm pretty stumped. It was driven yesterday, and has been driven nearly every day for the last 3 weeks. I did have it in the dealer recently for a faulty canister purge valve. I have been getting the Battery Saver message for months now. I actually thought that was normal because it's been happening for so long. I was planning on taking the car in for that, as well as the popping sounds I'm getting from the front axle. I've had this car in the dealer for one issue or another 9 times since I bought it. At 21000 miles, that's an issue about every ~2300 miles. Not a very good track record for a brand new car. Anyway, it's on a charger right now, hopefully it will be usable in the morning so I don't have to get it towed. Another thing, when I put the charger on, there was a bunch of clicking in the power module. Is that normal? I've never had to charge the LVB, and the owner's manual doesn't say anything about clicking.

Oh yeah, these bastards too. On my morning commute, there's one of these that's at the bottom of a hill, so it's extra fail on the brake score.

California has been ruining my brake score. People wait until the last second to brake, so even when I leave a large buffer in traffic, the person ahead of me suddenly stopping will cause me to get a 70ish % score. If you leave too large a buffer, people will just fill it because they think you're leaving that buffer for them. My lifetime score is either 94 or 96 (I can't remember off the top of my head), so not terrible, but it was better before I moved back down here.

How did you do the grille? I just did the Plasti Dip thing on the Ford emblems, and it came out great, so I was thinking of doing the grille next. I've also shaved off all of the chrome lettering off the car, it looks pretty slick. Depending on what tire you put on there, you might take a pretty big hit in mpg. Just by putting sport rims and touring tires on mine, my overall went down by ~10 mpg.

I don't know how I feel about "tricking" the car into staying on the ICE while on the freeway. It seems like that would be a poor engineering choice on Ford's part to make the car less efficient at highway speeds. The last >100 mile drive I did was last year, and included going over the Grapevine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapevine,_California), and I still managed this:

It's pretty steep, but it's also a residential zone, so 25mph,and I creep up it. It's steep enough that even with a full charge I can't make it to the top without running out, and it's only a quarter mile or so. I do have a pretty light foot with this car, I like to make the most of its efficient capability!

Ah, gotcha. I like that about this car, I live at the bottom of a hill and I can nearly get to the top of it on battery only. One of these days I'll make it all the way to the top, but it might piss off anyone behind me.

This can't be the case. I leave in the morning when ambient temp is half that and the ICE doesn't kick on until the battery is depleted.