KDWyman

My HEV battery no longer can power my 2010 Fusion in hybrid mode at less than 10 years old and 87.6K miles. Ford will not warranty repair because they say the battery did not "fail". Car has gotten pretty much daily use in New Jersey but pretty short commute to work, worked fine until last year.

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.....

My 2010 Fusion Hybrid ran as designed for about 9 years (only 87,600 miles) with a few hiccups along the way, then this year It has stopped working as designed in Hybrid EV mode...now ICE only stops when foot on brake at red light in warmer weather, Battery remains full unless getting motor assists at highway speeds then it might drain to half full and you can see that charging of battery is occurring... Ford reconfigured the HEV batteries and retrained the car which worked for about two days abnormally in colder weather, ICE never stopped. (Car has never been in storage unless you consider the two weeks recently that it was at Ford while they tried to figure out the problem) Engine only now stops at red light when warmer weather has arrived this spring but never works as EV mode at any speed now... Had to take car back to Ford when recently got the red triangle "of engine death" ie pull safely over when you can, because the engine doesn't work, this is abit harder and less safe when the EV doesn't work, and I had to pull over on a bridge with no shoulder one time that was not fun. Car has already had the throttle body replaced. Ford has determined that the batteries no longer can provide the power to run the vehicle in EV mode, but say they haven't "failed", so they will not honor the 10 year /150K mile warranty that the batteries are suppose to have in the state of New Jersey. Very disappointing to say the least. Ford says they can configure the EV system to "think" that the batteries are like 2 years old and the car then runs in EV mode as designed, but whats remaining of the batteries will fail if left in this 2yr mode, and don't recommend it. My battery warranty ends at the end of July this year so I don't want to do anything Ford recommends against. Apparently, Ford has fixed my engine problem that caused my car to stop on the road, saying that some control valve had to be replaced...we will see if it is really fixed or not.