ethereal

Dennis, thanks for the response! I guess that's the way it is on the underhood battery and starting the car, though it seems a shame that with all that energy stored up the vehicle is dead. Re: mileage, I should explain. I'm in California (running California gas and its additives) and I generally get better average highway mileage than in-city mileage. On the highway, with my tire pressure at 34 psi, I get about 39 mpg. Reasonable. In city, and I drive with the "empower" mode so I try and get it in the "green zone" much of the time if the battery charge lets me, I get about 33 on the average. This is despite being careful to do regenerative braking (i.e. not come to a screeching halt but slowly brake) etc. I think part of the problem is the fact that you can't use the battery soon after starting up, and then sometimes it goes back to "white" on the thermometer logo after being green for some time. I also find it hard to stay in electric mode when the hybrid battery energy level drops below 50%. Maybe I just have a bit of a lemon if your experience is much better? Or I just haven't learned the tricks? If the battery is fully charged up, I can do 50-60 mpg driving carefully for 5-6 mile city trips, but on the whole, I get about 33.

Just saw the other threads, such as http://www.fordfusionforum.com/index.php?/topic/5141-2010-fusion-hybrid-battery-problems/page__st__40 Seems to be a common problem, apologies for the noise.

Hello everyone! I have a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid ("502A" package), and in general I'm happy with it (despite lower mileage than expected). Last night, I believe I left the parking lights on (light rotary switch in the "P" position), and this morning, for the first time since buying this car, I had a dead battery. Remote unlock wouldn't work, instrument cluster wouldn't light up when key was turned , the code unlock didn't work, and, of course, it wouldn't start. Got a jumpstart for the underhood "low voltage" battery from roadside assistance. Many of my settings had been reset after the jumpstart (I had it set to the maximum information display mode with the accessory + power curve meters, fuel efficiency bar graph etc., and the long term fuel economy had also been reset to zero), so I think many of the electronics truly lost power. The surprising (to me) thing was that the hybrid HV battery was still at 80+%! I was under the impression that the large HV battery could compensate for the underhood battery and start the car and power electronics if it had completely discharged. My question: was I mistaken? Have other FFH owners experienced this phenomenon, where the underhood battery is drained but the HV battery is nearly full and yet the car won't start? Thanks, Derek

Agreed, a mechanical/electrical issue with the buttons themselves seems unlikely. I'll be curious to hear the outcome! Thanks.

Folks, Great to see an active community here. I have a '10 hybrid, 502A package (NAV, moonroof, leather) and besides a few random issues (posted in other topics) I'm reasonably happy. I have 2k miles on the vehicle, and one issue I've noticed recently is that occasionally, the rear parking aid goes into a "continuous beep" mode. No real obstacles or approaching vehicles etc. It's not a beep-stop-beep that increases in frequency as you approach an obstacle as is normal when backing up, there's a continous *loud* beep with no message on the display. It's annoying enough that I have to turn off the rear parking aid (using Info or something like that) when this happens. Anyone else experience this? Unfortunately, this is another one of those problems that is sporadic, so I think I'll have trouble reproducing this at the dealership. Thanks, as always, for the insights!

Thanks for chiming in, everyone. Funny, thanks for the informative breakdown. My average across some 1500 miles (I reset the long term average after 500 miles) is ~34.6 mpg. Most of the mileage, if not necessarily the time, is on highways, where I can get 36-40. In the city, my experience matches yours, re: "The worst numbers I get are with rush hour stop-and-go driving and short distances of only a few miles.", I often see sub 25mpg, unless I really hypermile it after having built up a charge in the battery (which I believe only lasts a mile in full EV mode, probably less in practice as pure EV mode becomes nearly impossible once the charge is below the halfway mark). I think this weird issue with EV mode warmup is part of the reason, as I generally have several hour periods between trips, enough for the engine (and catalytic convertor etc., per Zacher) to have cooled down. This is all rather puzzling to me given that the mileage is supposed to be higher in city driving compared to highways, but perhaps the EPA tests were conducted in somewhat contrived circumstances where the battery can charge up fully and the driver is extremely skilled at hypermiling. Oh well.

Cool, let us know what they say. I should've been clearer--if you press the buttons during the startup period, not only do they not respond, they seem to be permanently stuck in 'off' mode until you restart the engine.

Good to know that it's not an isolated problem! One discovery I've made: if, soon after starting the vehicle, you press the heater or defrost button (i.e. while the annoying sony splash screen comes up on the nav for example), they seem to get stuck in the off mode. However, if you wait a bit and try them, it seems to work. I don't know if this is the only possible scenario where the buttons stop working, but it seems pretty repeatable. Everyone else, please chime in if you have any tips/suggestions! Thanks.

Thanks for the confirmation! Guess there's not much I can do about this then. What sort of distance and driving conditions (stop and go? much regenerative braking + EV mode?) do you see your 40 mpg on? I can get close to 40 on the highway, but unless I've built up a reserve in the battery and am very careful with EV mode over a longer distance city commute, I don't see close to that in the city.

Hello everyone, 2010 Fusion Hybrid owner here (with the NAV system, leather, moonroof), 2000 miles and thus far I'm reasonably happy with the vehicle. I've observed something very odd with the EV mode switch "algorithm", and would appreciate an explanation if anyone is familiar with the issue. Under the "empower mode" display, per the manual, the thermometer icon on the the temperature gauge to the left changes from white to green when the engine is "warm enough" to allow driving in pure electric mode. I think the idea is to let drivers turn on the heater etc. without a delay. Now, I have a lot of short commutes, and what I see is: Start the vehicle, internal combustion engine comes on, thermometer is white. Drive for a while, thermometer turns green, and I can use EV mode. A short while later, thermometer goes back to white (i.e. "engine not hot enough"), and EV mode is once again disabled. I have to then drive for quite a while before the thermometer turns green again. It seems to me that once it's warm enough, it should stay warm for a while at least. And it would be cool if it had an override or sensor for the times when the driver is never going to turn on the heater due to ambient temperature. Is this really because the engine has cooled down once more once EV mode is deployed? I'm not 100% positive, but I think I've seen the switch back to white even when I don't accelerate slowly enough to drive in pure EV mode once the thermometer turns green the first time. I think this is one of the reasons I'm not seeing good mileage on city commutes (23-32 at best, and the engine should be "broken in"), despite driving reasonably carefully. Depending on the driving patterns, I get good mileage on the highway. Any information, corroboration and advice would be appreciated! I think this is a well designed vehicle, I just need to understand it better! Thanks, Derek

Hello, 2010 Fusion Hybrid owner here (with the NAV system, leather, moonroof), 2000 miles and thus far I'm pretty happy with the vehicle. Of the three problems I've seen, the most troublesome one has been this: At times, depressing the heated seat button, as well as the rear defrost button, and occasionally, the "media" voice recognition button on the steering wheel, don't work. This is not reproducible, it happens only some of the time. At least on a couple of occasions, I've found that turning off the engine and restarting fixes the problem. I'm concerned that if I take it to the dealership, it won't happen there and they'll refuse to investigate. Do you helpful folks have any idea what the problem could be? I apologize if this has already been asked and answered, and would appreciate pointers to any prior discussions. Thanks, Derek