Won't run in EV mode, ICE kicks in immediately.

[jake1110]

My car is at the dealer today and I'm quite optimistic about it. When I mentioned the setting 1 year in personality settings, the service manager replied "Oh, the HVB reset." So in my case, the dealership actually knew about it which surprised me because there aren't that many 2010 FFH's around here. I needed to get the Takata airbag recall taken care of, so figured I'd see if they knew of it. Can't wait to get the car back and test out tonight!

[Rob]

Looking forward to your results.

 

Rob

[beastrow]

Can't wait to hear how it goes! I feel like each additional person who gets this resolved gives me more to cite when I take my 2010 FFH back in, (especially, if they refuse to address it again).

 

My car is at the dealer today and I'm quite optimistic about it. When I mentioned the setting 1 year in personality settings, the service manager replied "Oh, the HVB reset." So in my case, the dealership actually knew about it which surprised me because there aren't that many 2010 FFH's around here. I needed to get the Takata airbag recall taken care of, so figured I'd see if they knew of it. Can't wait to get the car back and test out tonight!

[jake1110]

I just got it back and it worked!!! As others have described, the EV meter now goes up several bars and the car runs on pure electric just as it had before. My MPG immediately increased on my trip back as I was driving in 35/45mph zones to get back to work. The acceleration lag that I was experiencing is also gone, which I suspected was related to the output of the battery

 

My work was done at Charles Gabus Ford in Des Moines, IA. They were aware of the issue when I scheduled the appointment. This has definitely made my day as I actually thought my battery was nearing the end of life. I know it's old, but it's amazing how far my car can travel in EV again. I have 152k miles on it

Edited June 5, 2019 by jake1110

[PaulGo]

I just got it back and it worked!!! As others have described, the EV meter now goes up several bars and the car runs on pure electric just as it had before. My MPG immediately increased on my trip back as I was driving in 35/45mph zones to get back to work. The acceleration lag that I was experiencing is also gone, which I suspected was related to the output of the battery

 

My work was done at Charles Gabus Ford in Des Moines, IA. They were aware of the issue when I scheduled the appointment. This has definitely made my day as I actually thought my battery was nearing the end of life. I know it's old, but it's amazing how far my car can travel in EV again. I have 152k miles on it

Glad to read that you got the hybrid functionality of your car working!

 

My question to you is can your car accelerate in the hybrid mode if you press the gas pedal very lightly in speeds under 47mph? Also where does the HV battery indicator stay previous to the repair and now after the repair? On my two 2010 hybrid vehicles both in the winter and summer the HV indicator stays most of the time all the way at the top which is not normal it should be in the middle. Also in the warmer months my cars will start in the hybrid mode and go into the hybrid mode while braking when the car speed is under 47mph. What may cars will not do is go into the hybrid mode when lightly accelerating under 47mph (which it previously did). I have 45,000 miles now on each car.

[fun4u]

Great News, Jake1110. I'll use your experience to force my dealer (or some other local Ford dealer) to perform this fix.

 

By the way, today I sent a registered letter to the President of Ford North America asking him to try to get a response to my letter sent on May 13, 2019 to the VP of Safety at Ford. We'll see if that gets any reaction.

[jake1110]

It can definitely accelerate on pure EV mode up to it’s 47mph limit. Typically, how I drive it is to get it up to speed on gas, then use EV to keep it going steady at that speed. It’s working very well for me again like it used to in the past. Sometimes in stop/go traffic I’ll keep it in EV which is something I couldn’t do up until today.

 

Before I took it in, the EV green line basically sat at the very bottom of the power gauge. Just tapping the accelerator would cause the gas engine to come on. About the only thing I could do on EV was idle and maybe ever so lightly, barely tap the accelerator and it would move in EV. One of the more annoying things was when it was colder out I would hit the interstate in the morning, the engine would warm it. Then, as I got to my exit ramp and as I’m braking, I’d go into EV mode for a short while, but as I was reaching the end of the ramp, the gas engine would turn on briefly, then immediately turn off and it would go back to EV at the stoplight. The engine constantly came on and pushing the accelerator had a delayed reaction. It was MUCH worse back in winter. Today, it’s 90 out and even though the car would be completely warmed up, it still wouldn’t stay in EV other than idle.

 

The actual line item on my bill reads “RESET BATTERY LIFE TO 1 YEAR USING IDS TOOL.” I was billed $125 for this. I’m sure there are cheaper places out there but I’m just glad they got it done correctly and knew what they were doing.

 

 

Here's a picture of it, it's a bit blurry as it was super bright and i was also trying to get through traffic while taking it.

Edited June 5, 2019 by jake1110

[jake1110]

For those interested. This post shows exactly how my pwr gauge appeared before getting the battery reset. This one isn't mine, but mine did the exact same thing.

 

http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/12638-wont-run-in-ev-mode-ice-kicks-in-immediately/?p=109015

 

Glad I found this community, because now I plan on keeping this car quite a bit longer than before.

[markwilson66]

FYI, went over to another Ford Dealer Service Dept on my lunch break and spoke with the Service Advisor about this.
I was told, "I've never heard of that before. Bring it in and we can diagnose it for $145".

These guys are useless!

[markwilson66]

I would encourage everyone here to complete this form:
https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/?


Your Vehicle's Make Model and Model Year: FORD FUSION HYBRID 2010

Note: Your VIN, make, model, and year are all protected under the Privacy Act.

What part of your car was affected? Engine, Fuel/Propulsion System, Power Train

What happened?
The vehicle will no longer operate in electric mode. This is a major safety concern since there is no assist from the high-voltage battery powered electric drive motor. Upon accelerating from a dead stop, there is a significant lag before the ICE kicks in and provides enough power to move the vehicle.

When did this happen? 12/07/2018

Was there a Crash? No

Was there a Fire? No

Was there an injury or fatality? No

How fast were you going? (in mph) 0

About how many miles were on your vehicle at the time of the incident? 100000

[ivoh]

Joined the forum just to comment on this, I have 2 2010s with this issue and a 2009 escape with i think what is the same issue. Its crazy to think that every single 2010 fusion hybrid will have this issue this year.

 

Just in case anyone else is wondering, you can reset the age yourself using software Forscan (you can do free trial, but i would encourage donating and supporting the developers) and a suitable obd adapter. From my experimentation the age is held in the "As-Built" data of the BECM, originally the discharge power limit is 27000watts temperature permitting, once the Age in the BECM hits 9 years, that goes down to 14700, and am assuming will go down even more as the age goes up. (i believe it stops at 15 years and what happens then is anyones guess)

 

Im assuming this was a cover your a** move by the engineers, a 10 year old battery capable of 100 amps at 300 volts could cause a very large fireworks show if something went wrong, so they limit it to reduce the stress on it as it ages. So reset the age at your own risk.

 

But my personal opinion is that this will shorten the age of the battery in the long run, when its limited in software it is under less stress so will obviously last longer, but thats irrelevant since by the time the battery truly fails the rest of the car will be ready for the junkyard and the small mpg difference is worth it. I expect the battery to actually last 13-15 years before true failure. safety wise, i think the battery should be plenty safe even as it ages as we have seen with other NIMH hybrids.

 

If anyone in Nashville needs this done to their fusion, please feel free to reach out!

Edited June 11, 2019 by ivoh

[lolder]

This may be why Ford may not do this. The HVB starts the ICE and they may be limiting the EV use to preserve that function. NHTSA would probably not recall for poor EV use but if the car dies on the road, they would recall and Ford would have to fix the HVB out of warranty.

[proffitt25]

Wow, it's so exciting what's transpired in this forum.

I've wanted to comment a few times just to express pleasure for all the discussion of this topic.

But even better, we got us a solution! Many many thanks to ivoh for figuring this out and sharing. Most importantly, I can confirm that it works. I am in Nashville, but I didn't even need to go find him- I used my OBD2 scanner, downloaded FORScan on an old windows laptop, and it was pretty straightforward. - I actually just realized, I didn't change the value in the "as-built" data of the BECM, but just in the BECM module- a config battery age setting, mine shows "error" as the value, I changed it to 1. I went for a drive, and the difference is immediate and obvious, back to 3 divisions of power in electric, the stutter-start seems to be gone, I'm happy. I'm getting about 41 mpg in the 50 miles or so driven since the change.

 

Now I look forward to some discussion of ensuring this has been a relatively safe procedure

[jake1110]

Dang, wish I knew it was as simple as using an ODB2 scanner. I was convinced I'd need a better scanner to do this. Regardless, I was fine with paying just to get the functionality back. I get about 44mpg on my 24 mile round trip work commute. I had to make a 300 mile round trip drive over the weekend and got about 40mpg, which is perfect for me. This is pretty much what i could get back when I first bought the car. I can do even better if I hyper miled a bit with it.

 

I haven't noticed any adverse effects thus far. It feels so much better to drive it now. Given how long the older NiMH Prius batteries seem to go, I'm not too worried about it dying anytime soon. If I noticed a diminished amount of power, I'd consider changing the year setting back in the computer. So far though, it's like the car is new again. I bought my car one year used and since having it, this is the only "problem" I've had with it. It's just been regular maintenance for me, very pleased with it.

[DiNGoD]

Hi Jake,

 

Thats fantastic. I'm going to try to get my car in next week for the rollback. Fingers crossed.

[beastrow]

Can you share the scanner you used? I tried for a couple of hours this morning and, while I can see the info for my BECM, the configuration tab does not show up to allow me to change the settings. I searched for info on this in the Forscan forums, but only found snarky responses.

 

Wow, it's so exciting what's transpired in this forum.

I've wanted to comment a few times just to express pleasure for all the discussion of this topic.

But even better, we got us a solution! Many many thanks to ivoh for figuring this out and sharing. Most importantly, I can confirm that it works. I am in Nashville, but I didn't even need to go find him- I used my OBD2 scanner, downloaded FORScan on an old windows laptop, and it was pretty straightforward. - I actually just realized, I didn't change the value in the "as-built" data of the BECM, but just in the BECM module- a config battery age setting, mine shows "error" as the value, I changed it to 1. I went for a drive, and the difference is immediate and obvious, back to 3 divisions of power in electric, the stutter-start seems to be gone, I'm happy. I'm getting about 41 mpg in the 50 miles or so driven since the change.

 

Now I look forward to some discussion of ensuring this has been a relatively safe procedure

[murphy]

Some of the functions in the Windows version of Forscan require requesting and installing a code from the programs author. I had to do that to be able to enable the DRLs in my 2013 car.

[beastrow]

Thanks for the info!

 

I appear to have figured it out... stupidity on my part (wasn't using the "play button" at the bottom of the screen to open the options). I haven't had a chance to do anything more substantial than a couple of laps around the block. The EV use appears to have gone WAY up, just in terms of how consistently I can keep it there. However, the indicator remains flat and I don't see the bars go up at all. At some point on the forums, I saw a shot of someone's dash where, (if I'm remembering right) they had RPM's for the EV use coming out to the left of the EV section while they were driving. For me, the EV indicator will shift to RPM's when the ICE kicks in, but I see no RPM indications for the EV. Is there a way to enable that with Forscan, or is it possible I have something else going on?

 

UPDATE: It's the ACC... is that directly tied to the status of the EV, or is that just cruise control?

Some of the functions in the Windows version of Forscan require requesting and installing a code from the programs author. I had to do that to be able to enable the DRLs in my 2013 car.

Edited June 14, 2019 by beastrow

[murphy]

When the car is in EV mode the engine is not running so the rpm=0.

[beastrow]

Got it... thanks for the patience with a goof like me. Bought my 2010 FFH at auction a couple of months ago and still learning. :)

 

So is the ACC column tied to the EV functionality, or is that just the cruise control indicator?

 

When the car is in EV mode the engine is not running so the rpm=0.

[murphy]

My 2010 didn't have Adaptive Cruise Control. That was introduced in 2013. It's been a while but I think ACC in a 2010 stands for accessories. The amount being used by all of the accessories.

[beastrow]

Thanks, that makes total sense. I found a informational video on the Fusion dashboard that looks like it confirms this. The model is much later and the panel is different, but it specifically calls out the accessories drain on the battery.

 

I'm going to be running my daughter to a friends house soon and it's a lot of surface street driving, so I'm interested to see how it does and how the panel behaves. I'm encouraged that my short run last night showed a LOT of EV, but concerned that the indicator still remained flat the whole time, (no increases in bars, as some others have seen). I'll post back with what I experience. At least I feel like I've crossed a large hurdle in terms of being able to do the date change and seeing some immediate results.

 

My 2010 didn't have Adaptive Cruise Control. That was introduced in 2013. It's been a while but I think ACC in a 2010 stands for accessories. The amount being used by all of the accessories.

[PaulGo]

I just spoke to my Ford regional manager. I have two 2010 Mercury Milan hybrid cars with currently 45,000 on each. Before the seven month storage for the airbag recall they were working perfectly. Now they both have problems going into the hybrid mode. The regional manager spoke to my service manager who stated according to the diagnostics everything is working correctly even though the service manager test drove one car and saw the car not going into the hybrid mode. So Ford said they cannot fix the problem. Hopefully the class action against Ford will have good results.

Edited June 14, 2019 by PaulGo

[beastrow]

Well, just got back from doing about an hour's worth of street driving and the date change using Forscan has definitely made a difference. I have attached a pic of my indicators in action and, while this shows me at around 35 MPH in EV, I was able to get to around 45 MPH a few times before ICE kicked in. It has also made HUGE difference in the acceleration issue, which is now pretty much gone.

 

My indicators still don't display the way others in the forum have posted, (with the indicator lines showing the range of EV) but I have a feeling that's a matter of how you configure it manually and I haven't played around with that yet.

[Cnaroach]

Are you able to accelerate in EV, or just coast?