md40022 Report post Posted September 28, 2023 (edited) Hoping someone can help me with this.... 2010 Hybrid. 135k miles. I live in the Chicago area, it's been getting a little chilly overnight - may or may not factor into the problem. Car was sitting since 5pm the previous night. Went to start the car for work this morning, about 7:30am. It started in EV mode. Everything seemed fine. I turned the defroster on while still in park. Upon doing this the gas engine kicks on and immediately gives me a wrench icon on the left side of the dash. Not the check engine light, but this wrench icon thing. Engine sounds very rumbly at this point too. I pop the hood and see a fair amount of shaking and vibration from the engine. Far more than normal. I need to get to work though and I only work 3 miles away, so I give it a shot. No pickup from the car at all. Acceleration is very very minimal and it seems to literally top out at about 40 mph. The car is in ICE mode while I'm driving. However, when I come to stop signs and the EV kicks in I notice the EV battery meter at maybe 10% of life At this point I go back home and call in sick to work. Here's the goofy part though, I shut the car off for maybe 3 minutes while I called in sick. Upon starting it a 2nd time it started up fine. The wrench icon is gone. The engine isn't rumbling. I drove it around the block a few times and it seems back to normal. EV battery gauge is back up to about 50%. Acceleration is back to normal. ICE sounds normal again. Since then, I've started the car a 3rd time and again all seemed normal though I didn't drive it at all this time. I hate chalking this up as a fluke and not taking action, because with winter coming I know this will bite me. My initial thoughts, with having very minimal knowledge of a hybrid system, are the issue seems to be clear to the ICE. I suspect the lack of acceleration and the fact that I was topping out at 40mph would be from the EV (which normally does top out at that speed, roughly) to be related to the ICE struggling and the EV system carrying the entire weight. This also might be why the EV battery was virtually drained by the time I got back home from my attempt to get to work. Obviously the rumbling and shaking from the ICE would again indicate an ICE issue..... Could this be the 12v battery failing? Because again, the problem started when I flipped the defroster on causing the car to switch from EV to ICE this morning. Within seconds of flipping the defroster on is when the wrench icon popped up and when the ICE kicked on I immediately heard the rumbling. Could the car have initially started in EV mode, then when switching to ICE the 12v battery wasn't able to do it's thing? I only bring that up as an idea because on my 2nd and 3rd starts, now that the battery maybe got charged up a bit, all seems fine. Battery is straight from the dealership and was installed in August of 2021, so it's just over 2 years old. I did put a meter on the battery and it shows 12.3v with the car off and 14.0v with it on, though this isn't at a cold start anymore though so I know those numbers can be misleading. And my brain only went the battery route due to the fact that the problem was only at a cold start when the ICE first kicked over. 25 months seems like a short life for a battery though (albeit, Chicago winters can be brutal)........ I might not even be in the ballpark though with the battery idea lol Any thoughts? Edited September 28, 2023 by md40022 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
md40022 Report post Posted September 28, 2023 actually in searching these symptoms it's looking like people say this could be a Throttle Body issue.... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
2014FordFusionSE Report post Posted September 29, 2023 From your description, it can't be the battery if it started up fine on the 2nd and 3rd try. If there was rumbling in the engine that went away, it could be something in the fuel that got cleared out? Do you use Top Tier gas? Maybe a fuel system cleaner will do the trick? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
md40022 Report post Posted November 11, 2023 Ended up being the throttle body. Another person who I was talking to about the symptom immediately knew that as the solution. It was a 10 minute change out, super easy. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
2014FordFusionSE Report post Posted November 11, 2023 55 minutes ago, md40022 said: Ended up being the throttle body. Another person who I was talking to about the symptom immediately knew that as the solution. It was a 10 minute change out, super easy. Appreciate the update. What was wrong with the original one? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
