2010 Hybrid Questions

[wec2it]

Greetings Forum Members,

 

My name is Jim, and I live in Houston and bought a new 2010 FFH... I have been very happy with the car, and was getting great fuel mileage, city commute in traffic each direction is 16 miles, and the temperatures have been in excess of 100 deg daily with high humidity. I am avg about 32 mpg with heavy AC use.

 

The car only has about 3K miles on it and I am having high engine RPM on acceleration, like the engine is revving but not accelerating to match the RPM . The best way to describe the problem is it reminds me of a clutch slipping on a std transmission front wheel drive car.. (I had one of those when I was younger) I took it to Joe Myers Ford to have the first service performed and have them check out the problem...

 

After keeping the car for three day, all they could report was that the transmission was checked, and was found to be shifting properly, which I found funny, because it doesn't shift... The problem has gotten worse and I am in search of a Houston Ford Dealer that has experience with the new technology..

 

I am curious if anyone else has experienced the issue I am having?

[rfruth]

Hey there Jim, nice car (grin) the owners manual says "vehicle speed. your vehicle’s engine and transmission are designed to deliver the power you need at the most efficient engine speed. During heavy accelerations, your hybrid may reach high engine speeds (up to 6000 RPM). This is characteristic of the Atkinson cycle engine technology helping to maximize your hybrid’s fuel economy." (not sure if this is what your experiencing) - anyway I shopped Joe Myers Ford but ended up at Tomball Ford (not for service dept reasons )(((if you find a good service center let me know !)))) I walked thru the Tomball Ford service dept (Spring Cypress @ 249) ....

[lrymal]

I am curious if anyone else has experienced the issue I am having?

Jim, this is normal... You don't have the gearing of the "old days". There is no 1st-rev up, 2nd-rev up, 3rd-rev up, etc. The gasoline motor is strictly an on-load propulsion unit, delivering power, at whatever RPM it deems necessary.

 

Try this. Sit in your driveway with the air conditioning running for several minutes, obviously with the car in park. More than likely, the motor itself is OFF, not running. Now, without changing anything, slowly press the accelerator and observe how everything behaves, including several full-throttle accelerations. Definitely is a different world!

[Fusion10]

Jim, this is normal... You don't have the gearing of the "old days". There is no 1st-rev up, 2nd-rev up, 3rd-rev up, etc. The gasoline motor is strictly an on-load propulsion unit, delivering power, at whatever RPM it deems necessary.

 

Try this. Sit in your driveway with the air conditioning running for several minutes, obviously with the car in park. More than likely, the motor itself is OFF, not running. Now, without changing anything, slowly press the accelerator and observe how everything behaves, including several full-throttle accelerations. Definitely is a different world!

 

 

give us a hint. What kind of behavior we should expect to see?

Wouldn't the engine be running because A/C probably almost drained the HV battery due to the A/C running for several minutes?

[lrymal]

give us a hint. What kind of behavior we should expect to see?

Wouldn't the engine be running because A/C probably almost drained the HV battery due to the A/C running for several minutes?

If the battery is charged up (half-way mark or higher), then the A/C will run easily for five minutes without the ICE. When the ICE kicks in, it doesn't run long at all. Maybe a minute, if that.

 

Regarding pressing the accelerator while at park. You press about 1/3rd--nothing. Press a bit more--NOTHING. Press about half-way, and the ICE kicks in, at very low RPM. It is probably annoyed. You floor it to the metal, and it might stretch and yawn and give a few RPMs, but depending on the battery charge, not much. You definitely have to think outside the box with the hybrid.

[Oman]

The computer adapts the ICE RPM and torque response based on past driving. What you might be experiencing is the fact that if you need lots of power (like passing traffic on the HWY) you will likely notice that the next time you accelerate hard the ICE will wind up much faster and stay there longer. Once you have spent and hour or two on a country road, it seems to take longer for the ICE to wind up and will will come right back down again.

 

The other thing that people notice is that the ICE RPM will stay high longer when under load than with a standard transmission. If instead of listening to the engine RPM you watch the speedo you will see that there is somewhat of an illusion created... your brain has been trained to hear the engine RPM and translate that to a speed until there is a noticeable shift in gears. With the eCVT the ICE will stay pretty constant while the speed is still increasing. Some people have reported that it is pretty easy to speed in the FFH because they actually have to LOOK (imagine that) at the speedo.

 

If there was a problem with MG1 providing enough counter-torque to drop the output RPMs then the ICE would wind up too high, but my guess is that the computer would catch that right away and give you an engine light.

 

Jon

 

 

If the battery is charged up (half-way mark or higher), then the A/C will run easily for five minutes without the ICE. When the ICE kicks in, it doesn't run long at all. Maybe a minute, if that.

 

Regarding pressing the accelerator while at park. You press about 1/3rd--nothing. Press a bit more--NOTHING. Press about half-way, and the ICE kicks in, at very low RPM. It is probably annoyed. You floor it to the metal, and it might stretch and yawn and give a few RPMs, but depending on the battery charge, not much. You definitely have to think outside the box with the hybrid.

[jeff_h]

If the battery is charged up (half-way mark or higher), then the A/C will run easily for five minutes without the ICE. When the ICE kicks in, it doesn't run long at all. Maybe a minute, if that.

 

Don't get too wrapped up in when the ICE will or will not come on when it comes to charge level of the HEV, I was sitting in the car for an hour the other day recording CDs into the jukebox and sometimes the HEV charge would go down to approx 25% (that's how it looked) and run for a minute or two, and other times it would come on a couple minutes later when the charge level had not dropped hardly at all. So there are more things going on behind the scenes as to when the ICE needs to run, I don't know the various conditions but I think there are considerations other than just the HEV charge level.

[wec2it]

I guess when posting I wasn't clear that this was a problem that started when the car hit 3,000 miles on the odometer, and the mpg dropped. My first trip on the road driving an avg speed of 65 mph, and when I filled up, I calculated about 51.7 MPG... I made the exact same trip and only avg about 37 mpg... the only difference was the outside temperature was much hotter.. but I didn't expect the mileage to drop that much...

 

Never the less, I LOVE THE CAR, and am very glad I made the jump to Hybrid...

 

I will continue to explore the cause of the lower fuel economy, and change in the gas engine performance.

[rlawson4]

I have found that my mileage is better with the A/C set at 60 but the fan no higher than level 2. The mileage is better than if the A/C is on full blast but the temperature set higher.

[Oman]

The compressor is variable speed. I get the best mileage by setting the A/C to auto and then recirculate once the cabin is cooler than the outside air. The system seems pretty darn smart about managing for the best efficiency if you let it.

 

As far as the initial post, it is also possible you got some low-quality gas in the tank. The Atkinson cycle engine seems to be pretty sensitive to gas quality. And - did you know that gas blends (seasonal and emission requirements) can change the total energy contained in a gallon of gasoline by up to 10%! Here in Minnesota we have several blends through the year. The ICE has sensors that let it adapt to the gas that currently being used, with the appropriate gain or loss in power.

 

 

Jon

 

 

I have found that my mileage is better with the A/C set at 60 but the fan no higher than level 2. The mileage is better than if the A/C is on full blast but the temperature set higher.

[rfruth]

This is a semi un-related question - does the ICE have a mechanical (belt driven) or electric water pump (if belt driven how does the ICE stay cool when its shuts down at stop lights etc) ?

[akirby]

This is a semi un-related question - does the ICE have a mechanical (belt driven) or electric water pump (if belt driven how does the ICE stay cool when its shuts down at stop lights etc) ?

 

How does it stay cool parked in your driveway overnight? If it's not running, it isn't generating heat, thus there is nothing to cool.

[wec2it]

The AC cools when the ICE is not on... as to the question about bad fuel, the problem I reference started a while back... several tanks of gas, so I do not contribute the issue or lower MPG to gas type... When I bought the car the dealer told me that after my first scheduled maint (which occured about two weeks ago) that my MPG would get noticable better, but that is not the case..

 

Same driving conditions, working to get best MPG by the practices everyone discusses (with the exception of not using AC) just to darn hot in Houston this time of year....

 

I just finished an online survey from Ford, and I expressed the problems I am having, I am waiting to see if I get a email, or call from someone that can help me out....

[Oman]

I would keep after the dealer. Ask to talk to the regional service manager. I'm an engineer and programmer by trade (so I get the mechanical and computer side of this stuff) but I am not a mechanic. I think all we are saying here is that there are differences in the way the car drives and often people mistake that for a problem. You on the other hand have been driving the car for a while so I would think you would have gotten used to how it drives and now you can tell there is a difference. I wasn't sure how long you had been driving since the service so there was no way to know if it was one or more tanks of gas.

 

What the dealer should have said is that the mileage should get better over time. There is no real reason the 1st service (which is nothing but an oil change and check of everything) should itself improve mileage. There is certainly no reason it should get worse.

 

The A/C compressor is driven by a high-voltage AC motor. It does not directly get power from the ICE. It reduces mileage in two ways. 1) It uses some reclaimed power that could have gone to the traction motor. 2) If the battery does not have enough power to run the A/C then the ICE will run in reduction mode (with MG1 acting as a generator) which runs the ICE when you might have not needed it and will suck a bit of power from it when accelerating.

 

When I have the A/C on I don't notice any difference in the available acceleration power of the car (there must be some drop but I can't tell). Just a drop in mileage of a few MPG. We have not had the real heat here this year yet so I am only seeing a drop of a couple of MPGs when I use the A/C.

 

Even though the A/C is not belt driven and they used electric power steering I think they still went with a belt driven water pump, which seems odd to me. The 2010 Prius has lost the belt entirely. There is a fair bit of energy lost in the belt and pulleys.

 

 

Just an odd thought - I wonder if they screwed up and used the wrong viscosity motor oil?

 

 

Jon

 

 

The AC cools when the ICE is not on... as to the question about bad fuel, the problem I reference started a while back... several tanks of gas, so I do not contribute the issue or lower MPG to gas type... When I bought the car the dealer told me that after my first scheduled maint (which occured about two weeks ago) that my MPG would get noticable better, but that is not the case..

 

Same driving conditions, working to get best MPG by the practices everyone discusses (with the exception of not using AC) just to darn hot in Houston this time of year....

 

I just finished an online survey from Ford, and I expressed the problems I am having, I am waiting to see if I get a email, or call from someone that can help me out....

[rfruth]

How does it stay cool parked in your driveway overnight? If it's not running, it isn't generating heat, thus there is nothing to cool.

 

there are no heat soak issues while parked in my driveway (okay one)

[FFHdriver]

there are no heat soak issues while parked in my driveway (okay one)

Not exactly a reply but a question. When airing my tires with a 12v air compressor should I do it with the engine off or running? Should take about 20 minutes. Always ran the engine on my non-hybride to keep from pulling the battery down. Idling the electric motor that long might not be a good thing to do ?????? TIA

[jlindblo]

I was sitting in the car for an hour the other day recording CDs into the jukebox

 

Jeff ..... not trying to hijack the thread or anything but when you record CDs to the jukebox does it pick up the artist and track title? Mine doesn't and I'm trying to figure out how. I know I can enter manually but I'm thinking it should act the same way my computer does.

[pacsai]

There's a button in the media menu (either CD/DVD or Jukebox) that will update the Gracenote data for a selected album; have you tried that yet?

 

Kim

[jeff_h]

Jeff ..... not trying to hijack the thread or anything but when you record CDs to the jukebox does it pick up the artist and track title? Mine doesn't and I'm trying to figure out how. I know I can enter manually but I'm thinking it should act the same way my computer does.

 

OK we will keep it to a short hijacking. I also did not get the gracenote CD info, not until I pulled out of the garage and the system could reach out to the server somewhere and get the info back. So make sure you are parked in a place that has reception.