Russael

Got my car back. The car apparently forgot how to remote start itself, so they wound up reprogramming a couple modules. Works again. They also performed the seatbelt pretensioner recall. The transmission was covered under the powertrain warranty (5 years) so I don't know exactly how expensive that repair would've been... but if someone had to pay out of pocket for it, I'd assume 680 just in labor (8.5 hour job and labor rates are around 80/hr or higher). I literally have an entire sheet of parts that they wound up having to install plus alignment... all just for redoing the sealant. Totally insane. If it had to fall under the Premiumcare, just the labor charge would've paid for it.

I definitely want a BEV of some sort, but I also want one that has a charging infrastructure in place. So far, only Tesla has that. They're also the only domestic auto maker that offers AWD on their vehicles (a must in winter... but then again, I do have the 4wd Expedition, but it is on the table of selling it). Every BEV/Hybrid domestically is FWD only, unless you want a used Hybrid Escape. The other option is getting a 2WD BEV and keeping the truck around just for winter... which is kind of what I'm doing right now anyway. Some beefs I have with Tesla is they won't support a person who fixes their own cars. There's a guy on YouTube who bought several salvage Model S cars (flooded/wrecked, etc), and built a fully working one. Total investment? 6500 bucks. However, because he went the do it yourself route, he has zero support. He can't get the Tesla app going, and when he called Tesla themselves, as soon as they looked up the VIN of his car, they instantly closed down and said, "Sorry, we can't help you. Anything else?" So it seems like even post warranty, you'll be stuck dealing solely with Tesla. Be nice if they had a monthly warranty plan or something. So... I'm voting Tesla. Aside from that one gripe, I do like the company, their vision, etc. And their warranty support is excellent. It'll be a looooong time before I can afford one though. I'd be inclined to keep the Fusion if an upgraded battery comes about in say, 10 years.

I had taken it in and they said the transmission bolts had worked themselves a little loose, so they torqued back to spec. Fast forward to a couple days ago... dropped the car off for the remote start going on the fritz again and I asked them to check the transmission. Lo and behold, it is leaking still. SO, they now have a 10+ hour job ahead of them and a boatload of parts to install. I will be forever grateful to the Ford ESP. I'm sure this job will have made the ESP cover itself two or three times what I paid in to it. I will NEVER buy a new car without an ESP. I always seem to have the big problems in the 4th year. My Expo had its fair share of huge repairs covered by its ESP too.

The Focus Electric is now limited to certain states. 2018MY Focus Electric is a limited production model sold in select states CA/CT/MA/MD/ME/NJ/NY/OR/RI/VT) at Ford EV Certified Dealers.

Bear in mind, if you think you're going to cruise around using only that 150w heater, you need to realize that your car will fog up something fierce if you're not bringing in fresh air. And that little 150w isn't going to keep you warm with the window cracked either. I sometimes will turn recirculate on when running the heater, especially when first hopping in, at least right up until the windows start fogging, then I turn off recirculate and let it run as normal. You're more than welcome to try it; it's only a 13 dollar investment from what the price says.

Have you tried the reboot trick yet?

Figured I'd tack on to this old thread. My FCIM appears to have flipped me the bird again in regards to my remote start. Ding dong, remote start is dead. All climate options in the left instrument cluster screen are once again grayed out and not selectable. I can "start" the car... all lights come on and I can hear the fan, but it remains an icebox. I use a combination of Go Times and remote start, so having remote start not work is annoying. Last fix was replacing FCIM. Looks like I'm headed that way again. Tried pulling negative battery cable to reboot the car, no dice. Seems to lasted a little less than 2 years for me. Yay for PremiumCARE extended warranty.

I personally use Mobil 1 Extended Performance full synthetic with their oil filter. Been using it in the truck for years (prior to that was Valvoline full synthetic) and have put that in the car. Since the car is likely to go 2 years between oil changes, figured I'd get an oil that will go at least a year. If you get it in the 5 quart jug, it isn't a bad deal.

So a roundabout 438 bucks for 10 months worth of usage. 44/mo, give or take. That's actually not as bad as I thought. My natural gas is mildly expensive. Worst bill I never had was 200+ bucks for one month (first year of ownership before I realized how unbelievably drafty the house was), but average wintertime gas bill floats around 70/mo. I now put plastic in my windows to stop drafts, usually have the temp about 72F. I put a bunch of extra insulation in the attic to help. During the summer months, it floats around 20 - 25 bucks a month. My electric bill goes way up in the winter too. Anyway, thanks for that information. Since I won't have anywhere near as many appliances running on any form of gas, the supply should last considerably longer.

Gaaaaaah propane. At my current home, I have natural gas and I've really been on the fence about propane for a home (especially if I locate land where that service is not available). The only two appliances that I plan on being fueled by something other than electricity is my stove and furnace (some kind of gas for both). The solar array I'm thinking of does not have onboard inverters to the panels but has a very large, or two medium sized, inverters that the panels feed in to. Service comes in one side, solar comes in another, batteries a third, and output the fourth. May wind up being a touch more expensive, but I'll investigate it more once I'm ready for buying/building. Gotta ask - how long does your propane supply last, especially considering you have a lot of appliances that consume it? And how expensive is it to refill?

I think they can do it with some kind of automatic switch. When power goes out, it'll just disconnect the mains and the batteries will power the house. I may lose power for a few seconds, but that's OK. Actually, I think the inverter does it automatically. Sounds like your system is a bit different. I was going to have 2 really big inverters but it sounds like your panels have built in units. What appliances do you have that run on electricity vs gas? IE, is your stove gas or electric? Hot water tank? Furnace? Clothes dryer, etc?

Did you have to get your roof reinforced when you had your PV system installed? I've read somewhere that around 75% of existing homes cannot support the added weight. In maybe 5 years, I'm going to be looking for a new, larger home, and if things go well, I'd like to be able to build and I wholly intend on putting in a huge solar array, around 22kw. Maybe add a couple Tesla Wall packs so I can run off of batteries during the night and not draw anything from the grid (it will still be grid-tied though).

I'm a pretty big supporter of vehicle extended warranties by the manufacturer. My first vehicle that I had bought, a 1999 Expedition (which I still have), paid for the warranty probably 3 or 4 times over. SO much stuff wore out prematurely, or cooked itself, or went defective for no apparent reason. For my 2013 Fusion Energi, I purchased a 7 year, 60k mile warranty from Flood Ford for about 770. Since it is a genuine Ford warranty, it can be used nationwide. I've already taken advantage of the factory warranty several times. But now I'm on the extended one. Now, I don't like 3rd party extended warranties... I get an ad in the mail probably once every quarter telling me my factory warranty is expired. To be fair, I've never actually bought or used one, nor know anybody who has.

I wasn't going to say anything about engine parameters since it relearns it anyway, and isn't something that is really noticeable, like the clock. I have not had any issues removing my battery terminal twice before. Had my MFM modem lock up a couple times plus I had my radio front control panel lock up on me before. Killing power to the car and leaving it sit for a few minutes and reconnecting it hasn't had any detrimental effects for me, and so far from the countless others who have done the same thing (mostly for the MFM modem) haven't mentioned frying anything. Yet. You could always consult the manual and try pulling a fuse instead, but it's difficult to reach. The panel under your steering wheel pops away and reveals a small hole on the left side that you can look through to see the fuse panel, but you have to reach under the dash to get to it.

Haven't seen that really fix much (it'll knock out your Myford Mobile registration and basically reset the whole headunit back to factory, but the module itself doesn't reboot or lose power. Like your PC, the radio is run by a computer and sometimes those lock up or exhibit oddball behavior. Removing the negative battery cable won't knock out anything except your clock, and it will cause the module itself to lose power and reboot once power is reapplied. It's up to you though.

Could still try the reboot with the negative battery cable. Doesn't cost you anything except a little inconvenience.

Does the front panel still work? Touchscreen? If only the steering wheel control doesn't work, then a wire may have been severed or the switch quit working... but you said it does work with the phone still. If none of it works, try "rebooting" the radio by removing your negative battery cable from your 12v (in the trunk, drivers side, behind a carpeted door) for a few minutes and then reconnecting it. As the I.T. crowd says, "Did you try turning it off and on again?"

If you want to run your A/C (and I do), I always use recirculate. Why? Then it doesn't have to work nearly as hard to keep the cabin comfortable. It doesn't have to try to cool outside air to your set temperature. It can be 95 degrees outside and after maybe 5 minutes, the cabin is comfortable and then the A/C idles around maybe 500 watts. 500 watts is minuscule in the long run. If you're so worried about the initial high drain, run the ICE until it catches up, and then switch back. Or run it while plugged in (in to 240) with go times or remote start. It usually only costs me a couple miles in range. However, if the temp outside is comfortable to me, I don't run climate. And I do run the heat in the winter. I went 1 winter without it and I won't be doing that again.

Weather-tech makes a variety of vehicle protectant items, including sunshades. They want about 50 bucks for the 2017 Fusion sunshield. It is also reversible to try to help prevent frost buildup too. I've asked for a set of weather-tech floor liners for my birthday.

They do 16A at 240V. You can put a bigger EVSE in your garage if you choose, but the most the Energi models will draw is 16A.

That's so bizarre. I wouldn't think the brake system was "brake by wire" like the accelerator pedal is. There should still be a physical connection between the brake pedal and the master cylinder. I will say, that if the brake booster goes, it becomes extremely difficult to stop a car. My other vehicle needed a tow and wouldn't start due to a bad fuel pump, but when we put it in neutral to maneuver it for the tow truck, we were on a slight decline, so the truck rolled backwards slowly, and literally standing on the brakes felt like it did absolutely nothing, and we nearly rolled in to traffic. If they can't find the problem, I'd insist that they replace everything having to do with the brake system (except the calipers, pads, lines, etc). I'd get after them about every sensor, master cylinder, brake booster, so on and so forth having to do with that system, or I'd threaten to hold them responsible next time the system fails and you wind up crashing. That is a massive safety issue.

Took it on the freeway again, same conditions... accelerated at about 80%, no problem. Pushed it to the floor, no problem. Took it up to 80, no problem. Next step is to pull the engine cover off and check the plug and coil pack. If all is good there... may have just been a fluke. I've seen weirder!

Code was stored... cylinder 3 misfire. Very strange... I didn't notice if the engine stumbled when that happened, but it ran smoothly aside from the heavy acceleration (and when the RPM went way up). I'll have to keep an eye on it and maybe pull the spark plug and check to make sure the coil isn't loose.

Well, I've had my first unusual, significant concern with my ride. 26k miles on it, bought new 2013. In general, I've never had a problem with the car aside from some annoyances, such as having the FCIM take a crap on me. Replace, update, done. Calibrations are all up to date. I have never put the car under heavy acceleration before today. Was at a rest stop with 2 lanes of traffic closed, so not much of a re-entry ramp. I saw an opening, hit the gas while in EV Later mode (about 80% of wide open, didn't even reach the yellow part of the power meter), got up to about 35MPH and heard the engine RPMs go way up while feeling the car reduce acceleration speed, and had the MIL or check engine light start flashing at me. I had too much traffic behind me and no place to pull off so I continued to accelerate to speed. No warnings about stopping safely, etc. Once I hit the needed speed (for me, 65MPH), the ICE returned to normal RPMs, and it behaved as normal. After a few cycles of hybrid and having the ICE alternate between EV and running, the MIL went dark, which took about 3 minutes. This was all in EV Later. I'm sort of wondering if the battery was reaching the bottom threshold of hybrid, so therefore it came out of power depletion mode while under heavy acceleration. That would explain the reduction in power... however... it doesn't explain the flashing MIL. I'm going to try pulling codes from it tomorrow and see if anything is stored. I was reluctant to try it again since I was about 90 miles from home, but now that I am home, I'm going to wind up destroying my driving score to try to get it to do that again. If it does, off to the dealership I go. Yay for a 5 year powertrain warranty and Ford Premiumcare. The car has been babied... usually no more than 2 1/2 bars of acceleration... ECO cruise used... never really travel faster than 65. I love the car and I know and understand issues happen. Now the fun part of trying to get it to do it again, especially while in dealership hands.

If you've tried your EVSE in multiple places with the same faults, the problem lies with the unit. You can replace it with another Ford one, or you can buy a 3rd party one, such as ones offered by Clipper Creek. If your car is still within the factory bumper to bumper, then the unit should be covered. I don't believe the EVSE is treated as an accessory - it is a part of the car and comes with the car. It isn't a dealer add-on or anything like that.