Sudden reduction of ice threshold / loss of EV power.

[openair]

Starting this past fall I've notice an intermittent reduction of the ice threshold from 4 bars to 3.75 bars. Passed it off as cold weather. However as the weather warm up this is becoming more consistent and severe.

 

Couple times between 1 and 3 km remaining of EV range the ice threshold would drop to ~3 bars and gradually recover with no change in speed or other driving. Sometimes the transition from 1km or 0km to hybrid mode has the ice threshold instantly crash to 2 bars rather than gradually.

 

This morning on my way into work the ice threshold crashed from 4 bars to less than 2 bars with 5 km or ~15+% remaining of the EV range. It then gradually recovered and crashed again a short time later. It did this two or three times within 5 minutes.

 

Likely symptoms of one or more damage HVB cells.

[Russael]

I believe it may be more likely that a temperature sensor is going bad, or possibly a cooling fan is going bad.  Usually in warmer weather, a power reduction before ICE kick-in is to protect the pack from heat.

[openair]

Maybe, but we're talking relatively warmer. 5 to 15C instead of -5c. It also is unlikely that it thinks it is overheating more often during the transition from EV to hybrid mode than any other time as well. There was also a week or so of 20+c weather as well with less issue. Or only think it is overheating enough that limiting it to 3.75 would have a meaningful affect.

 

Also, at least in the case of when it dropped to 3 bars, the ice never engaged, there was no reduction in actually power requested from the HVB, so no opportunity for it to cool at all.

 

Warmer on the way home this afternoon. No sudden drop in EV power.

Edited May 2, 2016 at 10:58 PM by openair

[openair]

Again this morning. 7c. Multiple sudden drops of the ice threshold within 3 minutes. Dropped to between 2.25 and 3 bars and gradually recovered with no changes in speed or power demand. First time since Monday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were warmer with no issue.

 

Dealership said Monday they wanted to talk to the hotline first. Called again this morning, 4 days later, and they're still waiting to hear anything from the hot line. I get quicker responses for technical support for free apps on my phone or PC. I get quicker support for every other product I've ever needed technical support for in my life and none of those cost anywhere near $35k.

 

'But $35k means more complex.' The dealership and hotline aren't even going back and forth on simple things like maybe it overheated. Maybe it's a sensor. Just nothing.

Edited May 6, 2016 at 01:01 PM by openair

[murphy]

This is only going to get worse as cars become more computerized.  The dealer doesn't want to spend the time and money to train his employees so they rely on detailed instructions from the "Hot Line" to tell them what to do.  I suppose they are afraid that if they do train an employee to be an expert a competing dealer will hire him away at a higher salary.

[openair]

I think the dealership has been busy this week and were using the hotline as an excuse. They returned with reset the lifetime summary, check under the leaf icon on the touch screen for KWs at 100% charge and advice about how the DTE range on the battery icon works.

 

I pointed out the 2014s don't have a life time summary, the touch screen lists KWs no where and that I never said anything about the DTE range or anything of the sort.

Edited May 6, 2016 at 10:11 PM by openair

[openair]

Again this morning the ice threshold dropped to 3 bars and gradually recovered. Twice within 3 minutes. It was 4c. The return trip home yesterday afternoon at 23c showed no issues. If the sensors are going bad such that the battery thinks that it is overheating when this occurs, they're going bad in such a way that it only affects them between 4 and 7C.

 

It seems more likely to me that the ~5c drop in temp during my 80km commute combined with the charging from EV later for the middle of the trip is leading to more cell variance than the bms is use to dealing with. It never use to have issues with this kind of temperature variance though so I believe this indicates a bad cell.

Edited May 7, 2016 at 10:31 AM by openair

[openair]

Again this morning it crashed to 3 bars. Took it straight to the dealer but running on EV later to get there and the temps warming up had the HVB charge 4% by the time I got there and showed slightly different behaviour. Showed the tech the instant drop to 1.8 bars during the transition to hybrid mode and return to 4 bars upon breaking a couple times. Tech also confirmed he got those instructions that cannot apply to my vehicle from the hotline.

 

Also noticed something else weird. Pressing the drive mode toggle with the Hybrid portion of the battery at about 95% had the vehicle switch between auto, now and later, the battery icon return to the 3d icon with 0km and the touch screen display change from 0% to 2%. Idk I've ever tried pushing the toggle at this specific a state of charge but once it changes to the hybrid battery icon and shows 0% on the touch screen the toggle should not work. The touch screen should definitely not have the state of change jump 2% for no reason other than the toggle being pushed. Can some else try to reproduce this please?

[openair]

The dealer had the vehicle since Tuesday. They received instructions from the hotline to gather some data. They gathered this data at much warmer temps then when the issue occurs and did not attempt to reproduce the driving conditions (EV later use) leading to the issue. They also did not even try to reproduce the engine vibrating noise at similar temps they agreed may point to a shared component that may be the true cause. The conclusion from the hotline that they did not even attempt to argue even after I told them it did not behave this way in the much cooler weather this winter is that the threshold should drop during cooler weather. I'm done wasting my time and money with this vehicle and ford.

 

The threshold should drop in the winter, in the much colder weather. It did the first winter I owned the vehicle. It did not behave the same all this winter, as it did the first. It remained at four bars almost the entire winter. The same trip at 1-3C recently had no issues. The bar remained at 4 while the EV range depleted from 100 to 0.

Edited May 19, 2016 at 10:53 PM by openair

[openair]

18c this morning. Exact same issue. Obviously not the cold. Way to stand by your product ford.

 

I've been told by a friend of a friend who works for a ford dealership, who at first thought they could help me, that I have been flagged as a repeat caller and will receive shitty service no matter which dealership I try.

Edited May 26, 2016 at 01:44 PM by openair

[Hybridbear]

Again this morning. 7c. Multiple sudden drops of the ice threshold within 3 minutes. Dropped to between 2.25 and 3 bars and gradually recovered with no changes in speed or power demand. First time since Monday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were warmer with no issue.

Have you considered avoiding EV Auto & instead only using EV Now & EV Later as a way to avoid this?

[openair]

I will try this next time but believe it won't really avoid anything and will simply cause the issue to manifest with the enable engine pop up appearing at 2 or 3 bars instead.

[openair]

Again this morning. 19c. Switching to EV now after the threshold has fallen gives engine enabled for system performance (while the ice doesn't actually run) and the brown EV icon. Will try to see what happens if it is already in EV now when the issue occurs next.

 

Last night, 24c, accelerating from a stop the ice came on instantly. Had been very light all electric driving, with a majority of the time spent stopped at red lights. The ice continued to run in warm up so was unable to check the threshold behaviour. I definitely did not press the pedal hard enough that it would have passed even three bars.

 

I'm thinking something at least thinks it is overheating or it's a condensation and electrical issue (been intermittently having to reinsert the navigation SD card as well. Dealership said there were lost communication DTCs listed for this when they checked my vehicle but refused to look into it).

Edited May 27, 2016 at 01:18 PM by openair

[openair]

At 29c I was able to reproduce this by accelerating at 3.5 to 4 bars for about 90 seconds. When this occurs in EV now the pop up engine enabled for system performance appears instead of the usual press ok to enable engine. So it appears that something at least thinks it is overheating at temps ranging from 5c, 9c, 18c and 29c.

 

I say overheating while the hot line said cold because my understanding and prior experience is the limiting of the ice threshold behaves differently for hot and cold. Over heating the ice threshold behaves as described in this thread. For the cold, and this is what I experienced the first winter with this vehicle, the ice threshold will fall to about 2 bars after 2 miles of driving and then remain there for the rest of the trip. It does not gradually recover as it does in the heat.

 

If this is correct then it does appear that the temp sensors are malfunctioning. Can someone please confirm this before I try to overcome my "repeat caller" flag with a new dealership?

[openair]

Same thing this morning. 17c. Doesn't so much temp related as driving conditions. The manual states the touch screen power flow screen should show hybrid drive due to high/low temp if this were the cause.

 

http://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/749-hybrid-motor-on-due-to-battery-temp/page-2

 

This thread has an owner experiencing aa somewhat similar situation. A change in the behaviour of how the vehicle drives related to available power from the traction battery. He does get this temp message on the power flow screen though. The dealership and hotline stated it was normal. A zone manager was condescending about the issue. Yet they still in the end found a DTC related to charging system cooling performance that was only found after the dealership reproduce the issue. A repair was performed.