stolenmoment

I took my 2013 Energi to the local Ford dealer to get the suspension worked on, and to take care of a few other things. They did the suspension work just fine, but then the fun started. In the process of replacing my right front turn signal bulb, I had somehow disconnected the windshield washer reservoir from the pump, so I asked for them to fix that. My horn worked when it was cold outside, but not when it's warm; this smells like a loose connection somewhere. One of my tires had a one-week leak (that is, it needed more air every week). They wanted to sell me new tires. I rejected that, even though the tires are rather worn, but asked them to just fix the leak. They wanted to sell me a new horn, for a couple of hundred. They wanted another couple of hundred to replace the windshield washer. Worst, they couldn't find the leak. I can think of only three ways for them to miss the leak: the order writer assumed I'd buy new tires, so didn't ask for the fix; the tech assumed a tire sale, and didn't check; or the tech couldn't find a freakin' one-week leak. None of these instill confidence. I went to a nearby tire+repair place (a regional chain called Sullivan's), ordered four new tires (Goodyear WeatherReady, I'm tired of wheelspin in the rain), and asked them to look into the other things, giving them all the info I had (ie, just reseat all the horn connections you can reach). The result: four new tires, no charge for the other repairs. Since I plan to drive this car until it dissolves out from under me, I didn't cheap out on the tires, so perhaps Sullivan decided that the tire profit covered the other stuff. In any case, they're my go-to for everything except recalls from here on out. I heartily recommend against Acton Ford for anybody in the Boston suburbs.

I think I bought the same inflator kit that @cr08 did when I destroyed my stock one. Nice little kit, "feels" much cheaper and less solid than the stock, but it inflates faster and the auto cutoff is really nice. I got mine at the local Ace Hardware.

Shifting into Low doesn't try to keep a constant speed, the hill descent control does. Personally, I'd rather keep it in L and manage the speed with the accelerator pedal. I *think* that the loopy arrow over the battery display on the left screen is only shown when friction braking is applied, but I'm not sure about that. When you plug the charger back in, the car wakes up and checks stuff; it will go back to sleep when it's satisfied. The indicator on the lower right lights when the doors are locked. Yes, it should be a button, but it isn't. I consider it a bug that the car doesn't keep the 12v battery topped up when plugged in. If I'm going to leave my car undriven for long periods, or in cold snaps like this, I use the fob to start it occasionally, just to try to take care of the 12v. I suspect that they used those beefy cables to attach the battery because that wouldn't require a special part. At the end of each trip, the left screen briefly shows per-trip stats, including how much regen you get; I typically get about 20%. Folklore indicates that the high-voltage battery will last longer if you keep acceleration low, and use EV Later if you're going over 45mph. My 2013 Energi still has 20 miles in the HVB, so I tend to believe that. I use EV Later whenever I'm going farther than one exit on the highway, or when there are hills to be climbed; my town is sliced by a highway, it's damned convenient to use it to get to the other side of town, and I'll use the HVB for that distance.

Can you post a link? My camera looks like it stared into the Sun for too long.

Thanks! I don't have the facilities or the shoulders and knees to do it myself. I do suspect that the right rear shock mount is gone, given the nasty clatter over each bump.

My 2013 still has the original suspension, and something in the right rear has broken (wrote about this earlier), so I'm about to take it into the dealer to get all this fixed/replaced. My question is, does the car have just shocks, or does it also have McPherson struts (doesn't every car? every FWD car?), so what do I tell the clerk when I get the work done, so I don't sound like a dummy and get taken? Thanks!

The HVB is what runs the two electric motors that conspire to start the ICE and to get ICE torque to the wheels, remember? The 12v battery is just for the accessories and the power relay that lets juice out of the HVB. If the HVB is totally dead, your car is bricked. But there's a long way to go from "can't run on battery for long" and "not enough battery to start the ICE".

This *is* hybrid mode. What happens when you plug it in? Does it charge?

Remember, the guess-o-meter is based on your recent driving. If you have a lead foot, it might think that you only have eight miles of juice. Follow cr08's instructions, that will get to what you really have available.

Additionally, slowing down from highways speeds can generate a few percent of charge. My son went to college in Vermont, and it was really fun to climb the hills with gas, then charge the battery rolling downhill. You can get out of Hybrid mode this way: charge it going downhill, park it, turn it off, and when you turn it back on, it might have enough charge to go into EV Later mode, from which you can recharge as you go. I generally arrived with a fully-charged battery, even after driving in EV mode on the flats. "Recharge as you go": watch the battery percent in the Settings screen, remember what it was when you last hit EV Later. If it's higher than that, cycle the mode button three times to reset the target charge level.

The car companies are panicing because EVs have much lower repair costs than ICE vehicles, so they see the dealer+shop incomes drop accordingly, and they're reworking the warranties to keep them profitable.

Right, the cabin heater is a resistance heater and eats the battery, cuts range down by perhaps half on days like this in New England. Try the test again, as above: charge to 100% (percentage shown on the big screen), EV mode, heater off (you'll survive the chill), seat heater off, run in EV-only mode, no highways, until it drops into Hybrid, park and turn the car off. The left-hand screen will briefly show kWh used in this trip, that's your current usable battery capacity. Yes, "EV mode not available" is displayed when the battery is below the hybrid-only threshhold. The displayed range (guess-o-meter) is based on recent driving activity, so it's useless for the first couple of trips while it observes your driving style. I don't use the cabin heater on my Energi unless I have to, or if I'm going on the highway (and running the gas motor) anyway. The seat heater and gloves work just fine. But, I'm a fanatic.

My 2013 Energi's fuel pump is pretty loud, but the noise clearly comes from the back end of the car. The noise tracks the fuel consumption directly.

The dealer broke mine when they did the door latch recall work. They immediately fixed it with no fuss.

I had a similar "adventure", I managed to pull a K-turn by backing up (down the hill), but there is only the one way in to where I was going. I have alternatives, so all was not lost. Scary, trying to climb the hill, speedo says 10mph, but we're not moving.