I'm considering a FEH and am moving to Southern NH with no garage. Does anyone have experience with very cold starts and is it foolish to purchase FEH for these conditions?

I live in the boston area and southern NH is not too different than here in winter. I have an 05 HCH and have had no problems in winter with no garage. As with any car in cold weather, if you are worried about cold starts, just have an engine block heater installed and run it off a timer in the winter months.

I used to travel to northern NH in winter every weekend to ski and experienced temps from 0F to -35F but all of my non hybrid vehicles at that time had engine block heaters and I never had a problem starting.

hope this helps..

Let's move this to where it belongs.

You'll see decreased performance, but you will (and do) for all vehicles, as cold starts aren't the way to go for great fuel economy.

However, there are a lot of factors at play, how long is your commute, what are you looking for, questions like that.

One great thing about the FEH is that you get heat from the electrics, which means you get a lot of it very quickly, which is nice. In subfreezing temperatures with several feet of snow to go through, I was averaging 29-31 MPGs in an AWD FEH, take that as you will. During this nice summer, I've been averaging between 34-38 MPGs.

First 4WD Hypermiler

Have you read the FEH FAQ?

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Read My Automotive Blog at Rich Rambles

Thanks for your info. I am less concerned with lower mpg in winter than I am with starting and running under 40 on the long back road I live on, then hitting the highway (it's really not quite as fast as most highways) with a very cold engine. This will always be the case in winter & will involve identical kind of trips& conditions.

I am less than 20 miles from the NH border and if you remember last winter, during that real bad cold snap, I never had a bit of problem with either of my Escapes.

Like Rich said, mileage will suffer. This is both due to longer warm-up time for the engine as well as lower efficiency of the batteries. Even in the bitter cold, the worst tank average on either of my hybrids was around 28 mpg and that was my wife driving locally, never really getting it warmed up. For my commute to work (24 miles), I got around 30.

As for starting up and getting on the highway, I do pretty much that. It is less than 3/4 mile from my driveway to a 50 mph highway (Route 1). Even in the coldest days, by the time I get to this road I have heat. This means the engine is getting at least close to operating temperature. I still take it easy for the first mile or two. I never warm up my car - get in, belt up, start up and go. A car warms up quicker under slight load anyway and might as well get some distance out of that warmup time where your car is at it's least efficient.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you want more info.

Ray

Thanks for that. Do you keep your FEH outside as I will have to do?

One other thing about the FEH is that when you first start it up, you're driving on electric power. So it's programmed to avoid putting a load on the ICE until it's at least warmed a little and had oil circulated through it.

I do have a garage where whichever FEH my wife is currently using gets to reside. Mine is always outside. Not much of a difference anyway since the temperature in the garage is pretty close to the outside temp most of the time.


Where in NH are you moving to? I assume you are one of the millions getting out of the "great" state of MA? Lucky you!

Hi Randy

I knew the electric traction motor was draining the battery when you first start out, but I though the ICE went to max load (99%) during low FE, and the electic assist was needed. Never thought it was to take the load off the ICE for that reason. I need to put the scangauge on engine load again and check that out. Thanks for that tip.

GaryG

randykato, I am confused now. I thought when your first started up the ICE came on until it warmed up. Mine always comes on and takes a few miles till it goes EV.