Yes, D and L are the same physically, it's only a software difference.

In L, when your foot isn't on the accelerator, regen breaking is in effect, at any speed.

If the battery is in lockdown, then L should be meaningless, as it won't regen.

 

I know in Maryland, I have an 8 year/80,000 miles warranty on Hybrid components. But If I lived in Virginia (where I purchased my FEH) I would have a 10 year warranty. This is definitely an issue you would want to investigate.

Also with the A/C issue... I was always under the impression vehicle A/C and battery A/c were separate systems. If I am reading this correctly, it seems like they are separate systems sharing the same freon (cooling gas) - the exact type I don't remember. If this is true, I would be curious to find out where the service department had checked for leaks. Did they just check under the hood or did they check the whole vehicle to include the rear battery compartment/system?

Just my 2 cents and food for thought.

Rich

 

I believe ours is a 8 year/150,000 Km warranty.

As for where they checked for leaks, they didn't specify. But we're taking it in for some scheduled maintenance in about a week, so I'll be getting them to check to see if it is where they left it, or if the level has gone down at all due to a leak they hadn't found. It still seems very strange to me that they couldn't find a leak at all, yet it was completely empty. Makes me question what had happened to it prior to us purchasing it.

 

Hmmm. Does loss of A/C cause loss of both EV and charging, or only charging? I understand that the battery will tend to get hot and not be further charged, but will the system even prevent a hot battery that can't be cooled from providing power assist when it still has the juice to do so?

 

When it was too hot and could not be cooled due to lack of A/C, we could NOT go into EV, we'd be sitting at lights or stuck in traffic with the ICE running. During some of those times I'd be able to charge, and have some assist, but when it got worse (hotter), we had no EV, no assist when putting our foot on the gas (which from starting it puttered and jerked before slowly accelerating), and no charging.

 

You had no EV even when the battery had a good charge?

 

That is correct. In the morning after things had cooled down, we'd be able to go into EV, we'd charge up, and in the afternoon and evening when things heated up, we'd have NO EV... And we'd charge up the battery, or it claimed to be charging (with the charge gauge) and we wouldn't get EV again until the morning after things cooled down.

 

Sounds like everything functioned as it should have with no A/C.

Both charging and dis-charging heats up the battery.
Since the HV battery is used to START the car, it won't shut down (go to EV) at stoplights if the battery is too hot.

There is one belt driven AC compressor under the hood.
There is one refridgerant 134a system.
There are two "loops" and two cooling evaporators, one for dash, one for battery.
There is a valve that sends refridgerant one way, both ways, or neither.

BTW... about 92'F is "too hot" for the battery and will require A/C from the first turn of the key if you park in the sun, etc.

-John

 

The only thing that I'm not convinced 'functioned as it should have' that I forgot to mention earlier, is that the only indication that something was wrong was the lost functionality (and no A/C of course). When the shop foreman took the car for a ride to experience what was happening (we're lucky it exhibited some of the behaviour as it was early morning and we'd only been driving for half an hour), he kept saying that he was shocked that nothing was lighting up on the dash saying there was a problem.

I agree with him on this and think that if the system has cut off the ability to use the battery due to overheating and it has sensed that it can't cool the rear of the car, there might be some indication that there is a problem and it should be serviced. Maybe they couldn't reliably determine this type of problem and that's why nothing lights up, but it would be nice.

Maybe this is just more reason to get a scanguage.

 

I encounterd this same prob when my coolent pump on the electrical system broke 3 weeks back. Other than the fans staying on in ev mode, i had no idea anything was wrong untill my engine started to overheat. I ended up getting it towed to the dealership, they hooked up they dianostic tool and got a code right away, ordered the part and fixed it the next day. After i got it back thought the fan was still on. took it back in and we could not find the problem (no codes) only to find out that the fuse blew when the pump broke. it worries us that the escape did not register a code for the fuse.