Originally Posted by jestbiteme

I wanted to chime in on this thread, too. I'm relatively new to hybrid ownership, but my previous vehicle was an Escape. All in all, I am very happy.

Throughout the past couple weeks, however, I noticed an intermittent dead battery. At first, I had left the lights on. I was used to the old Escape, which would depower the lights after 30 seconds. I knew that wasn't something the new car did, but it was a hard habit to break. A jump start later, and I was on my way.

Now, if I leave the car for a few days, usually over the weekend when I don't need to drive, I come back to a dead battery. During the past week when we've had below-zero temps, it wasn't unusual to come out of work to find it dead also.

I read through the forums, but I was reluctant to purchase a new 12v battery after reading that it was only responsible for powering the electronics up, not the heavy starting.

I have a few of the symptoms here: unlocking the doors leads to the car trying to charge the regenerative brakes, and there's not enough juice left over to power anything else. Advance's load tester was broken, so they couldn't check the battery; and of course Ford wants a mint to do it. I was gonna have Advance replace the battery, but the 96R they had didn't fit properly. (I expected this, after reading. At least I knew enough to tell him that the group 40 really wouldn't fit.

After reading of the successful resolutions above, I supposed I'll head down to the parts department and shell out the $119 for the Motorcraft replacement. Sigh. At least it will be nice to know my Escape will start!

Originally Posted by jestbiteme

I wanted to chime in on this thread, too. I'm relatively new to hybrid ownership, but my previous vehicle was an Escape. All in all, I am very happy.

Throughout the past couple weeks, however, I noticed an intermittent dead battery. At first, I had left the lights on. I was used to the old Escape, which would depower the lights after 30 seconds. I knew that wasn't something the new car did, but it was a hard habit to break. A jump start later, and I was on my way.

Now, if I leave the car for a few days, usually over the weekend when I don't need to drive, I come back to a dead battery. During the past week when we've had below-zero temps, it wasn't unusual to come out of work to find it dead also.

I read through the forums, but I was reluctant to purchase a new 12v battery after reading that it was only responsible for powering the electronics up, not the heavy starting.

I have a few of the symptoms here: unlocking the doors leads to the car trying to charge the regenerative brakes, and there's not enough juice left over to power anything else. Advance's load tester was broken, so they couldn't check the battery; and of course Ford wants a mint to do it. I was gonna have Advance replace the battery, but the 96R they had didn't fit properly. (I expected this, after reading. At least I knew enough to tell him that the group 40 really wouldn't fit.

After reading of the successful resolutions above, I supposed I'll head down to the parts department and shell out the $119 for the Motorcraft replacement. Sigh. At least it will be nice to know my Escape will start!

Originally Posted by rgx

I couldn't help notice you mentioned a scangauge in the first post, and also that the car sometimes is not used for a longer time. The battery might be ruined when discharged deeply, and especially if staying discharged for a longer time. For example if you use the scangauge all units will be fired up and take a lot of current. An hour or two of scangauge use will be enough to put the battery in the danger zone,