I'm with you on the continuous learning process. My two 09 FWD's have very different personalities, and yet after I drive them for a while (well after, for instance, my wife drives them) they are much more similar. I was amazed to go on a drive in my white FEH and pushed the mileage well over 40MPG with careful driving. Just after that, I got on the freeway and drove on cruise control home (very flat). At 55mph, the mileage was still around 40 (!). Typically I get around 37 at 55, so it seemed something was up. Now, my silver FEH never got as good a mileage as the white one, until recently. Both came off the dealer lot at <100 mi, so any 1000 or 3000 mi break-in period business should have been similar. But the cars are different. The white one is SMOOTH driving, the engine is well-balanced and very quiet. The silver one is much rougher running (but still quite smooth, I am nitpicking, it's just the white one drives like a Rolls Royce) and noisier. Anyway, I bought the white one first, and got around 30-31mpg in mixed driving for first 3k mi. I bought the silver one about a couple months later, and for the first 1k mi I could not get over 28mpg. I was already "trained" on the white one, so it was not a "driver break-in" issue. Anyway, the silver one is now over 3k and I'm starting to see high 30's and the occasional low 40's. I like to drive until I see a sustained 36-38mpg on the meter, then reset it so the mileage is "fresh". A few miles of averaging gets rid of the big swings in instantaneous mileage, and I drive to constantly push the number up. Once it starts changing too slowly, I reset it.

OK, sorry for the rambling, I guess my point is that my empirical experience is that my two cars act very differently, yet they change in personality depending on how I drive them, so I induce from this they somehow "learn" from my immediate driving style.

RayP

 

Relearning is continuous - always looking for the lowest idle rpm. If the engine stalls or bucks, (particularly after a highway run - then slow in the neighborhood) it will remember that and adjust for it. Different fuels can affect the performance and must be compensated for (10% ethanol for example). Changes in ambient temp can also affect the settings.

 

GeoMike,

Its taken me awhile to play with the pic I mentioned about NiMH battery lifetime. So here it is as a .jpg... see if you can open that.

Glad to provide the pedigree if needed.

 

Bill,
Thanks for digging that up.. So what denotes a "cycle life"? Is it a full 13% = one life cycle or just one discharge and recharge cycle no matter how complete? Also if I'm reading the chart right an 05,06,07 will have approx. 4000 CL's while an 08,09 only around 2800...is this about right and do partial
discharges save CL's. Also what other factors extend or reduce battery life?
Thanks
Mike

 

My experience with Pb-acid batteries is that one cycle is based on the amp-hour rating of the battery. I believe that the same will apply to the NiMH battery.

To my knowledge the amp-hour rating of this battery is 5.5. Thus one cycle is 5.5 amp-hours of discharge followed by 5.5 amp-hours of charge.

Given the small 13% band of charge-discharge selected by Ford, a cycle would take about 6 or 7 "13% cycles" across that band to equal one full battery cycle.

With the low end of the depth of discharge at 40% I believe Ford chose the band as they did to produce about an 800 to 1,000 cycle life.

In my experience with Pb-acid batteries the more you work the battery the longer the effective life. Batteries that aren't worked seem to have some chemical reactions within them that shorten their life. So I believe that working these batteries is good for them.

 

Here's some info on the FEH produced by the Dept of the Energy. Among other things it shows the battery capacity as 5.5 amp-hours.