I hit 5200 miles this morning on the way into work. I have had a couple of little electrical issues that dealers can't reproduce (mostly, gauges moving after the key has been removed). On Saturday, I was driving along with the climate control set to 71 degrees. It was warm out (93) and the AC was running; fan speed was pretty high (but not max) and recirc wasn't on. All of a sudden, the entire climate system stopped. Just died--but the lights indicating it was on were still lit. Then, the fan started up and it had remembered my settings. The system was off for perhaps one second. Then, on Sunday, it would not go into EV for anything. I tried the double-tap, slowing way down, starting from a stop, etc. Nothing. It eventually started working again, about 5 minutes later. Yesterday the temp was around 79 and the climate system was off (gotta take advantage of natural air conditioning!) so I don't think it was overloaded or anything.
Last Thursday it wouldn't let me fill up with gas; only let me go halfway, and then the autostop kept coming on, no matter what. (Not sure if this is related but I thought I'd just throw it out there.)
Does anybody have any ideas at all or do I need to worry that one day the car will spit green pea soup at me?

 

Last time I had a car doing bizarre electrical things was a GMC and that was back in 1989. In *that* car, the dealer also couldn't figure out what was wrong and could never reproduce the problems I experienced during normal driving. They'd go over everything, fail to reproduce a problem, and then return it to me telling me it was "fixed" (even though they didn't do a thing).

After the 3rd visit, the sales guy who sold me the car happened to see me in the waiting room and knew I had been there several times over the recent weeks and stopped to ask why I was back again. I told him about the car. He then proceeded to go back into the service department and rip the service manager a new one.

After that, they basically tore the electrical system apart (finally they did some _real_ work) and discovered that where all the wire harnesses meet at the fuse panel the connections weren't actually fully plugged in, thus all the connections were flaking out, but really the normal driving of hitting bumps on the road was required to make it happen. Parked in a service garage wouldn't reproduce the problems.

They reseated the connections and the car never had another problem for as long as I owned it.

As for your car... I have seen my own FEH decide that it didn't want to shut down the engine and go to EV mode even after the car was fully warmed up (this seems to mostly happen if I've driven at freeway-speed for long distances -- when I exit and come to a stop at the end of an exit ramp, the engine doesn't shut down, and may decide not to shut down for the next few traffic lights, but maybe after 4-5 minutes it returns to normal. Since the computer takes a lot of factors into consideration and Ford is not very specific about what these factors are, it's hard to know why the engine may not shut down & switch to EV mode. The inability to get the car to go to EV mode for five minutes *might* be normal.

As for filling the tank... you got unlucky and picked a hyper-sensitive gas pump. There's nothing in the car's computer or electrical system that controls the auto-stop of the gas pump. It's also possible you inserted the pump into the tank on an angle that didn't let the fuel fill the tank as quickly as the pump wanted -- thus creating the illusion to the pump that your tank was "full". Sometimes just re-adjusting the filler handle will do the trick.

If they can't find the electrical problems and these problems increase, better call a priest and put on rain-slickers just in case the pea-soup starts to fly! =)

Good luck!
Tim

 

The Climate controls failing followed by the EV mode failure does make sense.

It would seem that you've got a problem with the climate control system (Which is different in the '08, so I can't help you there), probably a short or a lose wiring. Because the Climate control system failed, you probably lost AC control, which means that the AC that you don't control, the one in the back for the HV Battery also wasn't functioning. On a warm day, with high use, it would probably get too hot, and ask for the HV Battery AC to come on. When it doesn't, the EV system determines that's a problem, and to protect the system, won't use EV again until it can cool itself if needed.

This has happened to a few other users, who have had problems with AC suddenly finding their EV mode won't occur. Test the AC and make sure it blows cold. Cold, not cool. If it doesn't, take it in for service ASAP. If it does, it's probably a fault, loose wiring, or something similar, and should also be looked at, but as long as the system works, you should be fine.

As to the gas issue, that has nothing to do with this, in fact, it was most likely caused by an air bubble or somesuch in the pump, not your tank. I've had it happen to me a few times in different vehicles at different times of the year. Just pump it manually. The issue, as mentioned, is entirely based on the pump, not the vehicle.

 

Yay! Another trip to the dealer. I hope this time they give me a loaner that doesn't make me want to take a shower when I get out of it.

 

nothing to add to the AC issue, I hope they can find the issue.

As for the gas issue, I would agree with Pravus. most likely the pump and nothing to do with your vehicle or the AC problem. when it gets hot outside, pumps act up. I insure a lot of gas stations and station owners complain about this all the time.