Dreaded wrench Light (Service Engine Soon)
 

Well,

About 3 weeks ago I got the non-recall recall work done and have throughly enjoyed driving my FEH since--until tonight.:angry:

I was pulling out of a parking space in EV when the car just died. Yellow Wrench light came on, service engine soon. Pushed the pedal to the floor...ICE did not turn on. Managed to milk the little momentum (all 3mph) to get the FEH to the side of the drive thru lane. Cars honking all the while.:omg:

Turned the key off....waited 5 seconds and back on. Wrench light and warning tone on startup, but ICE did start. Msg ctr said "svc regen braking". In order to avoid problems, I put the car HVAC in defrost mode to prevent EV and began to head home.

Very sluggish...strange sounds the whole way. ICE almsot sounded like it was missing or something. Rough idle. Absolutely no regen braking(needle did not move).

Once I got home, turned car off, waited 30 min and went out to check. Car started and acted completely normal. Drove about 10mi close to home. No indication of any problems.:confused:

Syatem check on the msg ctr came up clean. weird.

I put this in a seperate thread b/c in my case there was no high idle...in fact ICE would not turn on at all. (vs. cases where ICE revs high, but no power). This almost had the sensation of no gas and a dead EV battery.

Nate

Re: Dreaded wrench Light (Service Engine Soon)
 

Update: drove 30mi to work today. FeH completely normal. Not a hint of a problem. Will keep everyone updated. not planning on taking it to the dealer unless problem reappears or I get closer to the 3yr pt (Feb 08).

Does anyone know how long the OBD will "keep" a trouble code?

Nate

Re: Dreaded wrench Light (Service Engine Soon)
 

Its a certain number of "restarts" I've been told. Frankly I'd take it to the dealer long enough to see if they can read a code from it.

Re: Dreaded wrench Light (Service Engine Soon)
 

It depends on the DTC. Some it will keep indefinitely, some only if the problem exists for a certain amount of time, and some after cycling the key. Do you have a scangauge or some other code reader? I have had the service brake system and stop safely now messages, but never did see a code and they went away with key cycling. A misfire code stayed until I cleared it, and has not returned, although the PIDs still have values that it saw during the misfire.

Re: Dreaded wrench Light (Service Engine Soon)
 

Update: One week, 350mi later....not a hint of a problem. FEH "behaving" as normal in daily commute. EV still very aggressive and smoother ICE transition following "recall" work. Two tanks ~31.4mpg. Really an improvement for me. Made it past 420mi on a tank for the first time.

Nate

Re: Dreaded wrench Light (Service Engine Soon)
 

I don't want to start a new thread for this same topic. It seems the stop safely now message can come from any number of reasons. So tonight I got mine.

2am way home from work, middle of nowhere road pitch black out, SCII+ starts to "freak out" blinking, changing colors & intenisity. Figure it's just decided to go bad after a few months, reach down, while still driving, and unplug it, but decide to replug it to see if maybe it was just loose. After it booted up, w/in 30 seconds I got the stop safely now message, no throttle at all, EV or Gas. roll to a stop. (Check SC for a code, none found) Put it in P, turn the key hoping it'll start at this late hr & locataion! and it did, whew! But got No regen Braking message on the display. So I continue to drive home, only 3 mi to go. I decided to try a re-start at the next stop sign (2 mi from home) and it started right up, no messages, everything seems to be working fine.

Full tank of gas, just 'topped' off at a Sam's gas pump yesterday, only added about 7gal. but different from where I normally fill up.
Lights, radio, etc all still working.

So did the re-plug of the SC cause it?
Should I be worried and have it serviced? (5 mi short of 10k)
Wait for it to happen again? If the wife is driving, she'll have a cow, and blame me for something I'm sure. "That d*&79 gadget of yours did this!" Or something else.

I have the 08, so battery recall, yet.

Suggestions??!!