I'm almost positive ( as positive as possible without being there ) that it is battery & A/C related. I said it before, I don't think anything is "wrong".

 

I have noticed that in my '08 FEH the rpm's go up by that same 500ish mark. It does not seem to be constant rise in rpm's. Rather, it seems to rise in conjunction with the load on the A/C and possibly battery(as gpsman has said). I live in Texas so A/C is almost always on. I run in auto climate control (around 70 degress), econ mode with recirculation, and have noticed rpm's rise and drop. Since the FEH has less then 900 miles on it, I assume this is normal, and nothing I have found or read leads me to believe it is not normal.

 

Standard cars will disable the A/C if the engine coolant starts approaching the level of overheating, not actual overheating but rising to just below or maybe rising so fast the result is deemed inevitable.

Because your hybrid MUST sometimes cool the batteries disabling A/C is NOT an option.

So the response for engine or hybrid battery overheating, or "forecasted" overheating, is to increase the A/C cooling capability.

No surprise there.

 

"...with load on the....battery.."

Keep in mind that recharging the hybrid battery will also create HEAT.

 

Willard again displays his lack of specific Ford Escape Hybrid knowledge with this post that contains incorrect statements.

 

Instead of simply saying the statements are incorrect, why not correct them?

 

In my case, because WWEST is on my ignore list, and I don't know (or care) what he said.

But even if I knew, there is no point trying to correct someone like that.

 

I want to clear something up about this thread. I did not mean to say this was a PROBLEM. I was just wanting to know if the 2009 also did this, and to provide for KNOWLEDGABLE discussion FROM FEH OWNERS.

I think it is interesting, and I am hoping to get more insight as to why Ford put this behavior in, what triggers the effect, etc.

 

Steve,

I have been fooling around to find out why the 09 does this. I can tell you that it is costing about 4mpg on the highway for sure. Around the city could be even more detrimental.

Here are some things I have discovered on MY 09feh:

It has to be over 91 degrees outside temp.
When it is behaving this way, the only way to get the rpms to drop back to normal is to shut the a/c button off.
When the A/C is on, there is no throttle position other than idle that will allow the engine to drop below 2000 rpm.
The amount of charge in the battery (using the primitive nav gauge) does not make a difference.
The inside adjustable temp does not matter, regardless if it's set to 60 or 90.
Manual inside fan settings, auto temp, recirc, econ buttons have no effect on the behavior.
It never does the high rpm until after at least 20 minutes of driving.

Once it starts with the behavior it does not stop unless you shut off the a/c
A caviat to this is, at certain times I can see the truck TRY to come out of this mode and the rpms will drop to 1300 or so, but one or two seconds later and it's right back up to 2000 rpm.

Today when I got home from an irritating 2000 rpm drive, I got under the truck and one of the a/c lines running to the rear battery was cold.

On a side note, it makes me wonder why the A/C lines running to the rear aren't insulated in any way....

Our 2008 FEH NEVER did this. The beauty of that truck was, as long as the engine was running, the a/c was nice and cold, even at lower rpms.
With the 2009, you are now stuck at 2000 rpms, even with the slightest of pedal pressure, even at 41mph and that sucks.

There are many many reasons I wish I had just kept the 2008, this is just one.


Sean

that's all I have for now, anybody have anything to add??

 

What is it with this forum?? I've been on the net since it was text based only. I've belonged to many forums but up to this forum, I had never heard of or even knew that a ignore list exsisted! I've never heard of people telling one and another that "your" on my ignore list. If you don't agree with what somebody is saying, one will be told in the open that your being included on their ignore list. No wonder, some have left for good and some just lurk now but don't post!