Ok I did something stupid over the weekend.....I say this now so people won't feel the need to email me and tell me that I did something stupid.

I took the FEH on a road trip on the hottest weekend of the year. Instead going somewhere cool I drove into the heat and ended up in the Central Valley (~110 and actually somewhat humid for California). I have a nice little Coleman portable thermo-electric cooler that I use on Road trips and I keep pluged in in the back of the FEH (I put a 12V plug in the cargo area). Normally I take it inside with me when I am at a hotel, but this time it was too hot to make the extra trip to the car and I figured (without any rational basis) that the Coleman probably had a automatic shutoff if the input voltage got too low. So I left it in all night.

Guess what - I had a dead battery when I got up in the morning. The symptons were just like a normal dead 12V battery. The lights came on dimly and I could hear a solinoid (or relay) clicking when I turned the key to start, but the engine would not run.

I could not tell which battery was dead - the 12V and the 330V or just the 12v so I wasn't sure how to work the problem.

I did the usual Dead 12v battery tricks (turn off all the loads, shake the battery up a bit etc.) and had no luck. Then I figured I would try the jump start button on the drivers kick panel. It did not seem to make a differance (see below).

Then I left the ingition in the on position for a while, figuring that the 330 V battery would charge up the 12V battery and get me running.

After about 5 minutes I was able to get it running (at the exact moment the girlfreind gave up and called road serivce).

Then I actually the 12V-330V jump start proceedure and realized that you are supposed to wait 8 minutes between pressing the button and trying to start the car. It was about 8 minutes between time I pressed the button and the time the car started. So it is quite possiable that the 12V to 330V jump did it's job.

In any case I was able to get back on the road without assistance with a dead battery (or two).

Chris Brown

 

Don't feel bad, the only time I've ever had to call AAA was when we did exactly the same thing with our Coleman plug-in cooler last summer while traveling in Kentucky. Left it plugged in overnight (it's so great not to have to deal with messy bags of ice and so on, isn't it?), car started in the a.m., but when we left it for a two hour cave tour after about a ten-minute drive, it was just too much; the battery was dead when we came back to the car. We didn't have the hybrid then (just a regular 2002 Escape), so we didn't have the on-board jump-start option. I noticed that one right away (in the manual) when we got the hybrid, and of course our "breakdown" in KY came to mind. Nice to know it really works when it's needed (and in precisely the situation we are likely to encounter!)

Our last campsite had an electric outlet, it was SO decadent to have this "mini fridge" at the site while tent camping, and without the worry of a possible dead battery. In a way, it sort of feels like cheating... but the mosquitoes made up for it!