I was in Manhattan in June visiting my Son and had to take taxi cabs every where we went. Those are the worst driving conditions I've ever seen. I talked to some of the drivers and their main concern was down time do to repairs. The FEH's holds up and they keep buying them. One driver told me he burns a tank of gas a day in his '08 FEH. His outside temperature read 120F because of an outside temperature of 104F plus all the heat coming from all the vehicle's engines on the street. They drive pedal to the metal and hard braking all day long. I didn't see one accident in the 5 days I was there for some reason.

GaryG

 

Those are crazy harsh conditions for any vehicle. Thanks for the verification of what I had read and seen. This was one of the deciding pieces of data that pushed me to go take a look at the FEH on the used market. Funny thing is... People are still afraid of these cars. When I talk to people about it the first thing they say is "what about that $5000 batteries that you're going to have to replace someday?" When I tell them the batteries last a long time, they look at me with this yeah, sure they do (what an idiot, he just hasn't figured it out yet) look. In a way it's a good thing that these vehicles can be purchased for reasonable prices with plenty of miles left to drive, but on the other hand it's bothersome that people are still so ignorant about how reliable the technology really is. Sure, we'll probably be laughing in 20 years about how antiquated today's batteries "were" but at this point it's all we have and it's pretty good. As the ecoboost and new tech diesels improve and begin to gain acceptance I suppose the hybrids will seem like less of a geat option. I hope the technology continues to improve (batteries mainly) and eventually hybrids completely take over the market. I'm a convert for sure... I find myself bothered driving my conventional rigs now when I sit and idle away at stop lights wasting gas, etc.

 

Do a search on "spun bearing." There's a few good posts on this issue on this website. It appears that spun bearings are a minor, infrequent, but not a bolt out of the blue happening, and surely a high cost failure mode of hybrid engines.

My thoughts: If you have an extra $5 or $10,000 lying around with nothing to do then don't do the search and just don't sweat it. On the other hand if you just don't happen to be so blessed... Read those posts and maybe incorporate some of the thinking in how you drive your FEH.

 

All the previously discussed evidence from the NYC taxi cabs suggests that it doesn't make a lick of difference how the vehicle is driven. If it did, those cabs would be spinning bearings left and right. It's probably a safe bet that virtually every make and model made has some bearing failures documented. The numbers might be 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000... There's really no way to know. If the electric oil pump makes you feel better about being protected from the lurking menace of a spun bearing then more power to you.

Again, to the unfortunate owner who had this happen I sympathize completely and I hope he finds a reasonable solution without breaking the bank. There are a couple of salvage engines available on Ebay right now for about $2K.

I don't believe this issue is any reason for hybrid owners to lie awake at night worrying; panick and install an electric oil pump or baby their cars like a granny.

 

You have completely missed the point.

I put the electric oil pump on, as I've done on two previous, non-hybrid cars, to reduce wear & tear during cold starts. Period, exclamation point. The vast majority of the wear & tear on engines occurs during startup. One of those cars is at 436,000 the other at 254,000. Their oil consumption is far less than a quart in 3,000 miles.

I don't consider your analogy of the NYC cabbies germane to the issue. Those guys drive their cars alot and they stay warmed up.

As for driving like your "granny" that's never what I said.

What I said was if you're going to rabbit out into traffic from ICE off consider starting the ICE before you do so. I did this once in my FEH and heard a thunk. Something I've never, ever heard from any other engine.

As a teenager and 20 something I did anything but baby my engines...

That thunk was vastly different. On reflection I believed it was a precursor to a spun bearing. After the discussions on spun bearings started coming out I concluded I was lucky, so I changed my driving habits a little.

 

...

 

Your inference that hybrids are prone to having bad rod bearins is purely your own fabrication. You may as well have picked injector failure to pick on, simply becuase hybrids have them.
You could invent an automatic dispenser of injector cleaner to to your fuel line to prevent your perceived problem, just as you did with your oil recycler... then claim the injector issue is factual, so to necessitate your invention.

Anyone can do a google search on "Bad rod bearing" and find countless people with ordinary vehicles who complain about this same exact failure spanning all automobile manufacturers.

Thousands among thousands.
The number of instance is miniscule compared to the percent of vehicles made, and I certainly would not want to be an "unlucky" purchaser of one.

There simply isn't any evidence of your claim that hybrids or FEH's are prone to bad bearings. Period.

 

Glad you quoted me. It should be clear from the quote that I never said that FEHs are "prone" to spun bearings. Maybe you should read quotes before you include them in a post.

Next, I believe it is clear that I intended for a person to do the search on this website so that the results would be specific to hybrid engines. Try it and read the posts, you might learn something...

Next, your choice of injectors as an alternate is so nonsensical as to show how little understanding you have of what I did say.

It has long been known that people who start their engines cold and then immediately race them, significantly shorten the life of their engine. Most believe it is related to gunning the engine right after start when oil has not yet gotten to all of the bearings.

Ya think it might be related? Ya think?

 

Bill you are clearly mixing the two issues together when you talk about not accelerating hard with the ICE off even after the vehicle is warmed up. Hence, my comment about driving like a granny. Sorry I offended you with that.

I totally agree that starting an engine cold and stomping on the throttle with reckless abandon is a really bad idea. I would argue however that the FEH has that handled as well because it doesn't LET you do that. As you have undoubtedly noticed, the FEH runs almost exclusively on electric power for the first few minutes of operation (yep, even when moving forward). For me this is nearly to the top of my street, or about 1/8 of a mile. Even then, I take it easy... No need to get crazy, right? This is yet another advantage of owning a hybrid from my view because it forces you to behave even if you don't want to. Therefore, there are no rabbits from a truly cold start either... But I'm pretty sure you were talking about hard acceleration after warm up because the ICE will not shut down until it reaches 182 degrees of Cylinder Head Temp (CHT). I think I have heard the "thunk" you're referring to. The noise is quite possibly due to the engine firing up on compression with a small load of fuel in the cylinder (Lord forbid) because you're stomping on the throttle and demanding it to start up and go at the same time. I don't do it a lot, but there's this steep little uphill right turn where I have to jump on it or get hit by an oncoming truck... OK, it's pretty much every day never mind. 125K and counting... When WILL the bearing spin and trash my engine? I'm livin' on the edge I tell ya! C'mon Bill... I'm just messin' with ya now, relax.

I also agree that cold starts generate the majority of wear on engine bearings. You point out that you have several vehicles with high mileage and that they use very little oil. I have had similar experiences without an electric oil pump, although I would never debate the advantage of having oil pressure before you cold start your engine. Curiously though, oil usage is widely agreed to be related to either leakage or piston ring blowby, not excessive crank bearing clearance caused by crank bearing wear. Maybe that electric oil pump is a wondrous invention that actually reduces piston/ring wear also? Probably... Need to get myself one of those!

At this point I'm reasonably convinced that you wouldn't be able to sleep at night if you weren't taking these precautions, so who am I to judge? I have a very good friend who seems quite a bit like you Bill and I enjoy him immensely as long as I don't have to spend too much time with him and his worrying. I can also appreciate the fact that some pretty darn good engineers are really good at solving problems, real or imagined and the world often benefits from the fruits of all that worrying.

I really do hope I don't experience this type of failure but it's a car; it could puke at any time in any one of thousands of ways. Yawn... Nightie, night.

 

OK so I didn't quite make it to bed yet. I did as you recommended and went searching for "spun bearing" on this web site. I read every post in every situation where there was a catastrophic failure of an FEH engine. I found you (Bill) there many times with some excellent posts. I have probably given you the impression that I think you are foolish. After reading all your posts, I actually think I agree with you almost wholeheartedly with the exception of the notion of driving habits I guess.

In every case, after reading all the posts, Jiffy lube seemed to be the common thread among all the failures! I believe it was you who surmised that it's a safe bet that the Jiffy Lube tech probably forgot to put the oil back in and fired it up to pull it back into the parking lot. After hearing strange noises he/she then realized, oh crap... I forgot something! It's happened many times, and I would bet that it almost never results in <insert quickie lube joint here> taking responsibility for the catastrophic failure that occurs later on after said vehicle has the oil put back having been run without oil. There's really no way to prove for sure that this has happened even if the failure occurs shortly after the oil change. One example happened within 2 hours after the oil change! Naw... Couldn't be the <quickie lube> responsibility.

After reading all that I'm grateful that my dad taught me how to work on cars and change my own oil.