Hi everyone. Our stupid Dodge Journey was recently written off after a deer decided to jump out of the ditch an body check it. With the insurance settlement we purchased a use '09 hybrid escape with 150,000 kms on it. We are totally in love with the thing but I do have a question about EV mode. It seems our ride will only go into EV when Auto is selected on the heat controls. It won't allow us to select econ mode either. If for example there is fog on the windshield an I want air on the windshield to clear it up, EV is not going to happen and Econ will not light up. If we are parked and I turn de-select auto the ICE starts up and the econ light goes out. Is this normal? Do I have a problem? If I have a problem does anyone know what it could be? I fried my brains googling why my escape was not going into EV until I found this correlation between that auto button, econ, and EV. Would love to hear your thoughts! So confused..

 

Sounds normal. Defrosters run the AC to dehumidify the air, and the AC requires the ICE to run unless yours has the electric compressor like the later models have.

 

Good stuff. Thanks for the reply!

 

I gave up on using the hvac in auto mode because it seems to be possessed by a devil in that mode.

The pre-'10's have a belt driven a/c compressor. So the engine has to be running to turn the compressor if needed for a/c cooling or maximum defrosting. It will go into ev mode in this state, but very rarely.

If you turn econ mode on, it puts some slack in the system's determination to maintain a certain temperature etc. So if you stop at a stop light, it may shut off the engine and allow cabin temperatures to climb for a while, beyond the temperature tolerance normally allowed.

On mine, if any of the buttons with yellow logos are active, or if the a/c button is pressed, AND econ is off, it is in max a/c state and the engine pretty well will run no matter what else is going on. If it is in these modes and you activate the econ button, it will shut off the gas engine sometimes, but not as much as it would if you have econ on and none of the a/c or defrost selections active. Confusing? Yes. Maybe the manual explains it better than I can.