john keefe wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 5:27 pm
Luckily, I called another great mechanic I've known for a while, and he told me BS, to take out a panel in the side of the dash, hook up a charger to the regular battery, press the button inside the panel, and it will bypass the regular battery, and charge the hybrid battery. Might take 5-6 recharge cycles for a really dead battery, but that's what you do. It's in the dealerships' official shop manuals, but not in the Owner's manual. That's one of the first things a shop's supposed to do after diagnosing a drained hybrid battery.
Had it towed home, hoping this would work, and but expecting to have to shell out a lot of $$$ for a rebuilt battery. Ha! It recharged after just one cycle. Car drives fine, and going strong for a week now.
I wonder if it is just a case of poor training of the techs regarding how to deal with the hybrid.
However.. Keep in mind that Lion batteries don't like to be deeply discharged. Its possible that you may notice loss of capacity after this event or even a tendency for the cells to self discharge when in disuse going forward. You are probably OK but you need to keep an eye on things..
The battery management system (BMS) typically will disconnect the batteries when the individual cells drop to 2.7 volts or so. If the cells go below this the BMS will assume the cells are bad and won't even allow them to be charged.
Don't assume the Lion batteries behave like lead-acid batteries.
Thanks brokencase. I don't know enough about the Lion/hybrid batteries to assume anything, but Mom's been driving it everyday now, short and long distances and she says it drives & feels fine, and dash indicates the battery's working properly. Nothing different than she's used to since she first bought it. And, it recharged very quickly, after only 1 or 2 cycles, so I'm guessing/hoping it has some life left, or didn't discharge as severely as thought.
I do expect to be replacing that battery sometime and keep this beast running, but at least I'll know what to do. And, it will be a helluva lot less expensive, with a better 3-year, unlimited mileage warranty, with upgraded components than the 2-year OEM replacement.
I find it difficult to chalk this up to poor tech training, though. As my buddy said, it's practically the first test item/action listed in Ford's shop manual, before you even put it on a scope. Even if you didn't know what to do, you'd read the shop manual first, right? And, while anyone can buy a pocket OBD-2 scanner, in the two Ford dealerships I use, you have to be a trained, "qualified" tech to hook vehicles up and diagnose on a scope. With Ford producing hybrids for 14-15 years at least, safe to say that someone qualified to diagnose a hybrid by now is well aware of this built-in recharge feature anyway. It's only a secret to the car owners...
And, having likely been burned over the years with unnecessary warranty costs to replace good batteries, Ford has probably advised all their techs and shops about starting first with this built-in feature to test-recharge, if not issued a TSB. So, if you work for a dealership and service hybrids, you know what you should do first.
They wouldn't give me the codes, and didn't perform the recharge procedure. Everything else worked on the car, the dash just indicated low hybrid battery. That shop has probably seen this same thing for a couple years now with these Escapes (the tow-truck driver certainly had). I doubt it even went up for scan/scope. This was just an opportunity for them to take advantage of a trusting, elderly customer, and make a profit on a new battery and labor.
Maybe I'm still bent because it was my Mom, and I know she would have been pinching pennies to get the replacement, but wouldn't have told me about either the service, or the money.
Amazingly bad stories, Ed. Immorality and greed seem to be part of human nature we either consciously resist, or give in to. And, I don't buy the "It's just part of the job I have to do it to survive." Reminds me of the short stint when I was a commodities broker, and it was constant pressure to land the elephant, churn-and-burn, and sales rallies pumping phony new stories to sell to prospects. 200-300 cold calls in a day. If you had any conscience, you got out of there; those who stayed and excelled would rival bad used-car scum. Management's #1 pep-phrase for curing a conscience was, "These clients are all gamblers. Don't worry about losing their money, they just want the thrill of seeing if it lands on red or black."
What was the Three Stooges' investment firm? Burnem, Churnem, and Fleecem? That was these guys. They eventually got shut down and doled major fines from the CFTC. I guess if the Stooges were making fun of it back in the 20's-30's, it ain't nothing new.
Just a few years ago, we found a used Flex Limited at a Ford dealer from whom I had bought a couple trucks. Not many used Flex's like that being offered anywhere at that time. I got along well with the sales manager by then. A nice, rookie kid came out to talk with us on the lot, and we ended up taking it out for a couple hours. We decided to buy it, came back, and I told the manager I wanted the kid to get the sale. Of course, the kid had conveniently stepped out to lunch, or something, and this other sales guy would help us... Slimy, fat, comb-over, aggressive 70's throwback used-car salesman. Probably brought in to demonstrate to the younger salespeople how you do it.
By this time, we'd familiarized ourselves with all the controls. This guy gets in behind the wheel, no attempt to tell us anything about the car, controls, features, etc. Just thrashes it as hard as it will go around the block, and proclaims it's in great shape, worth more than they're asking, etc.. Then gives us the hard-core sales pressure shtick back in the showroom. Worst sales experience ever, like he assumed we'd be intimidated and just give in and buy it, since we'd had it for a couple hours. My wife and I looked at each other, I got up and went to the manager and told him if we don't deal with the kid, he's not making a sale. He said, sorry but the older guy is next in line to make a sale. Had a few words for the manager, loud enough for the dirtbag and the other salespeople to hear we weren't ever dealing with a scumbag dinosaur like that, and then we walked out.
Kept getting calls for a couple weeks from others on the sales team, apologizing, and telling us how they're lowering the price, and do we still want it? Price eventually dropped down more than $6K, which was what we originally offered, based on KBB. Never bought from them again. Found a nice Flex at another Ford/Lincoln dealership about 10miles away, great sales experience. That first Flex was on Craigslist for another 3 weeks or so, price still being dropped.
