POB in VA

Hi DenverPed, thank you so much. I'm not an engineer by any means, but I read about the practical aspects of our vehicles both before and since purchase. I agree - riding steady w/cruise on definitely gives good readings, though I think (and lolder's input addresses this) "moderate" speeds are truly the most efficient (e.g. around 35-40 mpg). Locally I get my best MPG's during those magic, moderate seasons when I drive locally around town, e.g. store, etc. That's the very best. I'm guessing that lolder's knowledge on this is clearly above mine - EE? Automotive engineer? There's a physical principle that no one can get around - there's NO perfect transfer/use of energy; we're always in a losing game in converting energy to what we want - motion. The energy itself is conserved (conservation of energy - closed system) but it's traded in various ways. For example an incandescent light bulb. Energy goes in from the plug and it's (primarily) converted to light (with an incandescent the minority of that input energy) and HEAT. Conversely with braking kinetic energy is converted to a great extent to heat energy (brakes HOT!). We can restore battery power in our cars by coasting downhill or using regenerative braking, but getting UP that hill or UP to that speed required ENERGY, and ultimately that does come (in our cars) from good old gasoline. That, of course, ultimately came from sunshine, but we digress. lolder gave us a much more detailed analysis (which was very educational, BTW). Boy, the first time my car went into HVB reconditioning (point #2) I didn't know what was going on! That gets the old ICE going, for sure. My reply, however, was by no means meant to be exhaustive (what I don't know exceeds what I do in this area!) but simply to address another poster's comments about the effects of cold and my historic observations of my own vehicle over 10 years of driving it in various seasons. Distilling it to non-engineering simplicity, it's that nothing (e.g. heat or A/C) is free, it costs gas (and more gas used per distance = lower MPG) AND that there's in inherent energy transfer efficiency that in a good part is related to ambient temperature of the battery itself - electron transfer is better or worse at varying temperatures, cold (which was the poster's observation) or hot. I love learning from other folks on this great forum!

Hello - regarding the winter and mileage, though we're NOTHING like our friends in Chicago it's been pretty cold here in VA, too (relatively speaking, of course!!). But absolutely mileage is going to drop in the cold (or for us down here, in the heat/humidity we have in the summer and the A/C is running full blast, though I know that Chicago can get hot, too!). Unlike Tesla vehicles or any totally EV, our cars do use the ICE for our comfort, and the price paid is lower mileage. But there's more to it than that. I, too, in this cold snap have experienced lower MPG's, but I'm the sole owner of my car, bought it off the lot in late 2010, so I've watched this cycle for 10 years now. Starting in late fall, as I start to use the heater more AND (see below) the ambient temps start cooling down I see a slow, steady drop in MPG that lasts until spring. Then there's what I call the "golden months" for mileage - spring and early fall, where temps are moderate, no heat or A/C needed, and the car is in its glory days; for those several months I see my highest MPG's. From something I read a long time ago when researching my purchase, one of the tricks FoMoCo engineers apparently used was using the car's climate control system to keep the battery as close to possible to its "sweet spot." What they apparently found/realized is that batteries have a happy zone very similar to us people. That is, they most efficiently release electrons (power) at ambient temperatures that we humans like. Under the rear seat (vertical panel) of our cars is a vent - that's there to take cabin air to the battery as opposed to the complexity, weight and cost of a separate climate control system for the battery itself. Battery efficiency (and mileage) is not just related to the use of heating and A/C, however. Heating requires the ICE; the heaters in our cars is just like any other ICE car on the road - engine heat is taken from the engine cooling system via the coolant to heat the cabin - it's not an electrical heater like in a Tesla, or A/C. If we want heat 1st thing in the a.m., the engine's gonna run to warm up the coolant and MPG's will go down. BUT - the battery's efficiency itself is related to environmental temperature, regardless of heater or A/C use. In those polar temperatures you guys get up in the Windy City, even if you didn't use your heater at all (don't want to think about that!!) the battery simply cannot release electrons with the same efficiency as it does in moderate temperatures. Basically, it's "frozen" just like we are. So if you have to "go," the ICE HAS to run more ( = lower MPG) because the battery simply cannot contribute its "full share" to the energy requirements of the movement. Fully EV cars like Tesla experience basically their equivalent to our ICE use - decreased range. They don't have an ICE to help out, so that less efficient energy release is reflected in reduced range - not as much of a charge can get out of the battery in the first place. That's why EV ranges (and MPG's for hybrids) are expressed in maximums under perfect test conditions. "Ideal temperature and pressure" in chemical parlance. Rarely does any car (even regular ones) get the ideal mileage that the companies advertise. Remember all the jokes about EPA mileage estimates on the stickers? Sure, going downhill with a tail wind and maybe even someone pushing; no heater, no A/C, windows up for lowest resistance, etc. Hopefully that helps to understand the natural drop in MPG associated with temp extremes (either way, hot/cold, currently cold). So I'd suggest waiting until spring comes to see if you're getting the full benefit of the "fix." I did the "self fix" from Allen 84 (genius!), too, and it has seemed to "stick" but I am noticing the seasonal drop anyway.

Hi PaulGo, Thanks very much for your thoughts. I hope that you've had your cars fixed finally! I want to make sure I understand what you were experiencing. Sorry to hear that they kept one of your cars for 2 weeks! Did they "apply" the Ford Fix and it took them two weeks to do it and still didn't fix it? (Yikes, if that's the case) Or were your experiences before the TSB (I had my car in 4 times, once for 4 days, they were clueless) so they were running around in the dark without any idea of what was going on? Were your cars fixed with the TSB? Did you do Allen's Fix? I'm certainly suspicious that the service techs will do as you suggested - just do the fix and move on. What's it to them, really, their basic job is to try to repair something that isn't working, but if FoMoCo is telling them (or the computer fix they put in place tells them), then they may be forced to not apply the TSB by powers above them (see below - they sure did it once, already, to me). Your comments definitely bring up another issue. What if Allen's Fix is in place and the car is again driving normally? My dealership is definitely a bunch of "doubting Thomases." 3 of the 4 times I took it in, EVEN WHEN IT WAS CLEARLY MALFUNCTIONING (!!!) they said "normal function" (once despite 4 days w/it) and didn't even TRY to work on it. The fourth time was after the 10/2019 notice that Ford sent out that there is a problem, but dealers shouldn't touch the cars. They acknowledged that it wasn't driving right then, but said they couldn't touch it (this is the "higher powers" that I'm questioning above saying "don't do something"). I then applied Allen's Fix, and later the TSB with Ford Fix came out. So if my "team" drove my car (if I went in for the TSB) I'm wondering also if they'd just say "it ain't broke, so we ain't gonna fix it" (e.g. apply the TSB)! It drives fine now; they couldn't tell before that it wasn't! Or, will they just say "ok, he's got a car that's in the affected range, we're just going to do the work and charge the money." I'm really wondering if anyone has had the time yet since the TSB was released to have direct experiences with the fix, having done Allen's Fix and then either leaving it (the fix) intact and doing the TSB work or resetting Allen's Fix back to "normal" (correct battery age) and THEN doing the TSB (Ford Fix).

Has anyone who's done the allen 84 fix ("Allen's Fix") gone to Ford to have the TSB ("Ford Fix") service done? I can think of a couple potential issues (not an exhaustive collection, but just a couple of thoughts). Situation 1. Try to "reverse" the Allen's Fix, resetting the battery age to real time). a. Wonder if Ford service tech can see that this has been done? Would he/she care? That is, "rat the customer out" and refuse to do anything more? Could he/she even see that it was done? Looking over the TSB on page 12 of this thread there's nothing that specifies any action "if customer has made any modifications" (or such wording). Having heard from many customers (well, maybe; most of us went to our dealer, some of us, such as me, called and wrote to Ford corporate, so the Ford people who worked on this fix may well have known about Allen's Fix, and has Ford put some sort of a software detection algorithm into their own fix that somehow searches for an "outside" modification that would then trigger a "stop action" warning on the service tech's computer screen? Would they have cared enough (or been funded enough in the fix effort - that may be the rate limiting step - Ford probably only authorized a certain amount of money to be expended towards a fix for a relatively small number of 10 year old cars, and to do more than just get a fix out might have gone over budget) to have taken extra time to do this even? Anything can be done w/enough time and $$, but it's a business decision as to how much of either are budgeted. Don't know if that can even be done but programmers and programs are obviously pretty sophisticated these days. And then there's the concerns that others have brought up. What exactly is the Ford Fix going to "do" (besides restore one's car to normal function as rexberglund indicated that it does do (yay!)? Will it trigger something else literally down the road - e.g. another year or so tell you that you need to buy a new battery or some other such big expense? Not a conspiracy theory - just honest thought about what the potential consequences are. And, of course, giving due to the alternative - none of us really know if Allen's Fix won't have undue consequences in the future, either. That question has been brought up and we don't think it will (well, those who know far more about it than I do have opined that it probably won't, so I'm going with them, since I did it!). All of us who did it, however, made that decision already because we were desperate to get a normally functioning vehicle again and had no idea that Ford would ever do anything about it. Situation 2. Allen's Fix applied, and LEFT INTACT (that is, one just takes one's car with Allen's Fix in place - the battery age shows substantially lower than the known age of the vehicle). In this situation, presumably the service tech can and will presumably see the alteration in the programming that we all did. Basically, the age of the battery as specified in the programming will be less than the age of the car, by whatever increment/interval the individual owner applying Allen's Fix chose to set it at. On one hand, that could be explained if the owner had truly bought a new battery (which of course didn't have to be done at the current service location doing the TSB Ford Fix, so they can't assume that they have a service record) BUT I'm just going to take a guess that replacing the battery would lead to a more extensive set of electronic changes that can otherwise be detected by the service tech when reviewing the program, or checking the battery's health (that doesn't seem to be part of the TSB, but I don't have enough knowledge to know one way or another). Would changing the HVB have fixed the driveability/mileage issues we've all complained of, such that the Ford Fix isn't even needed? In other words, the service tech knows something's fishy because a new HVB wouldn't have this issue in the first place? From some other posts that I think I recall, it didn't, but I didn't go back and look through all 13 pages of this thread. Once again, would the service tech even care? Or would he/she simply apply the Ford Fix and move on with life to the next customer's car. Then of course we loop back to the question of what the Ford Fix will do in the future, if anything else. Ah, so many questions! Having applied Allen's Fix (again, thank you so much; I've got my car back in terms of its greatly improved mileage and its functionality/how it drives!!) and committed to the unknowns that presents much of me wants to just keep moving on and forget it, but part of me wonders if going with "Big Brother's" (Ford) fix wouldn't be the better way to go (basically, trusting authority; SURELY Ford would do the right thing by its customers, right?). I'm not trying to fix anything with this post, or advocate one or the other approach, because I of course have no idea what the right thing is, I don't think any of us do, but just wanted to bring up some questions/thoughts. If anyone who's applied Allen's Fix DOES go to the shop for the Ford Fix, PLEASE let us know!! Thanks!!

Wow. After more than a year and 3 trips to my (useless) local Ford dealership service center (2 of those 3 I was told, as others, that this was "normal;" finally on the 3rd visit they at least "verified" my complaints), terrible driveability (dangerous, actually, with the throttle lag and weak starts) and plummeting mileage, this morning I applied this "patch." Add me to the "success" column! As Allen84 said, "results are immediate." Boy were they ever!! I have my car back!! I have about 125K miles on it and it was (is) otherwise still in excellent shape. Even though the temp this morning was cool, in the low 30's, EV was working "like new." Whereas before the ICE started when I literally lifted my foot off the brake at a stop, I can drive again on EV! Overall the fix took me about 15 minutes (mostly due to my unfamiliarity working with FORscan and this was the 1st time I'd ever used the OBD system). The longest "wait" was to get my FORscan forum membership approved by one of their administrators, that took about 30 minutes from when I submitted my materials. So for about $21 (cost of OBD harness on Amazon) the car is working like new again. Ford (as others have noted) refuses to fix this (I wrote to them; cue the cricket sound in the background for the silence waiting for a reply!); they have a bulletin out that others have posted telling dealers to NOT do ANYTHING about this. I suppose even if I could have found a dealer to fix it the "stealership" probably would have charged hundreds for this (on my 2nd trip to the dealer the "service writer" said "the battery is fine," but "maybe the transmission is going, and those cost $10,000!"). I also submitted a complaint with NHTSA, which I encourage others to do, as well. https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/ I doubt a class action suit, given "our" numbers, would do anything except cause a lot of frustration and if anything was "won," the lawyers would get most of it. But maybe if NHTSA was hit with dozens, hundreds, thousands of complaints they'd at least make Ford "squirm" a little. Ford isn't going to do anything on its own, as another post very wisely commented upon (old, out of production platform, low numbers, non-fatal (yet, anyway) issue; many of the engineers who worked on it may not even be w/Ford any more). It just takes a few moments to do this - please consider doing so. Seriously, it IS a safety issue with the adverse driving capabilities the cars have in this "mode." Allen84 - have you figured out anything about those other error messages? Will the car go through the periodic regeneration cycling (where the ICE runs for several minutes)? I have to give you a humble and most sincere THANK YOU for this. All of us owners have been damaged in one way or another, and you've found a way to restore (a) safety (I really feel that the cars are unsafe with this issue - hesitation, throttle lag, poor acceleration, etc.), (b) the gas mileage that we all paid Ford for "up front" in the cost of the battery pack and (c) resale value. Prior to the "fix" if I or any of us had wanted to sell the car the residual value realistically would have been damaged. I saw another post in which an owner had said the poor mileage was due to the cold. But you can't hide or "fib" the poor performance that the car exhibited. Best wishes to all!