Spirit10

I see "akirby" essentially said the thing as I was pecking away at typing my post. I agree, your car is working as designed, just improve your technique. By the way, my other hybrid is a Chrysler/GM partnership product and it's design point attempts to recharge the battery to 7/8ths so that often on down grades there is no room to store that reclaimed energy. It also shifts out of EV mode at lower speeds. All in all, I wish I had the Ford algorithms on the Chrysler. But I will add, the Chrysler product is a year older and I never had to apply anything like Allen84's fix to maintain original functionality in that vehicle. Whether Ford was pre-planning obsolescence, design oversight, or just an oops, I'm glad Allen84 found and posted a working solution to this problem.

As I Recall, Ford's target is about 50% so there is room to reclaim energy when braking or going down hill. Is the "diamond" you are talking about really the triangle that shows energy flow into or out of the battery? If at the target 50%, I wouldn't expect the ICE to be demanded to burn more fuel just to charge the battery higher thus removing capacity to recover energy upon deceleration. Have you learned to accelerate to speeds 45MPH or less and then significantly ease off to switch to EV mode and then gently apply throttle to maintain the target speed? Driving this car is not like driving a Volt. Refer to my dash shots posted a page back on February 2 for my actual results over a mix of city/freeway driving over the course of 70-80 miles. I will average about 4 mpg better than my wife over the same course I think because she holds a steady throttle when <=45 whereas I do the back off technique to switch into EV mode more often. FWIW

Re: "BTW, would you or anyone else in this discussion be interested if I wrote and posted a short "dissertation" about what re-balancing is and why it's necessary? " I think that would make a nice new topic in a new thread.

See my post of Feb 2nd with the dash pictures showing the MPG info of 44+ over a course of 70+ miles with mixed freeway speeds of 65-70 and local highways and city streets. Recently took a fast 1100 mile two day trip on 4 lane roads usually at 75-78 MPH and trip mileage dropped to 37 point something. Back in town now but cold mid 30's to 40's and slowly average is creeping back up to 40. Haven't reset it from the trip.

Here's results of today's errands after applying the fix to the car about a year ago. Bought the car (Milan hybrid) new back in '10. Much warmer location down south being about 60 this AM when I was thinking about my errands for the day . Upper 70's by afternoon. Gone most of day with a mix of city streets, some interstate, some metropolis business US highways with stop lights every 1/2 mile or so on the business highway. Climate control set to auto so maybe a smidge of heat as I started but A/C most of the rest of the day. Reset MPG/Trip meter as I started the car to leave. Couple miles meandering to get to business US Highway with 45 sometimes 35 MPH speed limit and stop lights as one small locality runs into the next one as if just one continuous strip of businesses and side streets. Stopped and visited a friend for an hour or more. Then departing again being about 10 miles of driving since starting the car. 40.3 MPG as shown near stop light ready for the expressway. RESET MPG and Trip as ready for interstate on ramp for about 12 miles of interstate 65-70 MPH road. 44.3 MPG. Continued with all my errands, groceries, gas, and many multiple stops. No more resets. Mix of US business highway and city streets ending back at the start. About 73 miles since the reset as I first entered the expressway. 44.4 MPG over the 72.8 miles. I think it is still a great car. ? If they attach, dash pictures to illustrate today. FWIW

"So if anything I mentioned above sounds wrong or not good, please let me know." I'd say you are too far north for this time of year Move south young man, move south. ? (Sorry, couldn't resist) Seriously, it'll improve when it warms up. No, not my humor, but your MPG. Also, you will learn to back off the throttle to allow it to go into EV. For example, after acceleration to speed at 30 - 45 on the flat, back off on the gas pedal slightly allowing it shift into EV, then use gentle throttle re-application. When transitioning through a parking lot, use gentle throttle. When the computer detects your throttle movements are demanding more acceleration power than the electric motor can provide it will start the ICE. It takes a little training of your driving style to maximize. The "leaves" will grow on the right side dash display as you start learning to drive better. I'll consistently get a couple of MPG more than my better half, typically by the gentle easing of the pedal and anticipation of red lights. BTW, Sometimes I'll see the EV battery just about empty, and other times with a lot of down hill, completely full. YMMV

I know nothing official. If you are worried, have Ford apply the official TSB. As for me, I have a 2010 Milan (the Mercury version of your Fusion) and did the fix almost exactly one year ago (before Ford came up with a fix) and have seen no side effects, it just restored the operation back to being able to use the battery whereas without the fix, it only ran on the ICE. I don't know when the battery may become truly useless, but mine is working pretty much like it did back in 2010 when we bought the car new. I really can't tell a difference from a few years ago, and the car ran great until the age limit was hit and bam it didn't. Then zap the age and bam, it works again. FWIW

I initially had a problem a little bit like yours that I thought was related to getting a good physical connection. Service procedure interrupted any where from 1% to 15%. I replugged the connections several times, wiggled the connections, tried old style TV tuner contact cleaner, straightened the cable bends, rebooting the laptop, etc. Finally I got 100% and was able to read several items consistently and was able to unplug and replug a couple of times consistently and get good readings. Then I quickly reset the battery age, heard the "clunk" from the trunk (that may be a high voltage contactor re-engaging the hybrid battery), and all was well. So it might be you are getting a bad connection to the car causing the digital interface signals to be interrupted. Try replugging several times to clean off any dust/etc that may be on the connections???? FWIW (Another different Al)

I think I will leave well enough alone as the "zap" fix has been working great now for a few months for me. The Ford fix is an unknown entity as to what it might do to the car in a couple of years... Lock it down completely, force a battery purchase, or some other side effect. At least at this point, the car has worked great for 10 years and I have every reason to believe it would go another 10 years with the zap in place, or until the battery really does crap out and needs to be replaced. Also, based on my past experiences, my local dealer(s) will probably want to keep the car for a week or two to put it in the queue for repair. Just my 2 cents worth.

Hey Phil (PFN). Look on your driver's door jam sticker at manufacturing date. I'd guess your problems started exactly when the calendar ticked over in that month 10 years after the build date. If I were you I'd do the date reset. Only been a few weeks for me now but my car is back to "normal" in the 40's mpg vs 27-29 just before the zap. And I'm no longer worried about the safety issue where no battery causes a hesitation delay starting up from stops. And the restored braking regeneration will save my brakes. If I have to carry all that extra battery weight around and lose the fold down trunk space, I want it to work. Disclaimer: Of course it is unknown to me what the long term effects will be. I'm the original owner and may keep this car another 5-10 years.

My Milan Hybrid manufactured in 2/10 quit working last month with "the problem symptoms" as described by many. Before I had any idea as to what was wrong, assuming it probably was a bad sensor or electrical connection someplace, I called my 3 local dealers, one said to bring it in but it would have to sit there in line for two weeks before they could hook it up for a diagnostic. Another gave me an appointment for May. A third thought they could look at it in a couple of days. Meanwhile I found this forum. After a couple days, took it over to the third dealer. They looked at it that day and called me back. Quoting SSM 48238 they said they were instructed to "not attempt repairs at this time". So I got the car back with no charge for the diagnostic. Mechanic knew to look at the battery age but could not recommend any action but to wait on Ford ... admitting he didn't have any idea how long of a wait, but that Engineering was aware and investigating and to check OASIS. So I ordered a bbfly and installed Forscan under Windows 10. After a few attempts at getting a good connection thru the port (replugged it a few times and wiggled connections some) finally got a profile loaded. Many first attempts stopped at 9% to 20% doing the initial read. However finally, I was able to disconnect and reconnect several times in a row so figured must have cleaned the connection pins some how, or maybe marginal wires in the cable, or which of the 3 USB connectors I went to on the laptop, or because I unplugged the USB mouse and used the builtin mouse touch pad. Dunno. But was finally able to read the BECM a few times in a row as well as now successfully unplug and reconnect multiple times in a row with no more communication failures, so started to feel confident enough about the connection to try the reset. That worked flawlessly, got the "clunk from the trunk". Test drove. All is well working on electric again!!!!! THANK YOU TO THIS FORUM AND ESPECIALLY allen84 FOR THE FIX! When and IF Ford notifies me of an engineered fix, not sure what I will do. Maybe reset battery age back and take in in???? Dunno.... Hope others continue to post results here.