allen84

WInter tires and cold temperature definitely affects your mpg. When you initially start the car and If you don't mind freezing to death, don't turn on the heater. It helps with your mpg, because the engine will reach operating temperature much faster for the hybrid to work more efficently. After driving about 15-20 minutes, if you feel you the need to use the heater, you can turn it on. If you're on the highway sooner, then you can turn on the heater.

No, the car is all stock. My all seasons tires are over 6 years old. The tires probably have 4 or 3/32nd tread life left, so it seems to help alot with the MPG. My brand new winter tires, and also the cold, really affects my mpg, could only do 30-35 mpg. Sometimes less in extreme cold. My work shift is in the afternoons, where traffic is lighter on the main roads, and coming home at night with even lighter traffic. This way, it is a whole lot easier to hypermile and control the speed. Also, driving on the same roads for years going to work and back you start to get used to the roads terrain which makes it easier to anticipate coasting on the roads incline and slopes. If I go on the highway to work and back home, I can get 40-50 range mpg. Right now, my long term mpg is showing 46 mpg (was reset like a month ago) A couple of weeks ago, I achieved 61 mpg on a 13 mile drive. (0.2 gallons used)

I'm now at 4 years since I did the HVB reset, and the car still going strong! No issues at all. Still excellent MPG. Currently averaging 50-55 mpg in my commute in this weather. Never went to the dealer to do the update. Side skirts near the bottom of the door is rusting away. Also, rust pretty bad on my trunk lid next to the license plate. Touched it too hard and put a hole through lol. But, she still goes and seems to be mechanically sound. Next thing I'll do is change the coolant, the spark plugs, and maybe the transmission fluid. These have never been changed.

PM me your hardware ID of the forscan software you've downloaded. I can generate the activiation key file for you and email you it. You don't need to register on the forums, if you still can't.

I have the same problem. Car is almost 13 years old, and it has the same rims with the original sensors. I attribute it as being the battery dieing in the TPMS module. As long as it doesn't say low tire pressure, I just ignore the fault message. It has been happening almost 3 years now, only when it's cold it seems. Did not see the problem in late spring or summer. Yes the problems also occurs for me after 25 mins of driving, and it's gone when I start the car later or the next day.

You need an ELM327 ODBII device that works with Forscan software. ODBII are cheap on amazon around $20 to $30. Forscan is free to download, also, you can get a free 2 month trial code generated to use the programs advanced features, which is needed to do what you need to do. What you're trying to do is PATS programming. Here is the link on how to use it, when you only have 1 of the orginal keys. https://forscan.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=839

The symptons from what I remember your cars speed will be capped to 30-40 mph and will it feel noticably sluggish. The car is limp mode basically. This is when the yellow wrench appears. Yellow wrench won't give a code, as turning the car off and on clears the problem temporarily. You can deal with it for a little bit, but the problem will keep happening every 10-15 minutes or less of driving, which is not ideal as its just not fun driving a slow car and dangerous to you and pissing others off driving slow lol. I think after 5 or 6 more times of the wrench appearing, it eventually displays double yellow wrench ( 1 small and 1 big wrench icon). If you keep restarting the car to clear it, you will eventially get a check engine light will finally show up. That is when you can stick your ODBII to find out what the code is (I think mine finally showed up after the 10th time?) My trouble code was P2112 (throttle actuator stuck closed)

Cleaning it will be ok, if its regularly done, maybe if someone does it every year or so. When I first encountered the problem almost 3 years ago, which means mine that started to fail at 9 years old with no maintenance! Cleaning 9 years of caked on, stuck on dirt and carbon was not fun, but it was something I attempted to the best of my ability. Instructions I looked up on how to maintain it mentioned to be careful of the flap, gear mechanism and chip that it is delicate can be damaged, watching your fingers don't get caught, had me a little concerned lol. With almost the entire bottle of the throttle body cleaner gone, and settled for good enough, and stuck it back in. It only lasted a week until the problem persisted again. Decided to just finally look up the cost of the part. It was only $70! What the hell, I just drove up to the Ford parts department, bought the part, I changed it out right at their parking lot lol, then drove off. I have not seen an issue since (it's been almost 3 years now trouble free. Maybe I should clean it!!)

Buying a licence is a choice, to support the creator of the program. In a way it is good if you constantly are using the program. But, you really don't have to buy it, if for most people this is a one and done thing, and not having to use it anymore. You can generate a free 2 month license, over and over again everytime 2 months is up, or whenever you need to use it again. I asked that question a while back about the TSB details and what exactly are parameters of the fix. Unless you get a Ford tech that will spill the beans on the steps of how they fix it, no one will ever know. Or if you know a friend or family member or someone close that works at the Ford dealer, to see if they can ask the service dept and ask questions on how that TSB is done. But that might be against thier policies of disclosing company data. I don't know. Also realize this is Ford or any other car, or any name brand manufacturer of anything that will have any of our best interest at hand. Planned obsolescence is a thing thats been happening right under our noses whether we like it or not. They may have designed the fix to gradually make the car become more of a problem in the long run. Like you know, subtly make you think to stop driving your car in the next few years and time to get a new car. Who knows what else they could have modified? They could have made it better or worse than just the battery age reset. The choice is given to you. Take the car to the dealer to have the TSB done, or perform this reset on your own at your own risk. This brings up the Apple Iphone 6 battery and phone slow down software fiasco that they did which I was a victim of (From that point on, I never bought another Apple phone again after that) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/16/claim-for-750m-against-apple-launched-alleging-battery-throttling

It is now exactly 3 years to this date, since I've discovered and performed the battery age reset. The car is still going strong and the high voltage battery pack is still working just as well since i've bought it. I did an oil change, complete brake job replacement recently (new calipers, rotors, pads, new brake fluid), and with the warmer weather now, my MPG has skyrockted. Just did 975 km (600 miles) on full tank. Not bad for a 12 year old car I guess. Hopefully it can last a few more years (Which I think it can) when more options of EVs will flood the market from all the different auto manufacturers.

So now it has been 2 years now since I've discovered and applied this self-fix for the battery reset. The car is still going strong without any issues so far. Still getting get great mileage.

From their FAQ: What is Extended License, why and when do I need it? Extended License provides access to Configuration and Programming functions of FORScan, and also few Service functions (such as PATS programming). Base FORScan functionality (connection, retrieving vehicle information, reading parameters, read and reset diagnostic trouble codes, run tests and service functions etc) do NOT require Extended License. There is a free 2 month Extended License that can be issued for anyone who has account on our forum. Also there are paid longterm and lifelong licenses. Downloading the FORScan program is "standard" licensed by default. All it can do on Standard is retrieve vehicle information, reading parameters, read and reset diagnostic trouble codes, run tests and service functions. the "Configuration and Programming" tab functions are making changes and edits to the car's computer data. Yes, as you mentioned, programming keys or in this case you want to change the battery age. It falls within this category, which the Extended license is required. Since I was basically approved as a member of their forum within 1 hour of the request, generating the 2 month free trial license right after was the easiest thing to do and I had the program activated "extended" mode within minutes. So, I never really had a reason to try it out on "standard" mode. I've read a person here pages back, that they've tried to change the battery age on Standard and couldn't do it. I've also read some members here were taking a while to be approved by the FORScan mods, and they grew impatient. I helped a few on here by generating the trial extended keys for them, and emailed the key to them so they can activate it and use it. If this is the problem you're currently experiencing because of your member approval times at FORScan forums, I can make the Extended key for you if you want.

It's been 1 year since I've performed the HVB reset. No issues at all so far. Just drove home from work just now 77 F weather and sunny. 13 mile commute, 47 mpg, 0.29 gallons used.

It's not a full hybrid car. Picture it as a gasoline car with a hybrid assist. Which is entirely controlled by how heavy and light you press the gas pedal. Being a lead foot won't help. On, your dashboard, you should choose and be on "empower" mode. You will be able to see the green EV box in real-time. This way, you can control the red line with your gas pedal, to stay within the green box. It's like a game. So you will be staring at the green EV box, but you also should keep your eyes on the road at the same time. Be safe about this. It takes time to get used to it. When you're driving the same route every day, you'll get familiar with the terrain of the road. You will figure out when you can ease up on the pedal or coast on a slight downhill, or lightly apply gas or coast on a flat road. Your battery charge meter, when it's close to around 60-75% charge (the fill meter filling past the little battery icon in the meter, should be enough), you can stay up to 47 mph on EV for maybe about a mile or more. Slowly lift your foot ever so slightly off the gas pedal and/or maintain speed but also gradually slowing down as well to coast as the battery level decreases. Your green EV box will get smaller as you milk the EV as much as you can. When you can't anymore and your battery level is around 30% or so, then you can slowly accelerate or press to medium strength your foot on the gas pedal to activate the engine to recharge the battery meter back up. Also, braking recharges it as well. It takes about 3-5 minutes of driving to recharge the battery. When you get back to 75%+ battery charge level, repeat the driving process again that I've explained above. Anticipate changing traffic lights from a distance, if you see the light changing yellow to red from a couple of hundred meters or more, start gradually braking to charge the battery meter as well for more EVing when necessary. Or coming to a red from a distance, coast or slow down gradually, but you don't have to come to a dead stop if you don't have to. As you get close to the red light, and it turns green, you're maintaining your speed, since you never had to accelerate from a full stop.

Brucer, at this point, you might as well just go to the dealer and have them perform the fix. Hopefully, Ford is not as aggressive with their re-programming of the HVB's age behaviour as I might be thinking. We just have to trust their process and that they do right by their customers, that it will just work as it supposed to as you've once experienced in the first 8 years of the car's age. It is up to you. The procedure is relatively easy to do on your own. (Although some people do seem to have trouble getting the license for the software or having the ODB device detect the with the laptop) I can probably help you by way of remote access.

I agree with you as well, Paul & @Spirit10. What I'm afraid of is Ford will make this tamper-proof and probably lockout for further editing from people and forcing a possible newly programmed message for an HVB replacement from you to continue to enjoy the EV mode again. I wouldn't doubt for a second that Ford would pull something sleazy like this. It is fair to say that this is their product, I'm guessing they don't like it when people mess with their system to circumvent something as important as their hybrid component to modify the way it functions in which they intended to operate. It is probably best to get to the bottom of this. If someone on this forum is extremely close with the head of the service dept. or a great friend of one, would they possibly find out exactly how their reset procedure is outlined? Is it an update of the firmware? or step by step changes to the settings similar to the self fix? That would be great to see what tech does verbatim. Another thing that is a high degree of possibility, if it were a firmware update, they will probably shrink the EV green area and make it half as effective, making your EV time 30-50% less (EV green box expands to 1 bar, rather than max 2 bars we get), so even though you get your EV, your ICE will get much more on time, since you can't get to stay on EV long enough on 1 bar. This way, Ford will get a compromise of maintaining HVB life a little while longer. If it is an editing of the BECM settings, it could be possible that they use something similar to my fix and just reset it to 0 or 1 year to shut us up. But, knowing ford they will not give you the benefit of a brand new battery and set it to 5 years instead. It will go back to mostly gas engine in a few years likely once again, hoping you would move on to a new car by then. (the only way to find out is to check through Forscan to see what change they actually made.) Since the self fix procedure is not fully tested long term to see how much stress a 10 year old battery can take (they should ask Toyota what their battery statistics on how well their battery held up in their 1997 Prius line, which came out 23 years ago). This is likely done from possible liability. It will certainly not be better than the self fix, tricking the battery as new. Their owners manual did state "The high voltage battery system is designed to last the life of the vehicle and requires no maintenance." I would like to know what their definition of life means to them? It looks like 10 years from the looks of it. In the legal justice system, committing a serious crime that gets you a life sentence is considered a minimum 25 years before you go up against the parole board for release. Here is a cut and paste of part of the article in Wikipedia on the Toyota Prius battery life study: As the Prius reached ten years of being available in the US market, in February 2011 Consumer Reports examined the lifetime and replacement cost of the Prius battery. The magazine tested a 2002 Toyota Prius with over 200,000 miles on it and compared the results to the nearly identical 2001 Prius with 2,000 miles tested by Consumer Reports 10 years before. The comparison showed little difference in performance when tested for fuel economy and acceleration. Overall fuel economy of the 2001 model was 40.6 miles per US gallon (5.79 L/100 km; 48.8 mpg‑imp) while the 2002 Prius with high mileage delivered 40.4 miles per US gallon (5.82 L/100 km; 48.5 mpg‑imp). The magazine concluded that the effectiveness of the battery has not degraded over the long run. The cost of replacing the first generation battery varies between US$2,200 and US$2,600 from a Toyota dealer, but low-use units from salvage yards are available for around US$500. One study indicates it may be worthwhile to rebuild batteries using good blades from defective used batteries.

Here is the picture of the TSB, if anyone wants to see it instantly without downloading it. I wonder how they will perform the fix? How generous are they going to be with the fix? Where the problem could re-occur within a few years? I'm thinking this time they programmed in a message to recommend a battery change warning on the dashboard. Another genius way I'm sure to get some revenue for an HVB replacement from ageing, out of warranty vehicle. Even though the HVB will probably still be OK, would they even perform a battery health check to let you know it needs replacing? Let's also hope that the acceleration hesitation lag is taken into account with the fix also. Depending on how conservative they are with this reprogramming and how they make the HVB behave, they will still make the system recognize it as a 10+ year old battery. How are you going to approach this? —Stay with your self fix? —Set the battery back to the 10th year and go in and let Ford perform their own fix? —Or go in as is, and hope that their reprogramming rewrites everything based on the 10 year battery life? For me, I'm just gonna leave it the way it is, and not let them touch it.... for now, until I read on here of other people's experience and document of how they decided to go with Ford's fix and how it behaves if it will be better or worse than the self fix. I just hope when I do my oil change soon if they so happen to update it on their own, not to update it without my knowledge. I'm currently happy with the self fix and it causes no issues for me so far and working great. But, I would love to see comparisons.

I don't think it is a progressive problem. The fact that it misled me to believe it gradually went bad because I noticed it happening in the winter, and it was expected of me that it behaves like this in the cold until it became warmer outside again. But I think it would be an instant change and more noticeable if it had happened to me in the summer, and I would've taken action and research much sooner. And as for Ford, who really knows if the knew about this problem and it was an act of planned obsolescence, or they actually were in the dark like us. But as a business, they will just deny it and/or give hope to the public that a fix is on the way or hopefully people give up on it and forget about it. It's not worth it to them for the amount of them sold and it is a 10-year-old car. I'd imagine most dealers will not be truthful and possibly play dumb, denying any problem with it, because, like any business, they need to make money and they will not hesitate to get business from you, even it means they can sell you something as expensive as a new battery, and not expect your average joe to know the fix.

Sure, I can assist you no problem. I can help you get Forscan and activate the free trial for you. We can do it on Friday or sometime on the weekend possibly. I'll text you later.

I'm actually curious or if anyone would like to try this. Who wants to set the battery age date to the 15th year? To try and see what message pops up on the dashboard, if any?

Good job, I'm glad you got your EV fixed. Yes, my car did go through a battery re-conditioning process approximately 5 months after I've applied the fix. (Time of re-conditioning may differ, as I'm not sure if it activates by way of distance travelled, time passed or the state of the battery the system may detect where it thinks it needs to run the process. But mine did it after 5 months). My car did go completely on ICE for around 20+ minutes or so (Yes, I had some concern when it happened, as I've thought my Fix went away lol, but it did finally go back to EV mode) The other error messages I have not figured out how to fix. I don't think there are any problems with leaving it as is. It might just be Forscan can't read it correctly or looking for a value that it can understand, but not sure.

Once you are a member of the forum, when the mod approves. Log into the forum. Go to this link https://forscan.org/forum/extlic.php and generate the key file. Once you have the key file on your computer, You don't need to open the file. Launch your Forscan Program: -click on the "steering wheel with the question mark" icon, on the left hand side -click on the "Load license key" button, and a window will popup for you to load the file. Find the key file you saved on your computer, and press ok. -next window will popup saying to restart the application, say yes. When you launch the Forscan again, it should fully be activated for 2 months to use. You can then repeat the process again after 2 months.

That is just crazy. 8k for a replacement battery? Now I know why they are called Stealerships. They are obviously trying to get you to go through with the replacement while advising against doing the reset and refusing to stick the change. They had the audacity of telling you they reset it, confirming it works, then reverting it right back, just so they can make that money off you. In some ways, it probably is a liability issue on them, maybe that's why they didn't go through with it. But we all know your car will still work run on gas engine, and not just completely die at high speeds while driving the car. I believe no further damage will occur to anything else to the car since it's just the battery that will not be providing power anymore. I had the works oil change done this past summer at my dealer. After their courtesy 80 point inspection check, they said one of my calipers is seized on one of my rear wheels and brake pads are worn down. They quoted me almost $750 to fix it. It would only be the rear brakes service only, since the front brakes are still ok! Even telling me when I want to schedule it to get it fixed. I just told them I'd think about it and get back to them. I bought brake pads and rotors for the rear wheels off of Rock Auto for $100. Reading on the internet beforehand, I read that the calipers rarely go bad, that it most likely needed a re-grease and clean up of the slider pin. I took my parts and had my local mechanic to install and also clean up and re-grease the caliper, only charged me $200 for it. Saved $500.

I'm nearing 8 months since I've applied the fix, and have experienced no issues .... so far. My car has been operating like it was before when I first bought it. I'm happy with it at the moment and moving on. Hopefully, it will last for many years. Preferably 5+ years minimum that would be awesome. If anything, nothing would be damaged. It would just be the hybrid battery would no longer hold a charge anymore. Two things might happen. Your car will be dead on the road without a functioning HVB or it will just run on gas engine at all times? I'm sure the car will give you some type of warning, but I will never know what type of problem would manifest until I experience it. I'm confident that the battery will just not go kaput on me that quickly. I think it will last a little while longer. In the meantime, your car is not using the HVB anymore, or any of the hybrid engine & components. Your car is using the gasoline engine more often, which would go through more wear and tear, and the other components that operate alongside the ICE, would cause undue stress as well.

@prdobson I'm glad you were able to do it. The Forscan program you downloaded comes as Standard. You didn't have to delete the app at all. All you had to do was generate the Free trial 2 month extended license which was free. I guess you didn't sign up as a forum member over there then. That was the part you missed. Being a (free) forum member would give you the ability to generate the license key, free. Once you generated the license key, it is a small file that would be downloaded. You take that key file and load it into the Forscan program, and it will be activated for 2 months free extended. It was all explained in the video. I could have also made the key for you, and emailed it to you as I mentioned before. But I'm happy if you're happy that you got your EV back.