I am posting this for a friend who has no access to this forum. Him and his wife have a 2020 Ford Escape Hybrid Titanium that often would not start do to battery issues. What follows is his research and solution. He asks that I post this in case it might help someone else.
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Solution to our battery problem - 2020 Ford Escape Hybrid Titanium.
Our new 2020 Escape Hybrid would frequently be unable to start. The dealer could not figure it out. We discovered, through trial and error and research, what was causing the problem and developed solutions to monitor and prevent it. We are sharing our story here in hopes it might assist others who may have had similar issues. This worked for us but there is no guarantee it will work for you, so you assume responsibility of any damage or issues if you attempt this.
As everyone probably knows, the vehicle has two batteries. The main battery which moves the car, and a smaller battery that starts the car and powers the computer system, lights, dashboard, radio, accessories, etc.
The small battery has been the problem with our car.
The first thing we did was to find a way to measure the voltage of the small battery. We purchased a Car USB Charger Multi Port Voltmeter found easily on Amazon.
We plugged it into one of the power ports on the dash, (formerly known as the cigarette lighter). It has two USB slots so that can be used to charge your phone or tablet, but what we wanted was the voltmeter.
We discovered that if we enter the car in the morning and don’t do anything, not touch the brake pedal, not start the car, just sit there and turn on the radio, we would get a reading on the voltmeter from the small battery. If the small battery was below 11.6 volts it would not be able to start the car. So, any reading above that was good. But, if the small battery had less than 11.6 volts no reading would display on the voltmeter, the radio would not turn on and instead the car’s screen would display the message, ““System off to save battery. Please turn ignition off or start engine.”
Also, after driving the car and turning the engine off the voltmeter would briefly display the voltage of the small battery. This can be misleading though, as it really is a surface charge and in reality the charge will drop rapidly.
So, we could measure the voltage of the small battery and in doing so we discovered two factors that contributed to draining the charge of the small battery:
1. The small battery is charged by driving the car on medium to long trips. Short trips, say only a few miles, won’t charge it. We often drove it only twice a day for ten minutes or less. Thus, we were not charging the small battery.
2 When you first open the car and sit inside without starting the engine, everything is being powered by the small battery. The computer system, lights, dashboard, radio, accessories, etc.
If you sit there for several minutes, you are draining the small battery. This happened with us a few times, so the small battery was weakened and our short ten minute drive was not sufficient to charge it. Over several days, the small battery became so weak it would not be able to start the car.
Our solution:
1. Purchase the dashboard voltmeter to monitor the charge of the small battery.
2. Upon entering the vehicle, if we were not prepared to start the car and drive off immediately, we would switch the car from the small battery to the main battery. To do this, without touching the brake pedal, push the start/stop button. That will automatically transfer everything to the main battery. You can sit there using the main battery for some time.
3. Of course, incorporating longer drives into our driving routine kept the small battery charged too.
Since we implemented these changes we have not had difficulty with the car.
Hope this helps someone else.
H.W. Arnold
