EricB21

Battery doesn't have the cold cranking amps to get started below freezing. Go to Auto Zone and have them check your battery with a meter. If it fails the test during cold weather, they may recommend getting a new battery.

"When getting into it this afternoon I got the system turning off to save battery message- it said to either shut off or start car." I have a radar detector with a voltage meter display. I just started getting the message for the first time about starting the car or turning it off yesterday. I drove a couple miles and on my next start up the message came back, so I checked the voltage in Accessory Mode before starting the car and it read 11.7 volts. I just had the software updated a week before from the 2022 version to the 2023 version. It was recharging at 15.1 volts, which is higher than normal. So I drove 150 miles, maybe that will recharge the battery a bit. It's an AGM battery that isn't that old.

From the video I watched, MyKey would max out at 65, 70, 75, or 80 mph. So if your local highways have high speed limits, going to 90 or 100 won't be on the menu.

I've been horrified watching YouTube videos of thieves with antennas creeping up along houses with a cohort pulling on the car door to break into the car then again using the antenna to get a signal from the key fob in the house to have a cohort start the car and drive off with it. I suppose they can steal a valid code to start the car again after that using some electronic equipment. Now I'm just horrified about the power of the key fob. Of course the key fob has to be in the car to start the car, but these thieves can defeat that with their technology. They can be in & out of your driveway within a minute or two. They can be waiting at a mall. They can be anywhere. So I ordered a pair of faraday key pouches for $10 on Amazon. With the key in the pouch, the automatic door locks won't work when I touch the door unless I take the key out of the pouch, same with the ignition and the hatchback door. These fobs can work from a few hundred yards away. Just hit the alarm button in a parking lot or way down the street and you'll see and hear the car light up and sound. That's the secret to the cars being stolen, the fobs. These pouches shut these fobs down until you need them. The pouches may get worn out in your pocket so you'll need replacements occasionally, like when they don't block the signal anymore. Be sure to test them monthly. Might need replacements a few times a year depending on your usage. I'll keep my 2nd key in a pouch too.

With my 2021 Escape, I have to crank the heat all the way up to HI with the Max Defrost setting after the engine warms up a bit. Just keeping it at 73 degrees is not going to cut it. I can lower it to 81 degrees after several minutes, then 76 degrees, then 73 degrees. But starting at 73 degrees is not gonna warm me up in freezing weather. Now you may have other problems you suspect with your system that may be amiss, and I'm not addressing those.

There used to be 12 volt digital voltage meters that plug into the cigarette lighter for sale for like $20 somewhere a decade ago. Just plug it in if the car has been sitting around for too many days. Check the voltage by turning on Accessory (not starting the engine) and make sure it's above 11.0 volts or the car won't start. Even if it reads 11.5 volts, it will drop to 11.2 or lower while the car starts before rebounding. It should read 14.4 volts to 15.0 volts while driving around recharging off the alternator. Drive 20 miles to give it a good charge. If the battery is too dead to start, drive 100 miles after a jump start. There's other handheld battery diagnostic tools to check the cold cranking amps and you should check YouTube videos for tips on how those work and where on Amazon you can order those. It might be required this winter. Also get AAA for jump starts and tows if necessary.

I've got a 12 volt radar detector located much lower on the windshield and the 12 volts powers off after I turn off the vehicle and exit it for a period of time, a few minutes, I haven't timed it, maybe less. I've always powered off my radar detector manually so I can check the voltage indicator of the radar detector on accessory if the car has been sitting around too long without being driven. It's a holdover habit from my dead battery days with my previous car. There's a lot of cameras and virtual driving sensors in the large black area behind the rear view mirror. You'd be right to wonder if something heavily magnetic could adversely affect your car's cruise control or auto driving features. There's got to be circuit boards back there that probably don't like extra magnetic fields that aren't earth fields.

I have an AGM battery (760 CCA) in my 2021 Escape which is a big plus up over my old regular battery in my old car. I thought I read that the 2023 Escapes discontinued installing AGM batteries from the factory and went back to regular batteries. I don't know why they would do that. I still got a notice on my Ford Pass app that my battery went into power saving mode after not having been in the car after 5 days during autumn weather. I expect that might get cut down to 3 days when winter weather comes, but I don't know yet. My old car battery used to die after 5 days on non-use and would require a jump. I've got jumper stuff in the car in case but I might have to use the mechanical key to get in the door if it comes to that. I have to use a USB drive to update the car software since the wi-fi is too weak to download a gigabyte from the parking lot. Maybe I could use my phone's hotspot to get the software. I'll drive 20 miles to recharge the battery if I get a battery in energy saving mode alert. If the battery is dead, I'll drive 100 miles to recharge it after a jump.

If figuring the drivetrain took the miles as kilometers off the US speedometer and transferred them as kilometers to the Canadian speedometer 18,155 km / 1.60934 = 11,281 miles Actual mileage out the door was 11,168 miles or 17,973 km (which is exactly what the work order on September 13th read in miles nearly 2 weeks before the speedometer was installed.) So the drivetrain was rolled back per the work order! 18,155 – 11,168 = 6,987 miles or 11,244.5 km were subtracted 18,155 miles = 29,217.5 km 11,168 miles = 17,973.1 km 6,987 miles = 11,244.4 km LOST! This is what I first thought and going round in circles with other theories is pointless. I just didn’t know the work order mileage was involved and it was making the math not add up. My CarFax was updated a couple days ago and it said the mileage was 17,973 miles instead of the 11,207 miles the dealership picked up on the wifi for a printout the day before. I had a second garage mechanic check the drivetrain mileage and it came out as 11,221 miles and it matched what the speedometer read, so the drivetrain mileage was set back. He said he could reset the drivetrain mileage but the cluster mileage may not follow. I'd have to take it to the Ford dealer to have it done correctly, and they may charge and labor is $160/hour at either place. He said they should reset the mileage as a result of their error, but replacing the cluster may require going to another Ford Dealer and getting a second opinion.

I got an appointment today to get the cluster replaced. But there was a problem. The car was imported from Canada as used and the local USA Ford dealer ordered a Canadian cluster based on the VIN number. I'm under the impression that Canadian cars are required to have the cluster replaced when they come to the USA for sale so they are mph-centric instead of km/hr-centric. So now the dealer doesn't know the validity of the manufacturer's warranty on the bad cluster since a replacement cluster may not be covered. I've also lost nearly 7,000 miles on the readout. They said they got the mileage from the powertrain. This has had me confused for several hours but I think I've got a clue. There was 18,155 miles on the old cluster and 11,168 miles on the new cluster. If I divide 18,155 km by 1.60934 km/mile = 11,281 miles. Thing is the old cluster was set to miles so why is the powertrain reducing the new cluster mileage like the old one was in kilometers? I'm asking the dealer to replace the Canadian cluster with a USA one but there was nothing they could do today due to the hour of the day. It's very iffy what has turned up. There's no mention in the Carfax of the cluster being replaced when it came into the USA and there was no mileage glitch like what I'm seeing today. I thought maybe the powertrain was taken offline and it stopped counting miles at 11,168 miles when the cluster came from Canada and was replaced. I don't know that the original Canadian cluster was ever replaced except that the dealer ordered a Canadian one based on the VIN and replaced the American one.

It looks like a "keep your hands on the steering wheel warning light." If you don't keep your hands on the steering wheel for some amount of time, say 10 seconds, a warning may pop up. If you have one hand on the wheel, it won't trigger; but with no hands on the wheel it will trigger.

I bought a used 2021 Ford Escape SEL 2.0L in late May 2023 and it had around 16K miles on it. There was a 90 day dealer warranty on it that expired and there's still a 3 year 36K mile manufacturer's warranty on it until next spring. During the first month I had a couple problems with the speedometer. I was making a longish 50 mile trip and I found myself going much slower past a roadside radar sign than my speedometer said I was going. I got out my Google Maps on my phone to check my speed and if it said I was doing 35 mph in a 45 mph zone, my speedometer said I was doing 45 mph. I wasn't using the digital speedometer at the time and hadn't switched to it, I'm talking about the needle speedometer. So there was a 10 mph discrepancy that the speedometer was reading too fast for my actual speed. On another trip, the needle speedometer was reading 30 mph over my actual speed and when I came to stop lights it was still reading 30 mph. When I shut off my car it would still stay at 30 mph. I'd leave the car to go shopping and come back and suddenly it fixed itself and said 0 mph. I took it to the dealer on another day and they didn't find anything wrong. So there wasn't any problem for a few weeks, then suddenly one morning the problems wouldn't stop. I'd get to 45 mph, slow down for a speed zone, then speed up again and the speedometer was reading 35 mph over my actual speed. I'm going down the road at 55 mph and it says I'm going 90 mph. This was still before I figured to display the digital speedometer. The speed cameras inside the car would blink the speed limit sign on the dash if I went 5 mph over the speed limit so that worked correctly. I wondered if it could be a speed sensor, but then why would the speed camera light be accurate? On another day it did some reverse malfunctions and only went to 30 mph despite my going 45 mph. It would come down when I went below 30 mph, but would continue to get stuck at 30 mph maximum. The speeds it would get stuck at would change so there's nothing absolutely special about these numbers except that without using the digital display I wouldn't know. So I made a lot of start and stop moves that day; I'd drive a quarter mile, watch it get stuck at 30 mph, then pull over the car and shut off the engine. After a few minutes, anywhere from 2-5 minutes, sometimes I have to open the car door and shut it to speed it up, but a computer-like noise would sound inside the car and the needle would drop back to 0 mph when it was stuck at 30 mph. As I did this repetitively, the malfunction would change from reading a maximum of 30 mph to reading 30 mph over what I was actually going. So I went and bought some windshield wiper fluid because I ran out and the dash said I did, and the clerk there recommended I go to the local Ford shop and tell them instead of driving 50 miles to the nearest associated with my purchase Ford dealer shop for repairs since I'm under manufacturer's warranty now. So I drove 1 mile up the road and the guy there saw the dial stuck at 40 mph while I was idling my car there. I didn't want to shut off the engine because the speedometer would reset after a few minutes, supposedly, it didn't always reset. So he set me up with an appointment for yesterday. There was nothing wrong with the car yesterday, but the day before I drove 30 miles on the interstate and it was fine until I got off the interstate and hit some traffic lights then the needle started reading 30 mph over again. Luckily it fixed itself while I was shopping in the mall and the drive home was OK. I use cruise control on the interstate, so I'll assume that's connected to the digital speedometer, but I'm not sure. So the service guy drove it from their parking lot into the service area and they found it sticking at 10 mph. The got a code of U3000 and quantified that with "miscommunication to the IPC (Instrument Panel Cluster)." They will order me a new IPC and it will arrive next week. I don't know how much these cost but it could be anywhere from $500-$1500 depending on where you look, but it's under warranty this time, whew! I asked about how they will transfer the mileage from the old cluster to the new cluster and they said the powertrain will tell it the real mileage. I hope the real mileage is under 36,000 miles. There's so much odometer fraud by dealers these days, there's no way to know. But a U3000 code is very serious but they didn't recommend I stop driving my car because I can still use the digital speedometer. There's also a semi-circular groove on the plastic housing of the speedometer between 20 to 40 mph at the edge of where the needle goes, so maybe the needle is getting hung up on the housing? I took videos and photos but the Ford shop did not want to see any of that before they ran their codes, and they never did see them. The 16 second video I have of the speedometer resetting is too large for this post. The two photos posted show the car when it is turned off. Eventually the dash lights turn off so everything looks dark.