Overheating Toad!

OldBlackWater wrote:
Well, this is embarrassing. When I did a quick subtraction of odometer readings after noticing there was even a difference, I got 12 miles, but after looking at my iPhone photos (I took pictures of the dash display since I didn't have a pen handy), I see that it's actually 312 miles, which is about how far I drove that day. So it must have been in "Ready to Drive" mode the entire time and didn't get enough airflow to keep cool. Fortunately, no damage was done.

Well, at least this solves the mystery, and now we know what happened. Thanks for posting back, even though it was a bit embarrassing. I was curious about this one. Glad to hear that no damage was done. :)

I might just leave it off altogether (i.e. not in Acc mode) to help avoid this in the future...

..Yeah, like already said, I would be very cautious about doing that. You don't know the specifics of why Ford instructs you to leave it in ACC mode, what electrical systems they may WANT to stay on when being towed that you may be shutting off.

Nearly everything with these hybrids is electrically powered/controlled. I'd really hate to think that something like an electric lube pump for the transmission would get shut off when towing, if you didn't leave it in ACC mode.

That was why I chose to install a charge line, and just leave it in ACC mode and not mess with pulling fuses when towing. These Ford hybrids are pretty complicated machines, haha.

Unless you could get a good, thorough knowledge somewhere of what systems are on and what systems are off when in ACC mode, I'd be very hesitant to try shutting it completely off.

By the way, I did install a charge line. It works great, with and without the engine running!

Good, that's definitely very important for these hybrids. It pretty much eliminates the chances of you ever running a (12 volt) battery dead. :)