2006 Ford Escape Hybrid "red triangle" car stops FIX

shemmy2

Here is a new one ... I have a 2006 FEH, last month wife was leaving a friends house, 1 minute later the car stopped and she told me the "red triangle" was displayed. Had the car towed by AAA home. After searching the web for "red triangle" car stopping ... one solution was to replace a bad fuel pump. That evening, I unscrewed access to the fuel pump, checked the electrical connections ... voila! The 4 contacts were corroded! Cleaned them off with contact cleaner and the car has been running fine for the past month. On other boards, owners had new hybrid battery installed ($$$), new MECS pump ($$), new fuel pump($). Clean the fuel pump contacts first ($0).

kyfdx

Congrats! Nice job.

thecardoc3

shemmy2 said:

Cleaned them off with contact cleaner and the car has been running fine for the past month. On other boards, owners had new hybrid battery installed ($$$), new MECS pump ($$), new fuel pump($). Clean the fuel pump contacts first ($0).

It doesn't actually work that way. While that might have been the solution for you that has no bearing on what is going on with someone else's car. You took a blind guess and it happened to be right, nothing more, nothing less.

Mr_Shiftright

Well not quite blind--he did find a discernible problem. But yeah, the red triangle often does mean battery issues.

thecardoc3

Mr_Shiftright said:

Well not quite blind--he did find a discernible problem. But yeah, the red triangle often does mean battery issues.

Correct, even in this case it actually does too. With the fuel pump failing, the engine possibly doesn't run at all so the hybrid battery system is forced to propel the vehicle as well as be relied on to try to start the engine which depletes the battery quickly. The system is then designed to try to limit how much the battery get's discharged and that's why it shuts down and the high voltage warning system lamp illuminates.

Greenbug

Had my car in storage and would not start. Read the manual for jump start and it had info on red triangle and button for high voltage batt! It worked!