My ESS has more excuses than my 8 year old

[TravisEA]

The system previously threw warnings to service the ESS. Taken to the dealer under warranty and they did a software update. It no longer tells me to service the system but has not worked once since the update. It seems it has a full list of excuses of why it is not working instead. I really don't want ESS but will take it back to the dealer before warranty lapses.

Until then, I am going to start logging the different ESS warnings it gives me on this thread. Today's comical warning attached: Start/Stop Not Ready Steering Wheel Turned

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[Gee-pah]

The system previously threw warnings to service the ESS. Taken to the dealer under warranty and they did a software update. It no longer tells me to service the system but has not worked once since the update. It seems it has a full list of excuses of why it is not working instead. I really don't want ESS but will take it back to the dealer before warranty lapses.

Until then, I am going to start logging the different ESS warnings it gives me on this thread. Today's comical warning attached: Start/Stop Not Ready Steering Wheel Turned

Hi Travis:

Feel free to bash ESS at will. I assure you, it's nothing personal, although I am one of the few....non-haters (I suspect there are few if any lovers of it.) I respect that I have to do my part to cut down on gasoline usage, as little a dent as ESS systems in totality have on our carbon footprint, it does all add up, as they say.

If I recall correctly, one of the "forum elders" @Jebiruph I believe once wrote that not all aspects of the, at least 3.6L JL's functionality is run off the ESS battery during ESS events. Power steering I'm to understand still ties back to the main battery.

Perhaps it is this reason that of the many conditions in which ESS won't engage, a too turned steering wheel is one of them.

I agree, there's a lot of reasons why ESS doesn't engage: the most common IMHO being the need to put a trickle charger to infrequently used JL's main battery terminals while parked...which will keep both batteries topped off provided there is no issue with them.

BTW, the irony of expending electric energy to charge a system with a trickle charger that allows fuel energy to be saved is irony not lossed on me.

Aside from a cold engine, inadequately charged batteries, and a turned steering wheel, being in a manual gear (for automatic JLs), stopped on a hill and a host of other things (not the least of which being pushing the button to turn it off) will, by design, not defect, prevent the ESS system from engaging.

 

[jeep364]

Anybody who claims they truly believe ESS, smart alternators, electric cars, etc are a net positive for the environment are truly clueless. Batteries and rare earths come from somewhere. And they have to be refined...

That said, not only are these technologies here to stay, they can certainly have positive effects (eg. local environment and smog). But, when you look at emissions from forest fires, marine diesel, etc. automotive emissions are a drop in the bucket.

Whether or not they are implemented correctly is up to the manufacturer. The manufacturer truly cares about it's bottom line and part of that is stability, managing future expectations and meeting government requirements (CAFE). Thus vehicles get more complicated, often unnecessarily, and cost more to repair/maintain. Reliability is typically decreased with bleeding edge technology (ie. German car reputation vs a generally conservative approach by Toyota).

I am not a blind hater, I would like an all electric jeep with motors on all four wheels supported by a robust electric infrastructure. I love the outdoors and want to keep it enjoyable for future generations but humans by their nature are competitive and we can't compete on the same level as other countries who don't have to follow the same 'rules'.

 

[TravisEA]

Hi Travis:

Feel free to bash ESS at will. I assure you, it's nothing personal, although I am one of the few....non-haters (I suspect there are few if any lovers of it.) I respect that I have to do my part to cut down on gasoline usage, as little a dent as ESS systems in totality have on our carbon footprint, it does all add up, as they say.

If I recall correctly, one of the "forum elders" @Jebiruph I believe once wrote that not all aspects of the, at least 3.6L JL's functionality is run off the ESS battery during ESS events. Power steering I'm to understand still ties back to the main battery.

Perhaps it is this reason that of the many conditions in which ESS won't engage, a too turned steering wheel is one of them.

I agree, there's a lot of reasons why ESS doesn't engage: the most common IMHO being the need to put a trickle charger to infrequently used JL's main battery terminals while parked...which will keep both batteries topped off provided there is no issue with them.

BTW, the irony of expending electric energy to charge a system with a trickle charger that allows fuel energy to be saved is irony not lossed on me.

Aside from a cold engine, inadequately charged batteries, and a turned steering wheel, being in a manual gear (for automatic JLs), stopped on a hill and a host of other things (not the least of which being pushing the button to turn it off) will, by design, not defect, prevent the ESS system from engaging.

I would love to be a non-hater as well it just that I have literally had it engage 1 time. Once, uno, less than two and greater than zero times in the past 6 months I have owned this jeep. So much so that when it did engage that one time, I had a momentary freak out because I honestly forgot the system ever existed on the jeep and thought something else was wrong.

We also own a Chrysler Pacifica so same ESS thing happening on it as well. Literally two different cars with the relatively same engineering for the ESS and neither of them works. It is clear that FCA put these systems on the cars to appease initial environmental concerns when selling new cars but never really intended these systems to work/last.

I want to be a fan, it has just never worked as intended for multiple cars for me... right now it seems like it is less environmentally friendly as people are replacing batteries at a rate of every other year.

But! This threads purpose is a bit more light-hearted than this conversation. I’ll pre-apologize to you that I won’t really talk theoretical plus or minus of the ESS system past this comment, I’m just going to continually post images from time to time of all the different messages I get as to why it won’t turn on.

 

[#diesel]

I’m indifferent. Engine stops sometimes at a traffic light (other times no) but the second I hit the clutch, it’s ready to go before I select a gear, so overall no complaints here.

 

[Oilburner]

 

[Chocolate Thunder]

I once got a message “Start/Stop Not Ready It’s Thursday Afternoon”.

 

[SirMagnus89]

The system previously threw warnings to service the ESS. Taken to the dealer under warranty and they did a software update. It no longer tells me to service the system but has not worked once since the update. It seems it has a full list of excuses of why it is not working instead. I really don't want ESS but will take it back to the dealer before warranty lapses.

Until then, I am going to start logging the different ESS warnings it gives me on this thread. Today's comical warning attached: Start/Stop Not Ready Steering Wheel Turned

The one issue i had when my ESS wasnt working was it caused a check engine light and it kept throwing up messages. If it simply didnt work it wouldnt bother me but the check engine light and the warning codes got annoying real quick haha. Good luck.

 

[jayteal]

I typically get a message stating "ESS Not Ready - Go back to the dealership and get a new main battery....again". I'm on my third main battery and second auxiliary battery in 2.5 years and 32k miles.

 

[timn1984]

Mine said "Stop

I once got a message “Start/Stop Not Ready It’s Thursday Afternoon”.

Mine said "Stop/Start not ready because I'm too tired"

 

[TravisEA]

I typically get a message stating "ESS Not Ready - Go back to the dealership and get a new main battery....again". I'm on my third main battery and second auxiliary battery in 2.5 years and 32k miles.

When you pull into the parking lot, the message changes to "please leave jeep for 5 days in order to diagnose, we are backlogged with other customers and not taking appointments"

 

[jayteal]

When you pull into the parking lot, the message changes to "please leave jeep for 5 days in order to diagnose, we are backlogged with other customers and not taking appointments"

HAHA - for real. I've dropped it off and they're like "Yeah, the electrical dept is backed up for a few days so here's a crappy loaner. We'll fix it and see you this time next year"

 

[Gee-pah]

I wish (maybe there is) a metric to gauge how much carbon footprint was used to produce a vehicle, in addition of course to how much it uses once produced.

And when it comes to those vehicles, like electric or hybrid ones that consume less once produced over ICE only engines, I'd like to know how much, if any, additional carbon footprint they took up to produce over their ICE counterparts.

I've heard many ESS dislikers talk about the carbon footprint to produce these non-pure ICE vehicles--and they certainly have a valid point. I'd just like to know how much more that production footprint is relative to a more gas guzzling model.

Maybe it would be like an overall carbon footprint cost of ownership metric: production and use. And I appreciate how hard it might be to not only quantify how much footprint was use to say, built a muffler, but determine a MTBF (mean time between failure) metric for it.

 

[TravisEA]

Today’s message: Unsafe drivers don’t get to save the environment (driver seatbelt unbuckled)

 

[Jebiruph]

Is it true that the latest flash adds the message "Stop/Start Not Ready China Flu Mask Not On"?

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