Here's a question: We have a new (5 days old) 2005. Works great!
I took it to work to show it off. Everbody seemed quite impressed.
However, there was a lot of short driving including the parking lot. And, with the hot SC (~90F) day, there was a lot of the electric air conditioner running.
At the end of the last demo, I was down to 3 of 8 bars and I shut the car down and went back to work.
When I left for the day, I still had the 3 bars. However, it soon dropped to 2 bars and was pink color as it does.
It seemed like the engine should have been doing its best to recharge the battery. However, it was starting and stopping as normal.
Eventually, the battery display showed 3, then 4,5...and finally was back at 7 bars as I returned home.
The question is, what if the electrical load was such as to continue to lower the battery state (it was already at only 2 bars, remember). For example, one could be doing a lot of stop and go with the A/C running. (I shut down the A/C this afternoon when I saw what the battery condition was.) I am not sure that someone else would have been watching the display as much.
At what point, would the computer start the engine? If the battery somehow became too discharged, would the computer shut down the car and then I would have to get a tow? (I think so.) What is the likelihood of this happening?
Thanks in advance.
Bob