They tried something that they thought would fix it but it didn't work. I would let them know and ask them to fix it.

 

Hi garydeidre,

We understand how this could be frustrating and would like to apologize for any inconvenience this concern may have caused. We would like to look into this further for you and see if there is any opportunity for us to assist. Please feel free to send us a private message with additional details.
Julie
Chrysler Social Care Specialist

 

I am having the same problem and am wondering if this is covered by warranty?

 

Hi davefisher5,
We would like to offer our assistance to you as well. Please send us a private message if this is something that interests you.
Julie
Chrysler Social Care Specialist

 

We just purchased a 2018 Pacifica and there was an ESS light on the instrument cluster that I did not understand. The salesman told me to bring the vehicle back on the next business day and their service department would fix it. They ended up replacing the auxiliary battery and said the light would go out when the auxiliary battery fully charged up. It is been 3 days and 160 miles later and the light is still on and the engine is not turning off at stop lights.
This is not a big deal, but it is a feature we paid for and is not working on the vehicle.
This appears to be a problem where Chrysler has not distributed the necessary information to the dealers. It appears they do not know how to fix the problem. This type of thing usually is not the fault of the repair technician, it is the fault of the corporation not backing up the techs with an engineering contact to solve new problems seen out in the field.
How do we get this fixed?

Are you positive you don't have the ESS disabled on the dash right underneath the radio. Try turning on and off the disable button several times through out the day.

By the way many here would give their right arm for the car not to turn off at the lights.

If you are using the AC a lot your Aux battery may never get charged up enough for it to work, if you are in a very hot area it won't work either.

I do think your techs are wrong, becasue upon putting in a new good Aux battery that light turns right off, waiting for it to charge is wrong becasue the techs wouldn't know if their was actually another cause to the problem. If there is another issue they would not know about it so the techs should never of let you bring it home like that in the first place! My bet, the main battery is the culprit(bad) or one of the wires or connection to one of the batteries. Or the new Aux batter is bad!

If you drive that car 45 minutes with no accessories on that aux battery will be fully charged, period. Bring it back and dont take it back if they try the old drive it unto it s charge becasue that is 100% wrong. Agsin, they cant possibly know the issue is repaired sending you off like that! They should of simply charged the Aux battery themselves before giving you the car back.


I dont take a car back with error lights still on, that's like me bringing in the car with a check engine light on and them sending me home with the check engine light on saying it's going to miraculously repair itself. Nope, not a big bad corporation, just not a good technician or shop.

 

Just had the same issue and learned the correct information from a different dealership that I had chosen to turn to the second time around. I also had to get a new aux battery on my van (done by the original dealer), but the thing is the ESS warning light (that also goes with the ESS needs service message) should have been turned off right away when the new battery was put in. But here is thing to remember that I learned from visiting with a dealer with more experience with this : when replacing either battery the stop start feature will enter a learn mode of sorts and may be unavailable for a couple of days. So the ESS warning light should be off, but the ESS will not enable itself, and may not do so for a couple of days. This is normal. Eventually the ESS will start itself going again when it has been determined it is ready to do so. At first I was really concerned with my van in that I got a new battery (auxiliary), the warning light was gone, but the ESS still not been used by the van. Well, it turned out that the next day (and around maybe five or so hours of driving) it just started using it again on its own; just as I was told by the second dealership. This is a known part of this feature that was also confirmed by reading some blogs from the Cherokee forums on stop start. But if your still getting that ESS warning light on the dash, with the message that stop start needs service, then perhaps the aux battery was not installed correctly. When the original dealer installed my new aux battery, they had that light on the dash completely gone. I hope this helps.

 

We just bought a 2018 Pacifica Touring Plus and after 300 miles the ESS not available light came on and the van would start up and idle really rough. After driving it for a while the problem would go away but resurface in the morning.
We took it to the dealer and they replaced a fuel injector. I went to pick it up and the light came on again and it was shaking. So they immediately took the car back. So far the van has been in the shop almost as long as we have had it. They are telling me now that they need a fuel injector housing and that will solve the problem. I think so far we have had the car for about 10 days and the service department has had it for 6 days. We love the van when its working but its only been 300 miles and we are getting nervous.

Hi cmclimber,
I'm very sorry that this is happening to your brand new Pacifica. You can send us a private message if you have any questions or concerns while your van is being serviced.
Lydia
Chrysler Social Care Specialist

 

We just had the same issue this past week, first battery light then ESS light (battery light off). Sent Chrysler Cares a private PM.

 

Hi,
I have the same issue the lights is on.
Were you able to solve that ?
Thanks

 

Hi Tomnus77479,
We're sorry to hear about this. We suggest having your dealer look into this concern for you. Please send us a private message if you would like any additional assistance with this. We're happy to help!
Lydia
Chrysler Social Care Specialist

 

I've said it before on this issue - the ESS Stop/Start system DOES NOT WORK. We've had our 2018 in to repair that system more than once. Finally last spring/summer the dealer kept the car for 3 days to work it and perform repair and replacement actions and then some kind of learning process required by the manufacturer. It worked for a couple of days and quit again. Now we just figure the system will never work and even joke with each other when the stupid system does. We've had the system unavailable and charging for months at a time; sometimes it will be "charging" for hundreds of miles and hours at a time but still not be ready. Then after those long trips and several days later of only local driving it will suddenly work for a day or two before reverting to the unavailable and charging notice again. It's a stupid joke that FCA will ever get it working reliably. So my recommendation to everyone including ChryslerCares people: Just ignore it and don't stress over it.

 

Got the same warning light and resetted the code using an ODB reader. Now the ESS is working again. ?

My guess, the problem is on the software design side. I’m now more concerned than before. It’s not a good sign if the system changes operation after using a ODB reader.

 

Got the same warning light and resetted the code using an ODB reader. Now the ESS is working again. ?
My guess, the problem is on the software design side. I’m now more concerned than before. It’s not a good sign if the system changes operation after using a ODB reader.

Give it some time before you believe it is really fixed. Mine has worked for over a month sometimes, and then will start its BS behavior.

 

Yes, resetting the code should be done after replacing the battery. At least that's what the dealer did to my Pacifica. Another thing is that they have to replace both batteries. That was my case.

 

Ess light

I am having the same issue with the yellow a icon with exclamation mark beside it. There is a message in my cluster saying "stop/start feature unavailble" i called the dealership where i purchased this van and they told me my warranty is out. How do i fix this? I have only had my 2017 chrysler pacifica for 1 year and 3 days.

 

I am having the same issue with the yellow a icon with exclamation mark beside it. There is a message in my cluster saying "stop/start feature unavailble" i called the dealership where i purchased this van and they told me my warranty is out. How do i fix this? I have only had my 2017 chrysler pacifica for 1 year and 3 days.

Hello AREDD2018,

Please send us a PM mentioning your vehicle concerns, we would like to request additional information.

Lamar
Chrysler Social Care Specialist

 

We are also having this problem. We took our 2018 Pacifica back to the dealer after the ESS light came on ( A! ) they “fixed it”. Now 6 days later it’s back on again. Very frustrating.

 

Sorry to hear of the trouble you are experiencing with your van, Drezdoesit. If it would be of interest, we'd be happy to provide you with an additional layer of assistance as you work with your dealer for this concern. We're just a PM away.

Mark
Chrysler Social Care Specialist

 

Hello do you remember how you got your yellow circle A! Light off?? Main battery is new and Aux was just replaced new drove 50 miles still on..

 

I believe it can take 5 or 6 drive cycles to get rid of the A! light. You can also try what I did and disconnect the negative from the main battery for a couple of minutes. Then when you reconnect, it will reset all kinds of things on the vehcile. Including that warning light.

And I did replace my main battery two days ago. Voltage shows 12.3+ when I check before starting. Better than the 11.7 I saw just before the swap.

 

My 2017 Touring L just exhibited this problem a week ago. I had to replace my main battery 2 months ago. What I am reading here is either replace the aux battery or do an ODB reader reset (something I’d have to google). Am I missing something else?

 

My 2 cents. There is a design flaw in the ess system. I believe it is designed to save gas by shutting off the engine, while preserving air flow (temp) radio etc. with the aux battery. However if you don’t put on sufficient milage the battery doesn’t charge enough. So although it keeps milage up and emissions down, it doesn’t charge enough nor fast enough. I believe that’s the failure IMNSHO.

 

I bought a 2019 Touring L from Hertz Sales with about 45k miles. The stop/start feature has been working fine for the 4 months I've had it, but the ESS warning light just came on 3 days ago and ESS stopped working. The car is less than 2 years old and the aux battery already has problems? Is this covered by warranty? Pretty shoddy quality control IMO.

 

While the failure of your auxiliary battery may seem premature for the year of your van with 45k miles I'm not too surprised as the aux battery is much smaller than your main and its storage capacity was most likely used up with the 100's or 1,000's of ESS cycles during the 45k miles.

Because your main battery and the auxiliary battery are electrically connected when the van is shut off the weaker battery will draw down the capacity of the stronger battery, which in your case is the main battery. If you do not replace your aux battery eventually your van will not start because the main battery has been compromised by the auxiliary battery. I have heard of this happening in days after the aux battery has failed.

Both the main and aux batteries in our Pacifica's are AGM types which do not like to have their energy level drawn down very low, doing so too many times reduces their capacity to store energy and they will need to be replaced.

Its unfortunate that the design of the ESS on the Pacifica seems to be very taxing on the main and aux batteries as there are many case of these batteries needing to be replaced on vans which are only 2-3 years old or less.

The gas mileage saving of the ESS system is minuscule at best. I would say that some could argue the rapid consumption of batteries is more detrimental to our environment than any gas saving. How many more batteries have to be manufactured and recycled (if they all get recycled)? How many owners get towed because of battery failures, tow trucks don't get very good gas mileage.

If you want to save your main battery you can disconnect the negative terminal of the aux battery. Doing so will deactivate the ESS and you get the message that it is not available and you will have the warning light on the dash like you now have but you will prevent the main battery from being further drained by the aux.

 

I have had the same problem with my chrysler Pacifica 2019, the EES system doesnt work, and the auxiliary battery was already changed, it has 56k miles and i dont know if this problem will be fixed under warrantie

 

What was the resolution to this for you?

 

I have the same problem My van has less than 5000 miles. The dealer changed the auxiliary battery and upgraded the firmware to no avail.
It is a bad design

 

Hi garydeidre,

We understand how this could be frustrating and would like to apologize for any inconvenience this concern may have caused. We would like to look into this further for you and see if there is any opportunity for us to assist. Please feel free to send us a private message with additional details.
Julie
Chrysler Social Care Specialist

I am facing a similar problem.