TIme and a minimum of four gallons filling the tank to reset the timer before FORM is activated. The info is in your user manual.

 

My understanding is that it will use mileage as a barometer to initiate fuel oil refresh . The longer you travel on electric and zero or less engine you use it will then engage oil refresh . A specific mileage number I’m not sure . I think that’s why if your using vast majority of electric to not keep tank full past 1/4 to half. . But it will drain the tank and also lubricate the engine at same time .

 

Thanks to those answers. My two redundant postings was premature. Newbie to this forum and I didn't do a thorough search nor I didn't RTFM! I unfortunately gave up on relying finding pertinent details in much of the large but IMHO poorly written manual. Whole pages within important operation topics revert to 'If Equipped' sections. The build sheet from my dealer doesn't even mention some of the more esoteric comfort and safety 'features' mentioned.

 

The info is in your user manual. I have never had FORM activate on my hybrid since owning it. As I add fuel anytime it is a quarter of a tank below full. Unless on a long trip I let it run all the way down near empty.

Fuel And Oil Refresh Mode
Since it is possible to operate this vehicle for extended
periods of time without running the gas engine, the fuel
within the vehicle’s fuel tank can become stale. To prevent
engine and/or fuel system damage due to stale fuel, as
well as, maintaining internal engine lubrication, this vehicle
is equipped with a “Fuel and Oil Refresh Mode”.
The vehicle will automatically enter into the Fuel and Oil
Refresh Mode to minimize potential for stale fuel, and to
ensure lubrication of internal engine components. When
operating in this mode, the gas engine will run to provide
vehicle propulsion (electric only operation is inhibited). A
message will be displayed in the instrument cluster whenever
Fuel and Oil Refresh Mode is active.
The vehicle will automatically exit the Fuel and Oil Refresh
Mode when conditions have been satisfied. If the vehicle
enters Fuel and Oil Refresh Mode, due to fuel which has
been in the fuel tank for a long period of time (becoming
stale fuel), the engine will run whenever the vehicle is
operational (no electric only operation) until the low fuel
level warning is activated. It is possible to exit the Fuel and
Oil Refresh Mode sooner by adding four gallons or more of new fuel to the
vehicle’s fuel tank.

 

I just have a can, and add about 3 US gallons to stop FORM. I find I get through the fuel by the time FORM comes in again. I wish there was a option to pause it for a week or so.

 

I think an owners typical trip cycle use has a lot to do the frequency of FROM occurring as well; . so if you rarely to down to <1 on the battery level where the system kicks into its true hybrid mode and the engine is engaged running briefly to charge and the maintain battery back up to at least the <1 above absolute discharge then the FORM will come one much more frequently over the months. So its a combination of trip use, battery exhaustion cycling and time.
The only question that still bugs me with this engine design and application on these Hybrids is that by comparison, I used to let my old '95 Toyota Avalon (fantastic build quality and longevity on that one!) sit for a month or more, did not too frequent oil changes and never used fuel additives even here in Southern Canada in a only moderately cold winter climate, and never had a hint of engine trouble over 22 years, other than the two oxygen sensors which I replaced myself and a water pump replacement. My Odyssey which was a '99 EX model also had periods of no use and other than a the infamous EGR port clogging also never had any engine problems.
As mentioned in this description by Allpar in Deep inside the Chrysler Pacifica hybrid system which describes the overall technical design of the Chrysler Hybrid system:
"The gasoline engine is also different; it uses the Atkinson cycle (like Toyota hybrids), which is more efficient but produces lower peak power. There is no exhaust gas circulation (EGR) or alternator; and the air conditioner is not driven directly by the engine (so it can be powered when running on full electric). Internally, changes including different camshafts, pistons, and spark plugs; the oil pan and intake are also different from the non-hybrid version."
-So can the different camshafts, pistons, spark plugs, oil pan and air intake system be much more sensitive to engine killing effects of stale fuel, stale oil and internal condensation than a garden variety ICE?
My theory is that Chrysler thinks so (based on computer modelling, destructive or real world testing or ??) so hence the programmed FROM to run the engine in gas only mode.

 

I just purchased brand new 2021 and it was sitting at the mall for display for 3 months. Dealer came to deliver 3 hours away and engine never turned off ( ehybrid all said it was all engine all the way). They put about 7 gallon in ) FORM is still on. Could it be oil now? Oil life says 67 %. The car has been driven only 236 miles

Very frustrating

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I just purchased brand new 2021 and it was sitting at the mall for display for 3 months. Dealer came to deliver 3 hours away and engine never turned off ( ehybrid all said it was all engine all the way). They put about 7 gallon in ) FORM is still on. Could it be oil now? Oil life says 67 %. The car has been driven only 236 miles

Very frustrating

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I would put in 3 or 4 gallons of fuel and see if it goes off

 

This is frustrating to me because I also own a 2012 volt which has a similar protective feature to FORM, but it will only come on if you haven't used the ICE in several months and it only runs it for about five minutes while the screen provides a % completed bar. It doesn't require you to add fresh gas at all. I'm wondering if it's pressurized fuel tank helps keep the fuel fresh longer? I almost never add fuel to that vehicle and have not had significant issues with the engine. In our use case both vehicles are almost exclusively EVs except for road trips, so this FORM mode is kinda annoying.

 

There is a very detailed discussion of it here: Oil refresh mode - analysis and solutions

TL;DR: If adding fuel doesn't help, drive for 10 min to warm up the engine and drain the battery a bit, then idle in your driveway for another 5-15 min, which will let the oil heat up past 100 degrees Celsius. That should exit the mode. There are two things that can trigger FORM, stale gas, or the computer believing that there might be condensation in the oil (which it then wants to boil off). Just driving doesn't usually allow the oil to get hot enough because of the air passing through the radiator, so the idling is key.

 

The Oil mode also tracks oil dilution due to blow by from the engine running but the oil not reaching normal temperature. I just had form for the first time on my 2021 Hybrid. The tank had been filled about a month ago so I figured it must have been oil related. So I put the fam in the van, loaded up on snacks and went for a 30 minute drive. That fixed it.

 

Pretty sure the service manual states refueling the vehicle will not change FORM status. Resetting the oil change light will but it's expressly stated -not- to do that. The idea is to get the juices flowing in the engine and burn out the tank to prevent stale fuel. Really should just let it go until it finishes itself. Trying to bypass it really doesn't make sense.

 

2021 Hybrid Supplement page 37:

”If the vehicle enters Fuel and Oil Refresh Mode, due to fuel which has been in the fuel tank for a long period of time (becoming stale fuel), the engine will run whenever the vehicle is operational (no electric only operation) until the low fuel level warning is activated. It is also possible to exit the Fuel and Oil Refresh Mode sooner by adding a minimum of four gallons of new fuel to the vehicle’s fuel tank.”

 

2022 Pinnacle Hybrid, 2000 mls, Fuel and Oil Refresh mode running 5 days now!!!!!!! Chrysler Rip Off,

 

Have you added fuel? Have you driven for 20-30 minutes straight?

 

I bet oil part of FORM is to protect the engine if you decide to floor it. My ICE goes high revs right away! A couple of months of no oil pressure might leave the camshafts dry.

 

Not directly. The oil as specified for this engine keeps parts thinly coated for a long time. And this engine has a variable pressure oil pump. When it starts cold it provides oil at higher pressure (75psi) to rapidly coat the engine components. After a couple seconds oil pressure returns to 30psi.

But FORM does protect the engine by preventing stale fuel, and preventing excess oil dilution by moisture and blown-by hydrocarbons. There is also a time based spark plug metric the computer is tracking, but I don’t specifically know what the details of that are.

 

Eli, during normal days do you drive 30 miles electric, and the rest gas?

 

Only 36 mls electric a a day. Gas in the tank what the dealer put in. April 28 2022

 

2022 Pinnacle hybrid, I ran it in FORM for a week, filled it up with 9 gallon fuel last week and it went away. Now I have driven only 100 miles (all electric) and it came back again in just 4-5 days. Its annoying.

 

That could be the difference between FORM for fuel and FORM for oil. During that week of FORM did you ever drive it long enough to get it fully warmed (oil temperature at least 80C) and then drive another 20 minutes or so at that oil temperature?

 

Are you in FORM right now?

 

Yes

 

So you’ve added fuel. Go for that drive on the highway for 20ish minutes after it’s warm (oil temp over 80C) and see if that fixes it.

 

I will give it a shot and see how it goes. I will post back here with the results.

 

Mine is behaving like its in FORM mode but there isn't a message displayed like the manual says. I guess I'll try running to empty on gas and see if it resets. Is there a reset function like with my old Tesla? You could unhook the 12v battery and things would reset.

 

Add a couple of gallons of gas

 

Yep we tried this and it still fires up the gas engine every time we use the car. Used to be able to drive on electric for most trips around town. I'm familiar with the manual, but what is odd to me is that the car isn't showing any message saying that its in FORM mode, its just behaving that way. I'm going to try what others have recommended which is letting it idle and raise the oil temp and see if that gets it back to regular electric first mode and resets the oil refresh mode.

 

One option might be to hold down the start button for 15 seconds

 

I tried that but it didn't really seem to do anything. Tried on both turn on and turn off.

I did let the car and sit and idle yesterday till the oil temp came up. The engine stopped and it ran on battery down to about 80%....then the engine comes on and starts charging the battery again. It shows no messages but is running as a pure hybrid now...very annoying.

 

I tried everything except adding gas, yet for days it was stuck in FORM. I ran the gas down beyond where the low-fuel light comes on. I ran the oil temp up above 205 degrees. Still stayed in FORM. Finally I caved in and bought some gas, but only 1.3 gallons - $4.13 worth. Presto! I drove out of the gas station in electric mode and it stayed there the rest of the day.

Where is this discussed in the manual for the 2021 Pacifica hybrid?

 

I wish we were speaking Quechua instead of English. In Quechua, when you assert a fact you must include in the sentence one of four little short words (evidentiary enclitics) that categorize for listeners your source of information: Sensory input, inference, 2nd-hand report, or assumption. In some dialects of Quechua there is a fifth enclitic option indicating socially-shared belief. For detail Google "The evidential category of mutual knowledge in Quechua " . In Quechua, an assertion with no indication of the source of the alleged knowledge would be ungrammatical, sounding just as out of place and hard to take in as wrong word order in English, like "Days few come back in on it will a. Plus Gallons takes it four."

 

It is now 11 days later and my Pacifica has not returned to FORM.

It seems in my case, 1.3 gallons was enough and I did not need to put in 4 or 5, probably because I ran the tank down to near empty before adding fresh gas.

 

Argh...I've only had the van for 3 months and it's got 600 miles on it, and FORM just kicked in yesterday and I have about 90% of a full tank.
(i.e. not enough room in the tank to get it to shut off)

 

I’ve heard that just taking it on the highway for 15-30 minutes will usually get it to exit FORM. Some say that it’s a matter of getting the oil temperature up to a certain level and continuing to drive it for a bit.

 

FORM for 4 days how. Been on HW and on trips of more than 30 min so engine was up to temp ( There is an oil pressure and temp gauge so you can confirm. Very annoying

 

Have you put any fuel in yet?