I love our '21 Pinnacle, but man are the issues starting to pile up. We had been using electric almost exclusively up until this past Thursday when FORM kicked on. I've done a decent bit of reading in the manual and in this forum (thank you!) so understand what it is doing mostly. That said, a few primary issues:
Pair this with the fact the transmission now sounds like it is going to fall out of the car between first and second gear (can share video of the LOUD clunking sound if helpful), and I'm pretty frustrated. I have had a number of other issues with this van (e.g. PHEV readout shows no driving on days when we absolutely drove the vehicle, rear tailgate button intermittently not working, etc), but this takes the cake.
Any thoughts? Does FORM burn through fuel at an unusually high rate, and should I expect anything from the dealership when I take it in in 2 weeks (first available appointment).
- The average MPG readout from the time I purchased the car showed around 55 mpg.
- FORM kicked on with the fuel gauge at about 7/8 full. I didn't give it much though, but once it dropped quickly to 3/4 full and an estimated range of just 274 miles (putting the vehicle very well below the ~480 estimated range), I started taking photos. You can see the start here at 802 miles in one of the attached photos.
- All of a sudden, my average MPG started to decrease quickly. This is after the vehicle already had over 800 miles on it, by the way, indicating to me the mpg at the time had to be extremely low to offset that average.
- At 851 miles, estimated range had dropped to 199 miles. I continued to drive the car to see how bad things would get (perhaps my mistake), then starting calling dealers for service appointments.
- During all of this, FORM was on and the battery range of the vehicle showing ~25 miles and 100% charge.
- A few numbers and final photos included to show current state before I go put the 4 gallons of fuel in to disable FORM:
- Total vehicle miles: 929.9
- Electric miles: 703.4
- Gas Miles: 226.5 (with ~78 miles estimated range remaining)
- System displayed MPG: 23.9
Pair this with the fact the transmission now sounds like it is going to fall out of the car between first and second gear (can share video of the LOUD clunking sound if helpful), and I'm pretty frustrated. I have had a number of other issues with this van (e.g. PHEV readout shows no driving on days when we absolutely drove the vehicle, rear tailgate button intermittently not working, etc), but this takes the cake.
Any thoughts? Does FORM burn through fuel at an unusually high rate, and should I expect anything from the dealership when I take it in in 2 weeks (first available appointment).




