I now am greeted with the message "Economy Mode Active" on the central display when I start the car. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean or what it does. There is no mention of it in the owner's manual.
The only thing that I have done to the car was to replace the fuse (no 22 I think) which looks after the front interior light, 12v sockets and the air con blower.
Any ideas?
Hi Chris,
On our berlingo we used to get the "Economy Mode" on the central display when for example, like when you would sit with the van off, and were listening to the radio. The message would kick in after about 15 mins, so I assumed it to mean the van was conserving battery.
Not exactly a solution, but that's when it occurred on ours.
That's sounds possible. I had the sat nav plugged in. Cheers for that
It is amazing how much isn't mentioned in the manual and that you learn as you go along!
I had this when I had my stereo on without the engine running last year and it was for that reason. It didn't come back again after I started up and drove home. Not seen it since either
Lliam
Got this answer from another forum...
ECO mode is the state the computer goes into when it can see consumption of battery power but has no indication that the alternator is charging the battery......ECO mode occurs on all the latest citroen models and can occur anything between 30 minutes to 2 minutes without the engine running.
Its purpose is to shut off all consumers and thus stop the battery going flat......the computers on the car wont operate unless they have at least 11.5 volts.
Its got to be easier to restart the car and wait for eco mode to cut in again (knowing you are flattening the battery) than it is to leave the radio on with the volume down low and come back to a car you cant start!.....how irritatting would that be?
So Eco mode.......has nothing to do with being enviromentally friendly......its all to do with being economical with the battery power.
That's true. When I picked my Berli up in October and the dealer was walking me through everything economy mode kept flashing and we had to run the motor for a bit to get it to stop. It insures that the battery will have enough juice left to start the car by stopping other juice gobblers before that point is reached.
So it is just the car going into battery protection mode.
Hopefully thats what was happening with Chris' sat nav being plugged in.
What is a bit odd is that it is still showing it despite having driven for hours yesterday. I will have a look and see if one of the little darlings has left a light on or something.
I find it a real pain on our berlingo mk3 at work as some times we need to charge the signal meters from the lighter socket and it means running the engine I am sure it must take more out of the battery starting the engine then charging the meter for 15 mins , never had a van not start even if left charging over night on our previous vans.
if any one finds an answer to getting rid of this bloody annoying warning I will be happy, I am also another who in 2 million mile plus of driving have never flattened a battery by leaving radio on. And this really pi--es me of that if I sit waiting for my other half listening to radio it cuts off and I have to start engine. On my vw camper I ran a laptop through a device to cut out if battery was going flat and it went for hours before that happened. I think Citroen have gone to far on this gimmick and not timed it properly , or their batteries are too lean on power reserve,
I checked all this;
-Interior lights; the two in the boot and the central one in the front (these all have a three-way switch) are set in "door open" position. All the other light switches are set in the middle, so are off.
-Nothing left plugged into any of the 12v sockets
-Headlights left in "O" position, so off/auto
-No obvious sign that the battery is not charging or is weak (I haven't tested it though)
I had been driving with everything on (lights, wipers, 2x12v sockets being used, radio) but on a long trip (750km motorway non-stop) then I would be surprised if the battery was being drained faster than it was being charged.
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Now worked out that this has been the normal Economy Mode function doing its thing.