2021 Battery issues

[Ford Motor Company]

Well, add another one to the list. Just walked by my truck in the dark, and the screen for the gauges was lightly lit and caught my eye. Grabbed my key and went back to the truck, noticed my welcome lighting didn’t work. Got in and tried to start it, and like the OP, got all kinds of warnings, but no start. Put a meter on the battery, and it was only at 10.8V. I was out in the truck a bunch yesterday, so it’s not from lack of use. Plan to call the dealer in the morning. Charger is on now.

Hi there! Will you send us a message with your VIN and your local Ford dealer? I can look into things on my end.

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[Ldkburra]

Yup. Solved it by installing an aftermarket AGM battery the first time this happened. About 11,000 miles later it hasn't happened again.

After buying your larger battery, did you make any changes through forscan to ensure the truck knows that there is a larger battery that is capable of accepting more charge? On another thread that I haven't found again yet, there was some discussion about how the truck may be programed to only provide sufficient charging to charge the original battery size to 80 % and by putting a larger battery in without updating the computer, the system may only charge the larger battery to 65% or something like that.

 

[Rm21f150]

Well, I got my truck back from the dealer yesterday. After 11 months and 5 trips to the dealer, it's the battery.
The good news is that they warranted the battery and hopefully this problem is solved. I would also add that Philpott Ford was very helpful and responsive. They gave me a nice loner F150 to drive while they did the parasitic draw test.
The down side of all this is that 4 times over 11 months they tested the battery and said it was good. Come to find out, those tests don't test for the battery maintaining sufficient voltage.
My battery would not hold a sufficient charge even with nothing pulling on it. However, when fully charged, which is the way they tested it previously, it would pass the load test.
My suggestion for anyone dealing with this under warranty, push for the parasitic draw test asap. It is the only way that they are going to warranty the battery. Looking back now, I wish I would have just bought a new battery 11 months ago. The only risk is that you actually have something drawing on the battery that needs to be fixed. But it would save alot of time and frustration.
Also, communicate with the Ford people that contact you on here. I did and they called the dealer. I think this expedited the process. They also told the dealer to cover the rental even before determining it was a warranty issue.

 

[SemperVee]

Love a simple happy ending

 

[Jersey Jim]

RM21... did they tell you the results of the parasitic load test? How much it was drawing and how much they consider normal?

 

[Jersey Jim]

Mark, do you know what "Units" the Cumulative Charge (with ignition on) in your dashboard, they are displaying? I've watched mine for days and the value may only increase by an amount of 0.1 every day, for an hour and a quarter of driving. Currently mine is displaying 29.4 and I'm beginning to think maybe they are measuring/logging Kilowatts. Do you think that is a possibility? Forscan only allows you to change from imperial to metric, but they don't always tell you what they're recording.

 

[jeffrt]

Well, add another one to the list. Just walked by my truck in the dark, and the screen for the gauges was lightly lit and caught my eye. Grabbed my key and went back to the truck, noticed my welcome lighting didn’t work. Got in and tried to start it, and like the OP, got all kinds of warnings, but no start. Put a meter on the battery, and it was only at 10.8V. I was out in the truck a bunch yesterday, so it’s not from lack of use. Plan to call the dealer in the morning. Charger is on now.

Had my truck at the dealer last week, and they put a new battery in. Didn't get much explanation as to why they thought it died, but at least I got a new one. We'll see how long it lasts. First one lasted just over a year and 37000 km. Checked for codes after it died and had 26 saved DTC's. All clear now.

 

[Big Dog Daddy]

Mark, do you know what "Units" the Cumulative Charge (with ignition on) in your dashboard, they are displaying? I've watched mine for days and the value may only increase by an amount of 0.1 every day, for an hour and a quarter of driving. Currently mine is displaying 29.4 and I'm beginning to think maybe they are measuring/logging Kilowatts. Do you think that is a possibility? Forscan only allows you to change from imperial to metric, but they don't always tell you what they're recording.

I'm not sure what exactly what unit of measure is being referenced there either. I'll take a look at mine tonight and let you know what my current value is for this.

 

[Snakebitten]

Well, I got my truck back from the dealer yesterday. After 11 months and 5 trips to the dealer, it's the battery.
The good news is that they warranted the battery and hopefully this problem is solved. I would also add that Philpott Ford was very helpful and responsive. They gave me a nice loner F150 to drive while they did the parasitic draw test.
The down side of all this is that 4 times over 11 months they tested the battery and said it was good. Come to find out, those tests don't test for the battery maintaining sufficient voltage.
My battery would not hold a sufficient charge even with nothing pulling on it. However, when fully charged, which is the way they tested it previously, it would pass the load test.
My suggestion for anyone dealing with this under warranty, push for the parasitic draw test asap. It is the only way that they are going to warranty the battery. Looking back now, I wish I would have just bought a new battery 11 months ago. The only risk is that you actually have something drawing on the battery that needs to be fixed. But it would save alot of time and frustration.
Also, communicate with the Ford people that contact you on here. I did and they called the dealer. I think this expedited the process. They also told the dealer to cover the rental even before determining it was a warranty issue.

This This This & THIS again.

With these trucks, until you eliminate the battery as a contributing issue to almost any problem you are experiencing, you're likely to experience a considerable amount of frustration and wasted time and effort with the dealership.

I'm NOT saying every problem is a battery problem.
I AM saying that it's amazing how many are.

 

[Big Dog Daddy]

Ive been monitoring a number of PID's relating to the charging system on my truck for the last couple of weeks. I had set my SOC in forscan from 80 to 90% this past summer. On December 20th I had fully charged the battery to 100% SOC over a 10 hour period. On December 26th Auto Start Stop again discontinued to function agian, so I began Monitoring with my ODBMX+ and found that the SOC was down to 60%

During the last 2 weeks I've determined that SOC is a very fickle thing. most of the time it seems to drop about 1% while parked overnight and on some occasions, I've seen it drop as much as 7 to 8% other times the level actually increases while parked based on ambient temperature. It appears that for every 5 to 10 minutes of driving SOC will increase by 1%. Through all of my trips in the past 2 weeks I've never seen the SOC move above 71% even though it's set to 90%.

At 70% Auto start stop will begin to function. and below 69% it will drop out again. I captured 2 A/S/S events in my logging and each time it engaged after only 10 to 15 seconds the truck restarted due to low battery voltage. within 8 seconds the battery voltage dropped from 13.1v down to 9.5v!

My conclusion is... it's time to purchase a 4th battery for this truck and it will not be another Motorcraft battery or any other battery that is manufactured by Clarios! A huge manufacturer that makes Motorcraft battery's well as many others such as Optima, Die-hard, Walmart, many OEM's and others store branded.

 

[Rm21f150]

RM21... did they tell you the results of the parasitic load test? How much it was drawing and how much they consider normal?

They said that there was no parasitic draw. Everything was shutting down as it should. But the battery still lost voltage as a result of it being faulty. That was as much as I could get out of them.

 

[Snakebitten]

I'm still stubbornly with my original battery, but I also have the Powerboost margin of error. Or at least what I perceive as why I am getting away with the less than healthy SOC of the 12V.
(note: was 12.4 when I started the charge routine)

Besides, it's Friday night!
I pull the truck up to the RV and give it its periodical overnight AGM 6 stage trickle charge.
I refuse to get too miffed about the scenario. I'm holding out hope one of you gurus relentless pursuits will discover a remedy at some point.

 

[Big Dog Daddy]

I'm still stubbornly with my original battery, but I also have the Powerboost margin of error. Or at least what I perceive as why I am getting away with the less than healthy SOC of the 12V.
(note: was 12.4 when I started the charge routine)

Besides, it's Friday night!
I pull the truck up to the RV and give it its periodical overnight AGM 6 stage trickle charge.
I refuse to get too miffed about the scenario. I'm holding out hope one of you gurus relentless pursuits will discover a remedy at some point.

The hole situation is very disheartening, and creates a certain amount of anxiety having to worry whether or not the truck is going to start. It's failed me once. I had thought that when the dealer replaced the battery the first time I was out of the woods with the problem. It sure takes the joy out of new vehicle ownership having to worry about a possible dead battery all of the time. For me I'm sure it will happen at the most inconvenient moment. Consequently I carry a noco jump pack behind my seat all of the time now.

I really hope someone finds an answer to this either the gurus here or Ford, but I can't keep throwing batteries at this truck every 6 months.

Your right, it's Friday so kick back and have a beer!

 

[Snakebitten]

With that jump pack, you won't actually get stranded though, right?
I mean it WILL get the truck started?

What's most confusing is that not all trucks are experiencing the same short life span of the battery. What's the variation? They all are running the same logic, right?

I don't mean the Powerboost VS the ICE only trucks of course. I think the Powerboost is masking the problem by having a big reserve backing up the 12V. Although I'm surprised that the DC/DC converter is active after shutdown, if that IS what is keeping the 12V battery from getting toasted.

 

[Big Dog Daddy]

With that jump pack, you won't actually get stranded though, right?
I mean it WILL get the truck started?

What's most confusing is that not all trucks are experiencing the same short life span of the battery. What's the variation? They all are running the same logic, right?

I don't mean the Powerboost VS the ICE only trucks of course. I think the Powerboost is masking the problem by having a big reserve backing up the 12V. Although I'm surprised that the DC/DC converter is active after shutdown, if that IS what is keeping the 12V battery from getting toasted.

I purchased the noco gb40 jump pack from Amazon. They claim it will hold a full charge for 1 year and jump a car up to 20 times without recharge. After Christmas my neighbor, knowing I wanted to test this asked to try it on his 1990 fox body 5.0 , the car had a stone dead 10 year old battery and won't even click. We hooked up the noco let it do it's thing for a couple of minutes. And the car started like it had a new battery! I can only hope I'm that successful if I need it! The thing weighs 3 pounds and it's the size of a box of powdered sugar, pretty amazing!

Ya, I don't get it with the 12v battery problem in these trucks. Are the batteries being produced having poor quality raw materials? Could it be they sat in parking lots for months in transport mode allowing them to discharge completely thus screwing up the chemistry in the battery from the get go? I also think there is some sort of logic problem across the board with Ford.

I watched a youtube video of a woman trying to apply updates to a lightning and they kept failing. I wanted the scream, put a charger on the 12v and it will fix the problem. So it looks like even there having problems with soc. For your entertainment here's the link.

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