2022 Powerboost Platinum died and left me stranded in Moab

[rockfish]

On the second day of my 3 week road trip my 2022 Powerboost with 15K miles died on I-70 outside of Moab. It went into limp mode and displayed "Stop safely now". It was 107 degrees when it died. Would run really rough and then die when pushing the accelerator. Eventually it would not start and not even come out of park. Had it towed to Performance Ford of Moab (huge mistake). After a few days I rented a Jeep (Ford will be paying for it) and continued my vacation. Performance Ford of Moab did not have it figured out when I got back 2 weeks later and say it needs an in-tank fuel pump (PL3Z9H307B) which is on nationwide backorder with no ETA. The parts manager at Performance Ford of Moab told me that this is the same part used in 2023 trucks with the Ecoboost V6 not just the Powerboost. So if Ford is building trucks with these, but won't send one to a customer, what does that say about Ford? Ford customer care says they cannot contact anyone at the factory even to ask about this. If Performance Ford of Moab is right, then if a Powerboost's high voltage hybrid battery drops below a certain level, the truck will never work again until it is charged, and they can't run any diagnostics, which required them to obtain a special battery charger, which took them and Ford engineers almost 2 weeks to figure out the charger had to be updated to be able to charge the Powerboost battery. Bottom line, no truck now for almost 5 weeks, no ETA on getting it fixed. I rented a U-Haul truck to get my motorcycle and gear back home and Ford Customer Care will have to ship my truck back home when finally fixed.

I've had my Powerboost for almost a year now, and this is the first big issue I've had. I have had numerous small issues like others report. I have had the super loud thunder feedback issue with the B&O stereo twice. Once when towing my boat I got a message about motor coolant over temperature even while the temperature gauge was showing normal. Overall, I really like the Powerboost, but I bought it for boondocking with the generator, and now I'm not confident at all about its reliability. I did see that one owner said that in a similar situation, Ford gave them a 75,000 mile extended warranty so I'll be checking on that. I'm going to be submitting receipts to Ford Customer Care for car rental, hotels and towing totaling almost $7000. Sure would have been a lot cheaper to pull a fuel pump from the assembly line and ship it to the dealer.

If anyone can help, please chime in! Especially interested in possible design flaws in the Powerboost that would make the truck totally unusable if the hybrid battery fails or gets too low on charge. Thanks in advance.

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[rockfish]

I had also just started to have the window bounce issue that others describe where as soon as the driver window closes it bounces back open again. Kept having to mess with it and hold the switch for several seconds once the window closed to keep it from opening again. The last update I see for my truck is 4.2.4.

 

[Oxford_Powerboost]

Your window problem screams bad 12V battery to me - which could cause a stop safely now error.

Repeated attempts to start the engine or run accessories with a bad 12V battery will run down the hybrid battery with nothing to charge it. It’s a commonality among all hybrids that there is a safety protection built in to disable the high voltage system below a certain battery state of charge - requiring a manual emergency charge to bring it back up. I am surprised the dealer didn’t have it on hand, but I’m not surprised that they are having trouble diagnosing the issue…powerboost knowledge seems limited among techs, and symptoms of a bad 12V battery are often mistaken by techs on this generation of trucks for much more serious issues.

 

[turbopilot]

Your window problem screams bad 12V battery to me - which could cause a stop safely now error.

Repeated attempts to start the engine or run accessories with a bad 12V battery will run down the hybrid battery with nothing to charge it. It’s a commonality among all hybrids that there is a safety protection built in to disable the high voltage system below a certain battery state of charge - requiring a manual emergency charge to bring it back up.

Or the battery is good but the SOC has been taken down by too many wake cycles and not running the blower at 5 or higher.

Whatever the problem, if you have a PowerBoost you need to monitor both DC systems regularly for SOC variations. Several OBD tools exist to do this task.

 

[Kingnut]

Or the battery is good but the SOC has been taken down by too many wake cycles and not running the blower at 5 or higher.

Whatever the problem, if you have a PowerBoost you need to monitor both DC systems regularly for SOC variations. Several OBD tools exist to do this task.

Bro do you by chance have a write up on this app and all of your custom gauges?

 

[turbopilot]

Bro do you by chance have a write up on this app and all of your custom gauges?

https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/threads/obdlink-mx-is-on-sale-today.13217/post-370706

 

[FirstTimeFrank]

Please keep us posted when you identify the root cause. Got me shook. My 22 PB has 20K miles and has no history of issues. Stories like yours always scare the shit out of me.

 

[Polo08816]

Your window problem screams bad 12V battery to me - which could cause a stop safely now error.

Repeated attempts to start the engine or run accessories with a bad 12V battery will run down the hybrid battery with nothing to charge it. It’s a commonality among all hybrids that there is a safety protection built in to disable the high voltage system below a certain battery state of charge - requiring a manual emergency charge to bring it back up. I am surprised the dealer didn’t have it on hand, but I’m not surprised that they are having trouble diagnosing the issue…powerboost knowledge seems limited among techs, and symptoms of a bad 12V battery are often mistaken by techs on this generation of trucks for much more serious issues.

That's too much BS (from Ford) for me to want to deal with. Non-hybrid is the way to go. Easier to diagnose and repair.

 

[rockfish]

A few other details... Once they figured out how to get the truck out of park, they replaced the 12 volt battery under the hood and truck would still not even try to start. Then they replaced the PCM which also did nothing. Thats when they determined that the state of charge on the hybrid battery was low and would not allow anything to happen.

In my opinion, Ford needs to have a call center filled with high-end technicians who can help dealer technicians work on issues like this. These vehicles are so complex now that very few of the dealer technicians have a clue about how to diagnose/fix them. The dealer told me Ford used to have something like this, but replaced everyone with less experienced people to save money and now they are not much help.

Also, I don't think any of us should be having to monitor battery levels, trickle charge vehicles etc. I drive my truck almost every day and expect it to just work without issue, just like most vehicles do.

 

[scott011422]

On the second day of my 3 week road trip my 2022 Powerboost with 15K miles died on I-70 outside of Moab. It went into limp mode and displayed "Stop safely now". It was 107 degrees when it died. Would run really rough and then die when pushing the accelerator. Eventually it would not start and not even come out of park. Had it towed to Performance Ford of Moab (huge mistake). After a few days I rented a Jeep (Ford will be paying for it) and continued my vacation. Performance Ford of Moab did not have it figured out when I got back 2 weeks later and say it needs an in-tank fuel pump (PL3Z9H307B) which is on nationwide backorder with no ETA. The parts manager at Performance Ford of Moab told me that this is the same part used in 2023 trucks with the Ecoboost V6 not just the Powerboost. So if Ford is building trucks with these, but won't send one to a customer, what does that say about Ford? Ford customer care says they cannot contact anyone at the factory even to ask about this. If Performance Ford of Moab is right, then if a Powerboost's high voltage hybrid battery drops below a certain level, the truck will never work again until it is charged, and they can't run any diagnostics, which required them to obtain a special battery charger, which took them and Ford engineers almost 2 weeks to figure out the charger had to be updated to be able to charge the Powerboost battery. Bottom line, no truck now for almost 5 weeks, no ETA on getting it fixed. I rented a U-Haul truck to get my motorcycle and gear back home and Ford Customer Care will have to ship my truck back home when finally fixed.

I've had my Powerboost for almost a year now, and this is the first big issue I've had. I have had numerous small issues like others report. I have had the super loud thunder feedback issue with the B&O stereo twice. Once when towing my boat I got a message about motor coolant over temperature even while the temperature gauge was showing normal. Overall, I really like the Powerboost, but I bought it for boondocking with the generator, and now I'm not confident at all about its reliability. I did see that one owner said that in a similar situation, Ford gave them a 75,000 mile extended warranty so I'll be checking on that. I'm going to be submitting receipts to Ford Customer Care for car rental, hotels and towing totaling almost $7000. Sure would have been a lot cheaper to pull a fuel pump from the assembly line and ship it to the dealer.

If anyone can help, please chime in! Especially interested in possible design flaws in the Powerboost that would make the truck totally unusable if the hybrid battery fails or gets too low on charge. Thanks in advance.

Man, Its really hard to say. It all depends on how the computer is programmed to run. But its entirely possible that the bad fuel pump caused everything. If the fuel pump died when the High Voltage battery was low, The 12v batteries are only going to last so long without hooking up a power supply. So if they over discharged the truck it wouldn't surprise me that they would have to bring the battery back into tolerance before the truck would take over. Sounds like you just had the bad luck of a poorly trained dealer.

Good luck on the Fuel Pump!

P.S., Wouldn't be a bad idea to change the factory 12v battery either. They really do suck!

 

[scott011422]

A few other details... Once they figured out how to get the truck out of park, they replaced the 12 volt battery under the hood and truck would still not even try to start. Then they replaced the PCM which also did nothing. Thats when they determined that the state of charge on the hybrid battery was low and would not allow anything to happen.

In my opinion, Ford needs to have a call center filled with high-end technicians who can help dealer technicians work on issues like this. These vehicles are so complex now that very few of the dealer technicians have a clue about how to diagnose/fix them. The dealer told me Ford used to have something like this, but replaced everyone with less experienced people to save money and now they are not much help.

Also, I don't think any of us should be having to monitor battery levels, trickle charge vehicles etc. I drive my truck almost every day and expect it to just work without issue, just like most vehicles do.

Did I miss a post? Why are they surprised it wont start with a bad fuel pump?

Youll see the charging being a issue more and more as vehicles require MORE and MORE power to operate normally, And then not operating the vehicle long enough to recover that power.

For instance, On my truck, it takes 15-20 min of ignition on time to recover overnight and starting losses. If its going to sit alot, or drive short distances, newer vehicles are going to start having troubles without finding a different way to manage the batteries.

And for Ford specifically, they need to change the way their intelligent BMS system works. There is no good reason why they should intentionally be discharging the battery to 12.5V before really trying to charge it. That's definitely not helping on the short trips.

 

[Gros Ventre]

Some thoughts... If you ever run the fuel tank dry (eg where the fuel pump has no fuel to pump), an electric fuel pump will probably fail within 5-10 thousand miles. I saw this on a family suburban kept for some 30 years. I concluded the OEM electric Fuel pumps were likely good for 125-150 thousand miles. After that replacement pumps seem to be good for about 100 thousand miles. But again if for some reason you run the fuel tank dry, replace the electric fuel pump. I have no idea as to the life expectancy of the high pressure fuel pump. As to the battery voltage, the system is set up to 12.6VDC, so 12.5VDC is no big deal. This voltage is specific to the AGM type batteries Ford uses.

 

[turbopilot]

As to the battery voltage, the system is set up to 12.6VDC, so 12.5VDC is no big deal. This voltage is specific to the AGM type batteries Ford uses.

I would like to know a little more about this thought. AGM batteries generally charge to a floating range of 13.5 to 13.8 volts. Are you saying Ford is using some special type of AGM battery that has a charge float range down to 12.5? I have not seen this in any Ford documentation. It would also obsolete all battery chargers currently provisioned to support the typical AGM target float voltage.

 

[Gros Ventre]

What I have observed is that is where the system, and battery, takes you. After replacing my OEM Battery because of some funny readings. I did an initial "wetting down charge." And you're correct, the battery after some 10 hours on a low rate (2 amp) charge was at about 13.6 VDC(typical for a flooded cell battery). Then I took it off charge and observed the system voltage. It marched right down to 12.6VDC. Since I didn't turn in the core battery on replacement, I kept it and periodically charged it with an AGM specific charger. It charges up to 12.6 VDC and stops... I've since seen documentation that shows Ford has set system voltage at 12.6VDC. Turns out if you do some homework on AGM btteries, you'll find they are particualrly susceptible to overcharging failures. My inference is that Ford set up their system software to prevent going above about 80-85% charge (equates to 12.6VDC) for that specific reason.

 

[rockfish]

Fuel was not low, and I've never run this truck out of gas or even super low. A theory is that the in-tank fuel pump failed and in getting off the highway with the engine off the hybrid battery ran down. The truck wouldn't start, or even come out of park, but headlights, running boards, stereo etc all were still working fine.

The truck had to be dragged onto the flatbed since it wouldn't come out of park. The guy opened a panel below the steering wheel and opened an aluminum lever, but that didn't help. I've since found out that maybe the electric parking brake might have been automatically on. but the tow guy could never figure it out and just shook his head...

When it got to the dealership, I kept trying to start it and every now and then it would try to fire and I could move the shifter to neutral, but then it would always try to put itself back in park. I had to apply a lot of force just to keep it in neutral.

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