2nd Motorcraft battery dead in 3 year span

[2jmills]

How do you check the SOC?
Is it something that I am missing?

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[F150 John]

I am using Forscan to do it. There are other ways as well.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

You can also use a OBDII port adapter such as the OBD Link MX+ or any reliable ELM adapter like the Vgate iCar Pro and scan tool app to see it one that's Carplay/Android Auto compatible is also a plus so you can monitor other parameters form the infotainment screen. The reason for the price difference is the level of PID access they can provide. The Vgate is a decent entry level adapter but has limits on what all you can monitor compared with the MX+ which can access all available sensors on the truck provided you use the right app.

 

[Nommpop]

2021 with 80k on it, still original batteries and never an issue

 

[Risky Bizness]

I got rid of the Motorcraft batteries about 4 years ago. Went to Odyssey batteries. They may cost a bit more, but are at least a quality product!!!

 

[Bluegrass]

On this forum, there is a lot of knowledge missing about the charge circuit and Battery attributes such that all that happens is blame the Battery over and over again.
The Battery Mangement or known as the BMS is a complex progam that controls charging according to conditions detected by the Sensor attached to the Negative Battery Post.
It is a Micro Processor that converts the data it detects into a data stream sent to the BMS over a dedicated Bus Pair for storage in Memory.
The data is discharge and charge currents levels, Battery temperature, age, capacity, state of charge.
This data causes the program to handle the Battery differently as the Battery ages.
The BMS program is written to favor and expect the way the Motorcraft is designed for parameters from the supplier that is usually for an H6 size capacity.
.
No way to account for all the different conditions the vehicle will be subject to be each owner.
Placing a larger size under the same conditions only extends the time to the same result, later. Thats why it's not always a Battery fault for an undesired outcome.
Are there differences in Batteries? Sure is from mass production tolerances to differences in internal construction. to capacity differences in the same size case.
.
AGM: Max charge voltage is 14.8 to keep from overheating the Cells that are sealed.
Ford state of charge in service is in the 12.2 to 12.8 range or less than what 100% would be by intent to have some safe head room from over charging and heating.
The time of year, the part of the country, the temperature ranges encountered all have to be considered.
This is where the big problem come from.
The limit on charge voltage requires longer drive cycles to recover the Battery SOC.
Add to this the difference in voltage between the Battery terminals and to Body Control Module output can be a half volt +/- depending on the current flow.
.
Auto stop start: This function is very complex to address all that has to be used to restart the engine.
Trans. has to have a fluid pump to operate the internals, starter has to be operated, at least 5 modules to do all the control functions.
If the Battery voltage is not above a certain level, A-S/S will be inhibited.
The system has a DC to DC inverter to help keep the voltage up for restarts and run the supports circuitry. If the Battery is not up to level none will work and Screen report tell to manually start the engine before the Battery gets to low>>>in the driver's interest of not being stranded.
Add to all this are some 30 or more reasons the system will inhibit due to driver actions.
There is more, any fault detected within the system automatically inhibits operation.
And you all thought it's just the poor ole Battery just causing all the issues.
Good luck.

 

[ttnuagmada]

1st battery lasted 2 years, but gave me problems for a good year of that. I just kept getting the "system off to save battery" message, which would go away for weeks if I just did a BMS reset. They wouldn't replace it at first though and just kept telling me that I "didn't drive it enough". Finally got them to replace it after throwing a fit at about the 2 year mark. 2nd battery is coming up on the 2 year mark and it still seems perfectly fine. My driving habits have not changed at all. The original battery was bad in some kind of way that gave the BMS fits, but wouldn't fail a battery test, and never actually gave me issues in-between BMS resets. As you can see directly above me, Ford still refuses to acknowledge that this is a thing, even though it's happened to plenty of other people.

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