Gremlins???

[Ernst]

It's just random small problems that never repeat. Just here and there over the ~1500 miles on the brand new 2025 truck.

Shifted into reverse-- nothing. Truck is running but appears to be stuck in neutral. Have to return to park and restart vehicle and then it works. Fine since.

Vehicle died after coming to a stop before making a left turn. Return to park, restart. Fine since.

While reversing the emergency rear brake assist kicked on a refused to let me continue backing up until I had returned to drive and pulled forward a bit. Returned to reverse and backed up. Fine since.

Remote services app can't connect and I have to do a full reset to make it work again. Fine since.

Rear view camera goes black halfway through backing up and then magically works again. Fine since.

Today I come out and the key fob won't work. Won't unlock. I have to pop the key to open the driver door, it makes a long beeping sound and then every works again, just fine.

What the heck is going on here?

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[TremorDave]

That’s a lot of stuff going on. Theres been some complaints about battery charge levels and some guys bench charging their batteries to a full charge. I wonder if that’s worth a look.

 

[SilverPigeon]

@Ernst, as @TremorDave says, it's likely a battery state of charge or voltage issue. Do you only do short-ish drives? How old is the truck? If you have a charger, definitely disconnect the battery, fully charge it and when re-connected, reset the BMS so that it knows the battery has a good charge. To reset the BMS:
1. Turn ignition on (no need to start the truck)
2. Within 10 seconds do these:
a) Flash the high beams 5 times then
b) Press the brake pedal 3 times.
3. Wait for a minute, watching the battery light in the cluster; it should eventually flash 3 times.
4. If you don't see the flashing, turn ignition off and try again.

If problems persist, you might need a scan tool or a friend with FORScan to read the DTCs from the truck to investigate further.

 

[Ernst]

Brand new truck. Lots of short-ish drives, my daily commute is only like 10mins each way, but I usually warm the truck up for a few minutes before leaving.

 

[mwheue]

Sounds like a battery issue to me. My 2022 was doing similar things until it started shutting things down to save the battery. If you replace your battery upgrade the size to a H8.

 

[SilverPigeon]

Brand new truck. Lots of short-ish drives, my daily commute is only like 10mins each way, but I usually warm the truck up for a few minutes before leaving.

Long drives or a charger are in your future ?

 

[Dakar09]

Agree with fellas above. Truck could have sat in the lot or not been driven for a while before you took ownership and battery discharged a bit. Then your short drives are not helping at all. Take it for a DRIVE instead of just commuting 10 min. And warming up a car doesn't charge the battery, not with all the electronics running modern cars.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

The 14th gens have some 60-80 computer modules in them and are well known to develop odd electrical gremlins. They can fail to boot properly or get flaky on startup if the 12v SOC is too low. Ford in their infinite wisdom set this to 80%. AGM batteries by design are meant to be kept at 95% or higher for best performance and service life. multiple short trips are not sufficient to keep the 12v battery at full SOC and will slowly deplete the battery causing issues like this. Luckily it's an easy fix.

Get a copy of Forscan (free for two months) and the OBDLINK EX OBDII connector (or ask in the local section for someone with it) and go into the BCM "easy mode" and change the factory battery SOC from 80% to 95-98% or even 100%. Then put the 12v battery on charge overnight with an AGM charger. If you don't have one the Noco Genius 5 or 10 are inexpensive the best available. Just make sure to place the negative on a body ground so the BMS (battery management system attached to the negative terminal) will see the inbound current and update the SOC correctly. Then drive it regularly and try to keep the HVAC blower speed at 5 or higher. The reason for this is it cranks the 12V charge output from 12.8v to 14.2v-14.4v and will help keep the battery fully charged, or help keep the SOC close to the updated SOC setting for longer until you can drive it for longer or put it back on charge. Lastly if you don't want to mess with Forscan or do a lot of longer drivers IE: 30 min or more then consider putting the battery on a charger/maintainer at least once a week to keep it at Ford's 80% SOC. Even after shutting the truck off many of the modules will stay active for up to 90 minutes putting a considerable strain on the battery and repeated short drives are simply not long enough to recharge it sufficiently.

 

[Borchelt]

If you go down the battery replacement route:

1. Make sure you get the right size battery. Models other than PowerBoost will accept an H8. PowerBoost model will require an H7 as the reduction was needed to make room for the generation plant.
2. Also in PB models, there is an Aux battery under the passenger rear seat that should be changed at the same time so the BMS reset keeps them in sync

 

[Ernst]

There are longer drives, but at least Mon-Fri tends to be limited to the short work commute. I live in "suburban sprawl," where everything is too far away to walk, but a convenient 10-minute drive.

Thanks for the replies. I see there's an H6 in there now. I have no idea where my charger is at the moment, it's buried somewhere in the garage, so I can't check into that just yet.

Y'all got me thinking about upgrading the battery to an Odyssey H8 and doing the Forscan bit as well....

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Why ford insists on putting an H6 in these trucks is beyond me. No where near enough AH reserve for them. Definitely will want to upgrade to an H7 or H8 (it will fit but the blanket will be a tight fit) Just be sure to put the new battery on charge overnight and then reset the BMS like @SilverPigeon suggested earlier.

 

[Mt.F150..]

Nothing worse than electrical issues... I'd let ford deal with it

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Unfortunately for the vast majority of people who have experienced this have had similar results myself included. Took it to the dealer, they keep the truck for 1-2 weeks and state they tested the battery and it's fine and cannot replicate the issues. Then everything is fine for a few weeks because they put some 75 miles on it "testing it." Then the quirks return because the short trips drain the battery back down. The solution is more battery capacity with the H7 or H8, higher SOC setting and for some keeping it on a maintainer. None of this Ford will do.

 

[National Superbike]

So do all Fords have this problem or just the F150's? I have a lot of friends with newish trucks of all brands and I've never heard any of them complain about a problem like this. The dealer did put a new battery in my truck and that has fixed it so far but I suspect the problem will return after a year or so. I might need to do the forscan trick...

 

[SilverPigeon]

So do all Fords have this problem or just the F150's? I have a lot of friends with newish trucks of all brands and I've never heard any of them complain about a problem like this. The dealer did put a new battery in my truck and that has fixed it so far but I suspect the problem will return after a year or so. I might need to do the forscan trick...

The H6 batteries they fit from the factory are woefully underpowered. Depending upon trim level, but even in XLs, the current draw is a lot. Unless it's driven long enough to recover state of charge, or put on a charger, it's only a matter of time before modules start complaining of either low voltage or low state of charge. Usually the H6 AGM will still have enough capacity to crank the truck, but after a while, running the battery low for too long will affect it and maybe kill it. Mine is on a charger all week and does long drives on weekends so I never see these issues, but when (not if) this tiny battery fails, I'll be putting an H8 equivalent.

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