Lasting Damage From Intentional Short Circuit?

[mongolodeon]

There's no telling what long-term issues could crop up from this. The aux batt B+ is wired into the BCMC under hood. The - portion is attached to the back of the cab and transfers energy through the cab itself. Various grounding locations are located throughout the cab much closer to where the negative battery terminal connects to the cab, where the short occurred.

I'd have this situation well documented (bitching at the dealer about it as well as calling ford corporate about it) and accept nothing less than a full extended warranty at their cost.

Everything from the PCM to APIM and everything up at the front of the truck may have shortened life. The battery isolator could also end up with issues as the short went through it. The PB was designed to not even pass ICE starting transients into its electrical system (everytime the truck starts while rolling the entire electrical system is isolated from the underhood batt).

There could be random issues that just start showing up immediately or they may end up presenting at a later date. There's no way to quantify the stress this event placed on the various ECUs within the truck. The 7ah batt isn't large and a short like likely quickly dipped the voltage well outside of expected norms.

My gawd, this is giving me nightmares. As far as demanding an extended warranty from the dealership, I already have Ford ESP for 8 years/100K miles. Also, this dealership even when they mean well are just rip your hair out frustrating to deal with. For now my plan is to at least have the SYNC software update done manually by a different dealership and in the meantime I've asked the service advisor at the one that did the short circuit to document what they did in detail. I don't have high hopes that their documentation will be adequate on the first try.

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[mongolodeon]

What he was doing was somewhat correct. But he needed to disconnect the battery under the rear seat aswell to do it. Probably didn't do any damage. If he blew the fuse for the smaller battery in the back you would have a charging malfunction come up on the dash pretty quick. You need to go into sync and see if your modem serial number displays. If not you have a TCU issue. The TCU is what receives all the info for the updates. He was trying to discharge the system capacitors. He wasn't back feeding power.

I am here checking and it shows a "SYNC Serial Number (ESN):" with a serial number following it, and also an "Onboard Modem Serial Number (ESN)" followed by what also looks like a serial number as well. Is one of these my modem serial number and is the fact it's displayed a good sign?

 

[JoeRedFly]

Likely popped the 125A fuse. I've driven around for a couple of days without it, but it should be checked and replaced if needed. It's a PIA to replace. It's only needed when the traditional started is used, almost never, but will eventually cause faults. Otherwise I doubt he damaged anything other than his reputation.

 

[{tpc}]

Sorry tldr the whole thread. If all battery’s, “all” battery’s are disconnected then this should never cause an issue. I can’t imagine there is another small “gps antenna” battery somewhere..:doesn’t make sense to me.

I know some passive fobs ala lr and rr have another internal battery that you can’t see, that isn’t the coin cell. But that’s in the fob and not the truck.

 

[Darrell78]

I am here checking and it shows a "SYNC Serial Number (ESN):" with a serial number following it, and also an "Onboard Modem Serial Number (ESN)" followed by what also looks like a serial number as well. Is one of these my modem serial number and is the fact it's displayed a good sign?

Yes. The TCU is alive and well then and responding on the network. Next is the soft reset of the sync module.

 

[Darrell78]

Sync settings menu. General menu. Reset menu. Factory reset.

 

[Darrell78]

One last question for you. When you did your 30 min disconnect did you disconnect the battery under the passenger rear seat aswell? If not your battery disconnect did nothing at all. Both need to be disconnected to achieve your goal of a hard reset. Same error as the tech did.

 

[mongolodeon]

One last question for you. When you did your 30 min disconnect did you disconnect the battery under the passenger rear seat aswell? If not your battery disconnect did nothing at all. Both need to be disconnected to achieve your goal of a hard reset. Same error as the tech did.

Excellent point! I did not disconnect the battery under the passenger rear seat, which explains why it didn't help!

 

[Darrell78]

Worth a try at least. Then hopefully we can put this thread to bed. Technician bashing is not cool with me. May or may not be one myself.

 

[22Platinum]

It's fine, he didn't hurt it.

 

[SALEEN961]

Disconnecting both battery cables from the battery and shorting the cables together was a fairly standard practice for a long time, and I've seen it resolve issues. On modern vehicles that have 2-4 batteries and poor documentation on where to find them, this method is often more trouble than it's worth.

If you aren't noticing any issues, you probably didn't suffer any damage. That being said, running an all module scan and documenting every code wouldn't be a bad idea. Just don't panic if you initially see a long list of codes. Document all the codes you find, clear them all, and see what codes if any come back after a few days of driving. Any codes that come back would indicate a potential issue.

 

[Snakebitten]

I'm a little puzzled that that the dealership's designated go-to Powerboost expert is unaware of the existence of the auxiliary battery. That just doesn't seem plausible.

And the Powerboost isn't the only F150 with auxiliary batteries under the passenger rear seat either. Considering the massive volume of F150's with auxiliary batteries, I doubt seriously there are still Ford technicians that are unaware.

I think this is simply a tech not being on his game at an unfortunate moment.

 

[mongolodeon]

My goal isn't to bash the technician. He did take the time out of his day while working on another job to try to help. However it sounds like from many others here that it's pretty insane that he wasn't aware of the other battery under the rear passenger seat (after the short he was mumbling and thinking to himself what other battery could've still been connected, which is when I heard him mention the GPS antenna and some small battery that relates to it).

@Darrell78 now I understand why you seem to know so much about this. As a neutral party but one who obviously knows the ins and outs of a PowerBoost F150, do you recommend bringing this incident up to the other dealership I'm taking the truck to in about a week? If so, what sort of inspection can/should I ask them to do to just make sure the systems are OK following the short?

Thank you for the reset instruction but this point I just want to leave it to a professional (during a scheduled appointment rather than in the parking lot) to resolve whatever is going on with SYNC not being able to check for updates. My ears are still ringing from the crazy explosion of electronic screeching/popping sounds that initially prompted my wanting to update the software and prior to that I had managed to get my tinnitus down to a point I was no longer noticing it on a daily basis. I've been battling hearing loss in the past couple years and so the last thing I want to do is cause the truck to make that insane cacophony of sounds again. I wince in anticipation of it each time the stereo starts up now.

Thanks everyone for the advice and explanations. I am a total novice when it comes to this stuff and this forum has been a great resource to me. I wish I came here first instead of bringing it back to the dealership!

 

[Darrell78]

Mistakes have been and always will be made. Momentary lapse of reason shall we say. He tried to help with a quick resolution without planning it out. He was under the gun by the service department to help this guy out. Let it be. It was a mistake. Jeez you guys are harsh like you never made an error in life.

 

[Darrell78]

My goal isn't to bash the technician. He did take the time out of his day while working on another job to try to help. However it sounds like from many others here that it's pretty insane that he wasn't aware of the other battery under the rear passenger seat (after the short he was mumbling and thinking to himself what other battery could've still been connected, which is when I heard him mention the GPS antenna and some small battery that relates to it).

@Darrell78 now I understand why you seem to know so much about this. As a neutral party but one who obviously knows the ins and outs of a PowerBoost F150, do you recommend bringing this incident up to the other dealership I'm taking the truck to in about a week? If so, what sort of inspection can/should I ask them to do to just make sure the systems are OK following the short?

Thank you for the reset instruction but this point I just want to leave it to a professional (during a scheduled appointment rather than in the parking lot) to resolve whatever is going on with SYNC not being able to check for updates. My ears are still ringing from the crazy explosion of electronic screeching/popping sounds that initially prompted my wanting to update the software and prior to that I had managed to get my tinnitus down to a point I was no longer noticing it on a daily basis. I've been battling hearing loss in the past couple years and so the last thing I want to do is cause the truck to make that insane cacophony of sounds again. I wince in anticipation of it each time the stereo starts up now.

Thanks everyone for the advice and explanations. I am a total novice when it comes to this stuff and this forum has been a great resource to me. I wish I came here first instead of bringing it back to the dealership!

I believe you should mention it to them. They will likely better understand what they may see on FDRS (ford scan tool) when they hook it up to do the software updates. It makes it much easier on the technician to know what has happened previously. Cars these days have so much information it can be very overwhelming if they don't know the story behind what they are looking at. I don't feel you were bashing anybody really. Just a concerned customer, which I fully understand. I don't believe he would have done any sort of damage contrary to what some others have implied. Glad to hear you are going to have an appointment this time coming. I wish you had a better experience first time around which would have saved you the second one. Hope they can solve your issue rather quick and painlessly. I don't see why not though. Apim updates can take a couple hours so be patient and all will be good.

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