What should the battery voltage be

[mrichard02]

I've heard many varying responses to this. What should the battery voltage be on a 2024 F150 Powerboost. My consistently says 12V. Everything I read on forums state it should be 13,14V. Nothing in the manual states what the voltage should be at.

I think I have a battery voltage issue bc i have some jerky driving and lag in acceleration issues.

Assuming 12V is not what the voltage should be, If I go to the dealer, can I just tell them its not at the right voltage and they will replace it, I feel they will just say some bullshit at me if nothings wrong they won't replace under warranty.

If the dealer gives me crap about how "theres nothing wrong with the vehicle" and they won't replace it under warranty, if I just replace the battery myself buying a 3rd party battery will it void warranty?

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[FaaWrenchBndr]

12 V is what it should be
Now if you adjust the fan speed setting five or higher, your voltage read out should jump to 13 or 14 V

 

[SemperVee]

Blame the BMS for keeping charge low. We were all raised to look for 12.9 - 13.1 resting but ford in their "finite" wisdom keep the battery minimally charged for "longivity" reasons.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

A 12v AGM battery's resting voltage at 100% SOC should be 12.85v or pretty close to that. Ford in their infinite wisdom set the SOC to 80% 12.5v despite every single AGM manufacturer specifying they should be maintained at no less than 95-98%. To fix this you can go in with Forscan to change the SOC setting in the BCM module to 95-98% or even 100% if you like. Then be sure to charge both the primary and aux batteries afterwards and let the charger complete it's desulfation cycle to ensure they are brought up to the updated SOC setting and are restored to max health available and capacity. After that run the HVAC fan speed on 5 as much as possible. This causes the 12v charge circuit voltage to increase from 12.9v to 14.3v which does a better job at maintaining the 12v batteries SOC levels where they should be to increase their life expectancy. You can also add a piggyback 20-30AH 12v lithium battery to the aux battery to increase the reserve time and keep the SOC at the updated setting for days if not weeks of minimal driving time.

 

[Snakebitten]

Curious what method and circumstance is the OP measuring voltage?

It makes a meaningful difference in regards to the conversation.

 

[FaaWrenchBndr]

Curious what method and circumstance is the OP measuring voltage?

It makes a meaningful difference in regards to the conversation.

Going off of what he posted he’s going by the display on the center dash.

 

[Snakebitten]

Going off of what he posted he’s going by the display on the center dash.

I should have picked up on that.
But honestly, that display showing exactly 12.0V implies that the truck would be in accessory mode, or that value is being derived from something other than the PID I monitor.

I can't find a "normal" circumstance that I would see 12.0V other than a battery that was resting at a lower voltage than I would be happy with, and then waking the truck up and taxing that battery enough to bring it momentarily down to 12.0V before the alternator came to its rescue.

Or put another way, I don't want to ever see 12.0V for more than a few seconds and in a very specific situation that wouldn't be common.

 

[PB2021]

Underway with high SOC after removing from charger I can see through OBD Fusion that voltage sits at 12.7 - 12.8 and will stay this way even showing a light amp draw without recharging till the SOC lowers and hits 90%. At 90 our truck pushes voltage up to 13.4 - 13.8 and will show amps going back in at a varied rate of anywhere from 4 to over 40 depending on other present loads and seems to cut down again about 95% SOC. I’ve owned since new and never played in Forscan.

 

[Lefty665]

i have some jerky driving and lag in acceleration issues.

Jerky driving is usually me (aka the nut behind the wheel) and acceleration issues remediable with my right foot (and generally not a problem with the PB).

But seriously, what made you diagnose performance issues as a battery problem? Are you getting warnings or error messages about voltage issues, or anything else for that matter?

What are your "jerky driving" and "acceleration" issues? It is possible they are unrelated to battery voltage. It is also possible they are voltage related, and 12.0 v is lower than I'd like to see. However, it's not a slam dunk that a bad battery is the cause of your problems.

FWIW there have been a number of posts about some of the data on the dash screen being more constructed than actually measured. I'd suggest using a volt meter to verify that 12.0 v displayed is actually 12.0 v at the battery terminals (and on the wires that connect to the terminals, dirty contacts there will cause a voltage drop) before ragging the dealer about a bad battery. Checking that is easy to do and might save you some embarrassment.

My resting voltage is sometimes not far above 12v. It can be lower than I expected, but has never been a problem for me. When running it is seldom less than 14.1 v. If yours is similar, and you can check that with a volt meter too, voltage when running is not the problem.

I did not like Ford not showing voltage/amperage on the dash and added a volt meter via the odbc port to get real time readings. The 12v batteries charge using a DC/DC converter from the HV battery.

Being hostile with the dealer is not likely to facilitate resolution.

 

[JohnTrigger]

That (worthless, IMHO) battery display only ever shows 12.0, or 13.0, or 14.0. It will never have a different number than 0 in the tenths digit. So it obviously rounds up or down to show the whole number. Mine usually shows 12.0 but it will vary to 13.0 or 14.0 as I drive. Also it would be hard for it to read the true battery voltage while driving, so I suspect it is the charging system voltage while key is on that is being read, to the nearest whole number, whatever the BMS says.

 

[Snakebitten]

That (worthless, IMHO) battery display only ever shows 12.0, or 13.0, or 14.0. It will never have a different number than 0 in the tenths digit. So it obviously rounds up or down to show the whole number. Mine usually shows 12.0 but it will vary to 13.0 or 14.0 as I drive. Also it would be hard for it to read the true battery voltage while driving, so I suspect it is the charging system voltage while key is on that is being read, to the nearest whole number, whatever the BMS says.

That's amazing.
It's hard to fathom that car people working for a car manufacturer would have meetings regarding what features/information should they design and provide to the customer on the instrument cluster, and then NOT be concerned about the actual value of that information being more than fiction.

Fake gauges have been around a long time, of course. But fake digital values with a fake decimal point?

Embarrassing

 

[JohnTrigger]

Yeah, hard to fathom the thought process that came up with that logic. I ride with that display showing all the time. I have never seen 11.0 or 15.0. I figure as long as it doesn't show those or worse, I’ll assume it’s not too bad. lol. Not much of a warm fuzzy there….

 

[mrichard02]

i have some jerky driving and lag in acceleration issues.

Jerky driving is usually me (aka the nut behind the wheel) and acceleration issues remediable with my right foot (and generally not a problem with the PB).

But seriously, what made you diagnose performance issues as a battery problem? Are you getting warnings or error messages about voltage issues, or anything else for that matter?

What are your "jerky driving" and "acceleration" issues? It is possible they are unrelated to battery voltage. It is also possible they are voltage related, and 12.0 v is lower than I'd like to see. However, it's not a slam dunk that a bad battery is the cause of your problems.

FWIW there have been a number of posts about some of the data on the dash screen being more constructed than actually measured. I'd suggest using a volt meter to verify that 12.0 v displayed is actually 12.0 v at the battery terminals (and on the wires that connect to the terminals, dirty contacts there will cause a voltage drop) before ragging the dealer about a bad battery. Checking that is easy to do and might save you some embarrassment.

My resting voltage is sometimes not far above 12v. It can be lower than I expected, but has never been a problem for me. When running it is seldom less than 14.1 v. If yours is similar, and you can check that with a volt meter too, voltage when running is not the problem.

I did not like Ford not showing voltage/amperage on the dash and added a volt meter via the odbc port to get real time readings. The 12v batteries charge using a DC/DC converter from the HV battery.

Being hostile with the dealer is not likely to facilitate resolution.

There were other threads here in the forums about powerboost jerky driving and transmission shifting. People claimed to have changed the battery and it went away. Wether thats true or not is one thing but I don't have the exact thread URL but did read it here in the forums.


What I am experiencing is, some days the truck drives very smooth no issues. Other days the truck drives very jerky and has hard shifts. Why it drives inconsistently is what I'm trying to figure out. I've never had a vehicle that had inconsistent shifting or drivability. So I thought (and relating to the forms about batteries) perhaps the inconsistent driving was bc of varying voltages in the batteries since powerboosts are possibly very sensitive to the battery. Which according to other threads and research powerboosts are very much sensitive to a varying battery voltage since it drives the electric motor and other modules.

 

[VRFlyer]

12 V is what it should be
Now if you adjust the fan speed setting five or higher, your voltage read out should jump to 13 or 14 V

I mean, if a large space satellite can manage with 3.3v ~ 5v for standby, then your F-150 should be just fine. Oh WAIT....!

 

[Old Hat]

My resting battery voltage is 12.5. This is measured at the battery terminals after being parked for a day prior to waking the truck in any manner.

I was seeing 12.1 and 12.2 on my plug in cig voltage reader when switching to accessory mode (to make the gauge come on) and was concerned the voltage may be too low. It wasn't. A true 12.5 resting seems normal and I have not had any low voltage issues.

Mine is a regular cab and only has the engine compartment battery, none in the cab.

https://www.f150gen14.com/forum/threads/how-many-volts-do-our-trucks-really-need.32396/

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