'17 FFE Dead 12Volt battery

[EVA]

Kind of have to agree with JMueller on the "beta" nature of the FFE. And I don't think you can say Ford is a bad guy with this. Their quality programs are based on hundreds of thousands of examples in a year. They trigger responses based on huge numbers out in the wild. Having a car that is in the low tens of thousands production over five or six years - they don't know how to respond to problems. They appear to understand it better now - they sure didn't back in 2012.

And remember if they only make a few per shift, people forget training, they aren't as used to the routine of doing something. It is as close to a hand built car as you can get from a massive corporation. Stuff can just go wrong.

Nissan and BMW build their BEV on dedicated production lines - they don't build any other cars on those lines. Ford chose to use the standard Focus line to manufacture the FFE. And there are advantages and disadvantages to that choice.

 

[campfamily]

So, not sure if it's just a coincidence, but this afternoon I got the text and email from MFM telling me the 12volt battery was low, and to charge the car. Drive battery charge was about 75%. When I got home later that evening, I plugged the car in, and nothing. My wall charger didn't show it was doing anything. The car was completely dead. I used the metal key to unlock the car and get under the hood. I hooked up my portable jumper battery to the 12volt battery and everything came alive, and my L2 charger began charging. I disconnected the jumper battery, then hooked up my Battery Tender to the 12volt battery. I'm going to leave it that way overnight and see whether the 12volt comes back alive, but I'm not too hopeful; lead acid batteries typically don't recover after going completely discharged.

Interestingly, I went out to the car about 20 minutes after I did all this and opened the door (keyless entry worked fine), and noticed that all of my settings except the clock were maintained; trip odos, radio presets, navigation history, everything but the clock was still set. Also, the center screen was blank for about 20 seconds or so, then it came alive with the message "SYNC. Performing scheduled system maintenance.......", with a progress bar underneath it. Once the bar filled in (about a minute), my normal home screen showed up.

Car is a 2015, with just under 23,000 miles. All recalls have been performed. This is the first issue I have had with the car since I have owned it, almost exactly two years now.

Will provide an update in the morning. Hopefully doesn't need a trip to the dealer, as I'm leaving on a 3 day business trip tomorrow to Wash DC.

Keith

 

[chewpick]

So, not sure if it's just a coincidence, but this afternoon I got the text and email from MFM telling me the 12volt battery was low, and to charge the car. Drive battery charge was about 75%. When I got home later that evening, I plugged the car in, and nothing. My wall charger didn't show it was doing anything. The car was completely dead. I used the metal key to unlock the car and get under the hood. I hooked up my portable jumper battery to the 12volt battery and everything came alive, and my L2 charger began charging. I disconnected the jumper battery, then hooked up my Battery Tender to the 12volt battery. I'm going to leave it that way overnight and see whether the 12volt comes back alive, but I'm not too hopeful; lead acid batteries typically don't recover after going completely discharged.

Interestingly, I went out to the car about 20 minutes after I did all this and opened the door (keyless entry worked fine), and noticed that all of my settings except the clock were maintained; trip odos, radio presets, navigation history, everything but the clock was still set. Also, the center screen was blank for about 20 seconds or so, then it came alive with the message "SYNC. Performing scheduled system maintenance.......", with a progress bar underneath it. Once the bar filled in (about a minute), my normal home screen showed up.

Car is a 2015, with just under 23,000 miles. All recalls have been performed. This is the first issue I have had with the car since I have owned it, almost exactly two years now.

Will provide an update in the morning. Hopefully doesn't need a trip to the dealer, as I'm leaving on a 3 day business trip tomorrow to Wash DC.

Keith

Did you happen to hear a loud ticking noise? I remember seeing a progress bar on the media screen as well, but I don't recall what the message was.

 

[FFEsquared]

. I'm going to leave it that way overnight and see whether the 12volt comes back alive, but I'm not too hopeful; lead acid batteries typically don't recover after going completely discharged. Keith

My 2015 has died twice. Both times I had to reset radio stations. I'm still on the original battery. I think our cars don't have a starter motor load like an ICE car and the battery can still close the relays in a compromised state. After the second time I had it reprogrammed. The dealer said the battery was fine.

 

[EVA]

Wow, that was a totally dead battery if nothing worked at all, including the clicking for closing the relays. You're right about getting a new 12V battery, they are really not happy once they get to really low voltage. Pretty amazing the settings were maintained.

 

[campfamily]

So, not sure if it's just a coincidence, but this afternoon I got the text and email from MFM telling me the 12volt battery was low, and to charge the car. Drive battery charge was about 75%. When I got home later that evening, I plugged the car in, and nothing. My wall charger didn't show it was doing anything. The car was completely dead. I used the metal key to unlock the car and get under the hood. I hooked up my portable jumper battery to the 12volt battery and everything came alive, and my L2 charger began charging. I disconnected the jumper battery, then hooked up my Battery Tender to the 12volt battery. I'm going to leave it that way overnight and see whether the 12volt comes back alive, but I'm not too hopeful; lead acid batteries typically don't recover after going completely discharged.

Interestingly, I went out to the car about 20 minutes after I did all this and opened the door (keyless entry worked fine), and noticed that all of my settings except the clock were maintained; trip odos, radio presets, navigation history, everything but the clock was still set. Also, the center screen was blank for about 20 seconds or so, then it came alive with the message "SYNC. Performing scheduled system maintenance.......", with a progress bar underneath it. Once the bar filled in (about a minute), my normal home screen showed up.

Car is a 2015, with just under 23,000 miles. All recalls have been performed. This is the first issue I have had with the car since I have owned it, almost exactly two years now.

Will provide an update in the morning. Hopefully doesn't need a trip to the dealer, as I'm leaving on a 3 day business trip tomorrow to Wash DC.

Keith

Did you happen to hear a loud ticking noise? I remember seeing a progress bar on the media screen as well, but I don't recall what the message was.

Nope, no loud ticking noise.

Update, this morning my battery tender showed the 12volt battery with a full charge. Car started and drove fine today. Its sitting at the airport right now, and I have not gotten any alerts saying the battery is low. I have my jumper battery in the car in case I get back on Wednesday to a dead car again. Once I get home I plan to take the car to the dealer to have them sort it out. I'm thinking the 12volt battery should be replaced at a minimum. Anybody know if that is covered by the 36 month warranty?

Keith

 

[triangles]

Update: dealer still has my FFE. They've had it for a weekend and 2 business days. I called this evening for an update. All I got is they're still working on it. Will be interesting to see what they find.

 

[EVA]

Keith - Yes the 12V battery is covered by the 36 month warranty. Your dealer has to get the battery to fail in their bench stress test. More than likely the battery won't fail. If you are friendly with them, they will replace the battery for you no questions asked - no matter what the test says. I had to do that little tap dance.

 

[campfamily]

Keith - Yes the 12V battery is covered by the 36 month warranty. Your dealer has to get the battery to fail in their bench stress test. More than likely the battery won't fail. If you are friendly with them, they will replace the battery for you no questions asked - no matter what the test says. I had to do that little tap dance.

Thanks for the info. I do have a good relationship with the folks at my local dealership (bought two cars from them, and referred several others), so hopefully they will remember this when it comes to service.....so far, haven't had to have any repairs done on either of my cars (thankfully), so will have to see. I'll update when I talk to them.

So far, haven't had any other message from my car, it's been sitting at the airport since early Monday morning, so fingers crossed it will start when I get home Wednesday evening....

Keith

 

[EVA]

Keith - Yes the 12V battery is covered by the 36 month warranty. Your dealer has to get the battery to fail in their bench stress test. More than likely the battery won't fail. If you are friendly with them, they will replace the battery for you no questions asked - no matter what the test says. I had to do that little tap dance.

Thanks for the info. I do have a good relationship with the folks at my local dealership (bought two cars from them, and referred several others), so hopefully they will remember this when it comes to service.....so far, haven't had to have any repairs done on either of my cars (thankfully), so will have to see. I'll update when I talk to them.

So far, haven't had any other message from my car, it's been sitting at the airport since early Monday morning, so fingers crossed it will start when I get home Wednesday evening....

Keith

That's great you have a relationship. I was in about the same place. My approach was just a nice conversation about the battery - going completely dead would really harm it. I left it at that. When I picked up the car, the battery was replaced under warranty.

 

[firetech]

So, not sure if it's just a coincidence, but this afternoon I got the text and email from MFM telling me the 12volt battery was low, and to charge the car. Drive battery charge was about 75%. When I got home later that evening, I plugged the car in, and nothing. My wall charger didn't show it was doing anything. The car was completely dead. I used the metal key to unlock the car and get under the hood. I hooked up my portable jumper battery to the 12volt battery and everything came alive, and my L2 charger began charging. I disconnected the jumper battery, then hooked up my Battery Tender to the 12volt battery. I'm going to leave it that way overnight and see whether the 12volt comes back alive, but I'm not too hopeful; lead acid batteries typically don't recover after going completely discharged.

Interestingly, I went out to the car about 20 minutes after I did all this and opened the door (keyless entry worked fine), and noticed that all of my settings except the clock were maintained; trip odos, radio presets, navigation history, everything but the clock was still set. Also, the center screen was blank for about 20 seconds or so, then it came alive with the message "SYNC. Performing scheduled system maintenance.......", with a progress bar underneath it. Once the bar filled in (about a minute), my normal home screen showed up.

Car is a 2015, with just under 23,000 miles. All recalls have been performed. This is the first issue I have had with the car since I have owned it, almost exactly two years now.

Will provide an update in the morning. Hopefully doesn't need a trip to the dealer, as I'm leaving on a 3 day business trip tomorrow to Wash DC.

Keith

Did you happen to hear a loud ticking noise? I remember seeing a progress bar on the media screen as well, but I don't recall what the message was.

Did you get your focus back from the dealer? What was wrong with the focus?

 

[chewpick]

I got the car back after 2 days. Long story short they couldn't duplicate the problem. They tried recharging it once and got a faulty cell error (whatever that means) and tried again with the second time being the charm. I've been running it two weeks now without issue. And i have a brand new lithium ion battery boost pack in my map pocket. I was reluctant to buy the boost pack but i feel a lot better having it with me.