2012 Died And I Owe Thousands On It

[westhamfan]

Financed it in February and loved the car. The SSN warning came on and the dealer just called. It is out of warrant and the battery is trashed. Waiting for them to call with whatever "buy back" options I may have. Not sure I ever want another Ford so I may just need to eat the $6k loan and save up for something else. Taking the bus to work SUCKS. Lesson learned.

 

[unhappy1]

Yep me too, couldn't be more frustrated or let down. I feel like this is a giant egg waiting to crack now that the warranty period for many of these vehicles is ending and more and more people realize they are driving a huge financial liability. I don't think many people expect to pay $14,000 + in repairs for a vehicle with 50 to 80k miles on it. Mine had 70k and I missed the 8 year warranty by 7 months. I also have made a call to their customer care department and still waiting to hear back. Sounds like Ford already has a bulletin TSB 20-2140 that acknowledges the issue, they need to extend the warranty for this issue. If Ford doesn't come through on this, I can only imagine what the future perception will be on their EV's if this is status quo. I

Totally feel embarrassed now that I have told everyone how great my Ford EV is, when they ask why I am driving my old 75 gas guzzling fj40. When my mother in-law found out, I could see the "I told you so, all over her face." I feel like this will not only look bad on the Ford Focus EV, but it will discredit the use of EV's at large if it isn't handled responsibly. I was really excited about the new lightning and put money down to get on the waiting list, but now I have real reservations about moving forward, we will see how Ford's customer care goes.

 

[Anti_Climax]

I absolutely don't want to sound like I'm dismissing your predicament at all, because I'm not, but most people don't even know Ford made an electric Focus, so they don't have much reason to care about how it looks - especially now that they killed the line in favor of the Mach E.

Sadly this line was more an experiment than anything, shaking out the changes they'd need to support an EV nationwide rather than in limited markets. And with selling an average of under 1500 a year, they probably lost money on the line.

I know most folks are not looking to crack open their EV to try and fix something like this, but it may be possible to fix it without resorting to a brand new pack, though the dealer is not going to give you any other option as they don't have any procedure for working on the pack internals.

What part of the country are you in?

 

[unhappy1]

I understand that this was Ford's entrance into the EV market, but much of the reason I purchased a Ford EV was specifically due to the fact that they have been around for quite some time and I expected them to have the resources and R and D to have a solid product that would be backed by the Ford company and brand. I just don't feel like anyone in their right mind would expect to have a 14k+ repair bill for a vehicle with less than 100k miles on it. I also certainly don't feel like I should be the scape goat for placing my faith in Ford. If they only distributed 1500 FFEs a year it seems all the more reason they should do the right thing, and take care of the folks who put their faith in them, especially when this is a known issue that exists.
My Focus is a daily driver, too and from work, it has never been abused, or neglected. I think "experimenting" with the general public should come at some cost, If things go south. I don't feel like a company that nets over 3 billion dollars a year should stick it to the working class person trying to do the right thing.

I am still waiting to hear back from Ford, so I will withhold judgement for now, but I don't know that I am interested in throwing any more good money after bad, in terms of repairing my old battery.

 

[Anti_Climax]

I don't disagree at all, just noting why they are likely to just write it off.

I bought mine specifically because it had active cooling for the battery and it's been off the road more than a year because that very function has stopped working correctly. I'll likely end up buying a second $1,700 AC compressor even if I get it working since the failure ran the replacement 24/7 for months.

 

[triangles]

Financed it in February and loved the car. The SSN warning came on and the dealer just called. It is out of warrant and the battery is trashed. Waiting for them to call with whatever "buy back" options I may have. Not sure I ever want another Ford so I may just need to eat the $6k loan and save up for something else. Taking the bus to work SUCKS. Lesson learned.

If it's the battery leaking coolant, it most likely can be repaired if you are a bit handy and careful not to electrocute yourself. Someone else on here has done it and just lives without cooling/heating of the upper pack assembly.

Sorry you learned the hard way that these compliance cars are disposable after the warranty. I'd be shocked (pun intended) if Ford did anything for you on a vehicle that far out of warranty. Let us know if they do and how you got them to do anything. Other than some 12V issues due to the crappy TCU killing the 12V battery. my FFE has been trouble free for the past 7 years.

I plan on rebuilding my pack someday if it ever becomes economically viable engineer my own 40kWh+ battery pack. I'm not holding my breath that it will ever happen but it is feasible if the right battery cells ever become available and the right price. My FFE will probably rust out first. I've still got a year on my battery warranty so I'm not doing anything until I'm out of warranty.

 

[dlinehan]

My 2014 FFE battery just died due to what the dealer diagnosed as multiple contactors stuck open in the battery. It is one month out of battery warranty. For rejected my appeal so I have gone to Twitter to see if they will reconsider.

In the meantime, It seems that the problem is not the actual battery cells. In my case it seems to be some contactors or the signal that controls the contactors. Being an Engineer, I do feel confident opening the pack but I expect to find components that are not able to be repaired due to the propriatary nature of the problem. Does anyone know if there are owners / techs anywhere that have tried to troubleshoot these and are willing to talk about their findings?

The problem may not be just the pack reliability. The problem may be that Ford will not service the pack beyond replacing the entire pack. On a gas car you would not discard the gas tank when the fuel pump fails but that is what they are doing on batteries.

I am also interested in knowing more about your failures, what did the dealer tell you was wrong with the packs. If these are not all the same problem then maybe we can put to packs together to make one good one. Or if they are all the same problem then maybe we need to get to work to come up with a fix for others to use as well.

- Devin

 

[jghall00]

If it makes ya'll feel any better, Ford has quality issues with many of its products. It's unfortunate that the issues have continued into their electrified products. I have a 2017 Expedition that I use for hauling family around town and towing my camper. At 116K, the head gasket was replaced. My extended warranty expired at 125K. Now at 128K, one of my turbo manifolds is leaking. The leaking manifold is a known issues with the 3.5 Ecoboost. The biggest lesson for me is to not own Ford vehicles outside of warranty. Unfortunately, I'll probably dump my FFE before the warranty expires in favor of something newer. And the replacement vehicle will have a warranty as well. As I've gotten older, I have less patience for mucking around attempting vehicle repairs.

 

[jon1eye]

Hey Devin, I've been into my packs (2012 lower pack for coolant leak) and into my 33.5 kWh replacement. The 33.5 had a burnt contactor. I found out the contactors are available to purchase. Ford has a part number and pricing. The can be found on Amazon online as well. I'm in Utah. Where are you?

 

[jon1eye]

The contactor assembly for the upper pack is part number CM5Z-10C666-A (retail $612.00 plus $125.00 core). Showing it fits 2012-2018 model years. The set of 2 contactors in the lower pack are part number CM5Z-14N089-A (retail $328.33, no core). Those also show fitting the 2012-2018 model years.

 

[davideos]

I replaced a contactor in the upper battery. I have the write up on the Facebook group for the Focus EV. Anyway, the individual contactors are a Kilovac EV200A1ANA. You can find them used on eBay for $50. I got mine new on eBay for $130 or so. I don't know if they are all the same because I didn't pull apart my lower pack, but I'd bet they are. There are some cheaper new ones from China, but I was a little hesitant to go that route. Retail, they are about $250 each. If you have forscan, it will likely say that the positive contactor is stuck open or closed. P0AA0. I would clear the error and retry starting the car a few times to make sure you get just that code. I think I also got a P0A95. At times I got more errors, but I think that sometimes other error codes can get thrown. But the positive contactor in the upper battery pack is the one that usually fails.