Odd issue with value charging....anyone seem similar?

[michael]

I'm seeing an odd issue, anyone seen it or have ideas?

I have my default set to value charge. I use that at home since only the default time can be adjusted from the dashboard.


I have my daytime, at work, charging set for a specific location. Normally I leave that set to "charge now", but I have the option of controlling the charge time from my remote app this way (can switch it to value charge).

So here's what happens reasonably often:

I get to work, plug in, and it starts charging as expected, since set to charge now. But when I walk outside and look, charging has stopped halfway. If I use the mobile app to check status, charging re-commences. Incidentally, I don't recall seeing this problem until a few months ago.

Here's my guess, anyone have thoughts: The car occasionally doesn't realize it's at my office and reverts to default, which has been set to value charge late at night and stops. When pinged by the status query, it rechecks its location, realizes it's at the office and starts charging again.

As a partial test, when I arrive at work I will try changing my default to be "charge now' also. If that's the issue, it should clear it up.

 

[davideos]

I had some similar issues awhile back, but my default is charge now. Only "home" is value charge. My issue was awhile ago and only happened once in awhile. The last time it happened regularly was this last summer and there were 2 issues. 1) The socket I was plugging into was going bad. I think the voltage dropped and charging stopped. The second issue was the charger was overheating. Someone put out a box to set the chargers on. Seemed like a good idea, but the sun would beat on it; and having a black case just sucked in the heat.

I would turn on some of your notifications relating to charging and see what pops up.

 

[hybridbear]

Why don't you just program a location for home and set that to value charge & program a location for work set to charge now. Then leave your default to charge now. This should solve the behavior you're seeing.

 

[michael]

The reason I use default at home is because I change the start time based on my plans for the next day in order to provide "just in time" charging. Only the default allows one to do this from the dashboard. If I set home as a location, I could change the window only through the app or web site.

For the last two days, I set default to charge now when arriving at work the the charging halt hasn't happened...too early so say for sure though.

I've also noticed that geographical boundary between where I park and where the car switches to default is only a few hundred feet. I may be right near the edge of the "zone"

 

[WattsUp]

I've also noticed that geographical boundary between where I park and where the car switches to default is only a few hundred feet. I may be right near the edge of the "zone"

This may also factor into what you are seeing:

MFM charge locations seem grid-aligned... causing problems

 

[michael]

Yes, I remembered you post on the subject and thought that might be the case....near the edge of a transition region. I haven't seen the thing move out of the "work" location, but I'm suspicious that might be happening. In which case it would adopt the default schedule.
..

UPDATE

Yes, this thing really blows. When I go to the myfordmobile web site, I see three locations right near my office where it thinks I have charged. Obviously, I actually only charged at one exact spot. It's opinion of where I am varies.

Similarly, it thinks I've charged at my house and at my neighbor. Again, I havent.

And it thinks I've charged at the nearby Ford dealer (I have) and also in a vacant field nearby.


As you said, Ford messed this one up badly. This may account for any number of scheduled charging failures that people have reported.

 

[michael]

Did you report this issue to Ford? If not I will walk the plank on this one.

 

[WattsUp]

Did you report this issue to Ford? If not I will walk the plank on this one.

I didn't report it. Though, I did hope that somebody at Ford might read my post. Seems from the experience other people have had here (trying to talk to "tech support") is that if you contact Ford, you end up talking to somebody who doesn't know anything about anything, and who can't do anything about it anyway.

 

[michael]

I just called Ford and described the issue. They acknowledged having heard of it once before. I had the representative log into my account and see the clusters of bogus charging locations adjacent to the actual charging locations. I am hopeful they will look into it...based on past experience they actually do follow through with these things although not necessarily quickly.

We agreed that once they had reviewed the clusters I would erase them and see if they re-populate.

 

[WattsUp]

I just called Ford and described the issue. They acknowledged having heard of it once before. I had the representative log into my account and see the clusters of bogus charging locations adjacent to the actual charging locations. I am hopeful they will look into it...based on past experience they actually do follow through with these things although not necessarily quickly.

We agreed that once they had reviewed the clusters I would erase them and see if they re-populate.

The sad thing is, the grid-alignment behavior is new and only started happening after the big "MFM migration" update back in October 2013. (The thread where I described what appeared to be happening was posted December 2013.) Before that, charging location identification worked great (more or less) -- but they screwed it up during the update by "improving" things to be grid-aligned.

I hope they fix it too. But, with the recent demotion of Microsoft-based SYNC, presumably all current-generation infotainment software won't see much love.

 

[WattsUp]

I just called Ford and described the issue. They acknowledged having heard of it once before. I had the representative log into my account and see the clusters of bogus charging locations adjacent to the actual charging locations.

Did you happen to point them to my thread here where I describe the issue in detail, with my theory of grid-alignment being the cause?

 

[michael]

I completely concur with your assessment of what is happening. However, in talking to the rep, I felt we would have a better chance of getting them to accept that a problem existed by letting them access my charging record directly. It clearly shows several "real" locations surrounded by "ghost" locations. I didn't feel that they would be likely to check out a forum description of the problem. They would go by the representatives notes.

I did emphasize that the problem had been seen by others and discussed on the myfocuselectric forum. I wanted to assure that they would accept it as a global problem and wouldn't chalk it up to something in my particular car.


Perhaps you could take the contents of your post and email it directly to Ford? This would create a second "issue" related to the same problem and possibly would help insure that it got attention.

 

[Steve0512]

Just a suggestion to send them a link to the discussion on their Twitter feed.

 

[michael]

I don't use Twitter. Would it be possible for you to do so? And reference case number 5847265?

 

[michael]

I just got a call back from Ford.

Despite the fact that I spent the better part of an hour on the phone with the rep, and he seemed to understand the issue, the thing got totally garbled when it went to the engineers looking into it.

They said the problem was that I was on "charge now" and that one of the locations I described as having ghosts wasn't a saved location.

I went postal.

I told the rep who called back (not the original one to whom I described the problem)

1. Look at the list...it shows a bunch of placed I've never charged

2. It isn't just me...there are a bunch of people on the myfocuselectric forum who have seen the same problem

3. The reason I have everything set to charge now is that the (&^*&^(*& location based system doesn't work!!!

Jeez. If it were just possible to talk to the person who is actually looking into the problem instead of having the information filtered through their reporting system.....

 

[michael]

I received a call from Ford. They believe they have improved the charging location algorithm. They asked me to clean out all my charging locations (actual and ghost) and to see if this helps.

It would be helpful if others try this as well, let's see if they fixed it.

 

[NightHawk]

They asked me to clean out all my charging locations (actual and ghost) and to see if this helps.

What is the exact procedure to do that clearing of all old charging locations?

 

[michael]

Unplug the car from a charger.

Go to the MyFordMobile website and log in

Under Value Charge Profiles, click "view all"

Click the "my charge locations" tab and delete all of them


Now you are back to only the default profile.

Once you charge at a location, it will pop up in that list. See if they have fixed it so that any given physical location gives exactly one result. The problem has been that what I call "ghost" locations nearby will also eventually populate as well and mess up the value charging.

 

[michael]

Nope...looks not fixed to me. Still created a "ghost" location at my neighbor's house

 

[brogult]

@Michael

Do you park inside a garage? I remember recently, just once, I noticed that my small nav display (RH dash) was giving me a street name about one street over. I didn't charge then and don't use Value Charge, but I'm thinking the GPS could be just sufficiently off in certain situations to cause your problem. The second I pulled out of my garage it corrected itself. I haven't seen it wrong before or since, even in the garage.

I have a new roof with new OSB sheathing with the metal/mylar heat reflecting surface. I'm thinking that is kind of like a tinfoil hat for my house and garage--the Sirius doesn't work inside either.