Stop Safely Now Warning

[TexaCali]

I bought a 2014 Focus Electric in February. Yesterday, in the garage, I got the "Stop Safely Now" message and haven't been able to start the car. I have 2010 miles on the car. There is a picture of a wrench, and I also noticed that the SRS warning light turns off and then comes back on steady. I left a message with the dealer and haven't heard back, but I wanted to add this data point.

Interestingly, when holding the power button down I can also get a message "Park Aid Malfunction" even though I don't have the park aid option.

Did you try rebooting the car? It might at least clear up the problem long enough for you to drive to the dealership.

 

[WattsUp]

I bought a 2014 Focus Electric in February. Yesterday, in the garage, I got the "Stop Safely Now" message and haven't been able to start the car.

These all sound like they could be symptoms of a low 12V battery. Have you checked the voltage?

 

[igopogo]

Did you try rebooting the car? It might at least clear up the problem long enough for you to drive to the dealership.

I'm not sure how to reboot. I tried holding down the power button, which seemed to be suggested in another post. I've already had the car towed, but please share! It would be nice to know how to do this if I have a repeat performance.

These all sound like they could be symptoms of a low 12V battery. Have you checked the voltage?

Well, we drove the car the day before, no issues, and we didn't get any 12V warnings overnight. It could be the problem, of course, but even so I think it would be a symptom of some other problem.

I'll post the dealer's response when I get it.

On a side note, I've never used a manufacturer's roadside assistance program before. I had a great experience, very nice phone person and truck operator, and the tow arrived just about as quickly as AAA would.

 

[igopogo]

Wattsup wins, I think. The dealer said there was a problem with the 12V battery, and they replaced it. Interesting, they also said they applied a software update based on a TSB from September 2013. Should they not have done that before selling the car in Feb 2014??

Well, the warning came on again once this week, but power cycling made it go away. Hopefully that was just some kind of strange lingering effect.

 

[kmaluo]

It's a known issue that the 12V sometimes gets depleted when leaving the FFE plugged in for extended periods of time. It's rare, but it happened to me once, leaving my car plugged in to a level 2 charger overnight. Luckily I knew about the problem and kept a portable battery jumper in my car. Hooked it up, the FFE started right up, and the same 12V battery has been fine for the past 6 months. I tried to get my local Ford to apply the update for this issue, but they said that it did not apply to my situation. I guess because the 12V was fully charged when I brought the car in, they wouldn't do the update. The next time the 12V dies, I'll have it towed to Ford and they can give me a new battery and do the update at that point.

 

[jeffand]

Apparently some of the updates can be sent to the car via cellular modem. This is when you see the Sync rebooting screen soon after turning the car on. Now it may be possible that when the upgrade is being downloaded it may exhaust the 12 volt battery under some conditions.

 

[jmueller065]

Apparently some of the updates can be sent to the car via cellular modem.

No. Ford has never demonstrated this ability, and given the stability of My Ford Touch I'd never trust it.

When you see the MFT screen showing "Performing Schedule Maintenance" all it is doing is rebooting Windows, nothing more.

 

[WattsUp]

When you see the MFT screen showing "Performing Schedule Maintenance" all it is doing is rebooting Windows, nothing more.

Yup, all you have to the is remove and re-insert the fuse for the MFT system (basically power-cycling it) and you'll get that same "maintenance" screen. It's totally bogus. The car does not update over the air.

 

[unplugged]

Yup, all you have to the is remove and re-insert the fuse for the MFT system (basically power-cycling it) and you'll get that same "maintenance" screen. It's totally bogus. The car does not update over the air.

Yeah, we were in Palm Springs last weekend using the nav when the thing performed its "Scheduled Maintenance". I had to laugh because it interrupted our conversation because all of a sudden the screen went blank. I just said, "nav crashed." The interesting thing is that the nav just started back where it left off.

 

[v_traveller]

Yeah, I just had to perform "scheduled maintenance" on my wife's laptop because it froze up. Gotta love Microsoft.

 

[Snowball 14]

Wattsup wins, I think. The dealer said there was a problem with the 12V battery, and they replaced it. Interesting, they also said they applied a software update based on a TSB from September 2013. Should they not have done that before selling the car in Feb 2014??

Well, the warning came on again once this week, but power cycling made it go away. Hopefully that was just some kind of strange lingering effect.

Do you just turn the car off and on to power cycle or is there something else that needs to be done?

 

[Snowball 14]

An update:
it's unclear if I had two separate problems, or one problem that magnified. But one thing that clearly was wrong, in conjunction with the "stop safely now" warning, was a drained 12V battery.

Now, it's possible that the hard shut down I described helped to drain the battery. But it seems likely that the battery was already low.

The dealership reminded me that the 12 volt battery does not charge off of the large battery. It does not charge off of the plug. It does not ever charge, in any way, except off of the wheels, during regenerative braking. If you do a lot of coasting (rather than accelerating and braking) you may starve your battery, depending how high your use is. (I was aware--had been told--that it didn't charge when the car was off, but I didn't remember quite how limited the charging was.)

Things that drain the 12V battery: pretty much anything electrical that does not show a "hit" on your mileage for the big battery. I believe this includes

* lights, including flashers and cabin lights

* sound system (like listening to the tail end of a radio program or song after parking)

* navigation?

* voice interaction

* checking in via your phone app, which apparently wakes the car up for 20 min or half an hour each time (!) [This is a bad design choice--especially if they are going to promote leaderboards, showing the interface to friends, etc.]

* possibly, those annoying moments when they car tells you, yet again, that it's cold, even if you have not checked in with it (and even if there's no way to plug it in, to make it stop complaining).

* start button

In theory, I see no reason that the car could not keep driving with a dead 12 V battery, and a fully charged big battery. But it seems like that's not actually the case. In theory, it strikes me that, seeing they have a "low 12 V battery" warning, it should come on long before the battery level interferes with driving. But maybe that's not the case. In theory, it seems to me that they should be able to have a connection in the car where you can press a button and charge the 12 V battery from the big battery (but this does not exist). In theory, several of the things that run off of the 12V battery should probably be reconfigured to run off of the big battery (either by default, or optionally). In theory, if 12V depletion is a big problem, they could have a 12V charge port/plug and sell the car with a 12 V plug in converter/cable.

Anyway, my current working hypothesis is that my "Stop Safely Now" problems are linked to draining the 12 V battery, and that good 12 V battery "hygiene" should be able to avert at least one major cause of "stop safely now" warnings.

I was also told that "some clips were loose, and some other stuff." They were prepping the full list of what was done (diagnosis and repairs) for Ford, and will mail me a copy, at which point I should know more, and will post another update. I have to say, my local folks were very good about this, though it was totally new to them (and therefore took a while). So, a shout-out to Day Ford (if I'm allowed to do that.)

I don't know if "Stop Safely Now" causes downstream faults that can only be rectified at the dealer, or if a plain old jump to the plain old 12V battery might fix the problem. (I'm not too keen to be the guinea pig on that, unless Ford OK's it... but if anyone has tried it, please share the experience.) Having had several cars from the the 1960's (the generator era, where you also had to drive to recharge) I know that if a 12 V spends much time drained (or if your generator is bad) the battery doesn't hold charge very well when it is jumped (that is, a standard 12V car battery really isn't a rechargeable battery).

Anyway, if you are worried about "Stop Safely Now," keep your 12 V battery happy (it can't hurt) and have pretty much anyone check the health and strength of your 12 V battery if you're been drawing hard on it.

My wife have been getting the Wrench light every time she drives and I think from reading this it's cause she coasts a lot. Could this be a reason for it, cause it never seems to happen to me and I don't coast a lot?

 

[GladeStorm]

I believe that you will get the wrench if you take the car out of park and let it roll (eg on a sloping driveway) without engaging RTD (Ready to Drive). Otherwise there should be no issue with coasting.

 

[Snowball 14]

I believe that you will get the wrench if you take the car out of park and let it roll (eg on a sloping driveway) without engaging RTD (Ready to Drive). Otherwise there should be no issue with coasting.

Thanks for your input on this. I think that's what she did the this last time.

 

[alanebell]

I have about 10,000 miles on my FFEV and have gotten the stop safely message roughly 5 or 6 times. Usually seems to happen shortly into a drive. Car slows down I pull over and then after about a minute it works again.

I doubt very much it has anything to do with the 12V battery but maybe. I will look into it.

At any rate it seems like a crazy thing to live with. Not sure it's even safe really. Cannot imagine if it happened while driving on the freeway!

Alan Bell

 

[jmueller065]

Alan: Have you taken it to the dealer to get the recall performed on it?

 

[davideos]

Car died again with the SSN. I was going 65MPH in the car-pool lane when it died. I just got on the 405 N FWY in Southern CA from the 5 N and had to make 6 lane changes to get to the shoulder. Fortunately, the car coasts pretty good. Anyway, I could not restart the car. I did the whole car-off, open-close dore, car-on trick to get it going like I've done 2 times in the past, but this time, no deal.

Ford roadside assistance was not very helpful. They told me it would be an hour before they could get to me. What a joke. I called AAA and they gave me a 30min or less quote and came in 15.

We'll see what the dealer says. Last November when this happened the first time, (I drove it to them that time,) they returned the car with "No defect found". The recall came 1 week later. I told them this time that I want them to diagnose the issue. I had the car towed to the dealer in its failed state...with the "stop safely now" prominently displayed. If they reset the car and give me a "No defect found", I'll be extremely disappointed.

Anyway, I'll post again if they come up with anything real.

 

[davideos]

I now have a focus SE loaner. Service advisor says they cannot determine what is wrong and are now waiting for feedback from Ford. Last time they had an FFE it took them 2 months to fix it.

 

[redcelt007]

I experienced this the other day for the first time since I bought the car, a 2014 Focus. It occurred twice on my way to work. The first time I was able to start the car after sever shut downs and restarts. The second time it happened close to my work location. Not wanting to risk blocking the parking deck or getting stuck in a parking space, I pulled over into a lot and called Ford roadside assistance. A tow truck was on the scene in 15 minutes. While waiting for the tow, I checked the voltage on the 12v battery. my meter read 12.22 volts, which told me that it was not charged fully. The dealer repaired the car by referring to that TSB. I questioned them about the car's electrical system and learned several things:

1. The car's 12v battery is charged by the high voltage pack through the dc-dc converter. I verified this by rigging up a volt meter with a 12v accessory plug to enable me to monitor the 12v battery while driving. The voltage increases to 14v when the car is started and also while driving. Power down the car and the voltage decreases to 12.4 A fully charged lead acid battery should read about 12.65 volts.

2. Lead acid has a 5 to 1 charge ratio. I also have a small truck that I converted to electricity. It runs on deep cycle lead acid batteries. Depending on how much the batteries are discharged, it can take up to 8 hours to fully charge them. Normal daily driving may not be adequate to keep the 12v battery charged properly.

3. The owner's manual states the the car can be "jumped". It recommends that the heater fan be turned on to limit voltage surges from the donor vehicle. It also recommends that the Focus be kept connect to the donor vehicle for a few minutes to charge the 12v battery enough to get you going.

To hopefully keep this from happening again, I am going to keep monitoring the 12v battery with my meter gadget, I will carry a jump start unit with me in case I need to jump the 12v battery, and I will look into using a float charger/maintainer connected to the 12v while I charge the car. If anyone else has tried this, I'd very much like to hear your input.

 

[unplugged]

Normal daily driving may not be adequate to keep the 12v battery charged properly.

That may be correct, but when you charge your traction battery for the FFE, the 12 volt battery is also charged. Thus, you get the 12 volt battery charged both when you drive the car AND when you charge your car. http://www.myfocuselectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1421

By the way, there is a lot of information in that post that might apply to your situation. It is interesting. One point made is that if you are concerned about your battery voltage level, and you have the time, you might want to use level 1 for charging your car. This gives the battery a longer charge.